What motivates someone to have children?

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Being a rational/logical (autistic) person, I naturally look for a rational/logical explanation.
Simples.

No "Hocus Pokus" for me, thank you very much.

I think you missed my point.
Saying: "My considered OPINION"...
Means just that, an opinion, not blind dogma.
I hope Mikah appreciated the intent.


https://www.google.com/search?client=fi ... lind+dogma

You may not know me well.
I am a person who believes in the right for ppl to have their own opinion.
There is no reason why ppl can't believe in fantasies, as long as they respect the rights of others.
My philosophy can be encapsulated by: "To each their own."

BTW, I didn't say I am not TALKING to Mikah, I said I am not debating the topic with him.
Mikah and I go way back.
I consider him a misguided friend.

Indeed...
It is just banter...
ToughDiamond simply misread the situation.

RE: The Ukrainian thread...
It is YOU who has bared his teeth, not me, you pootin apologist. <joke>

SOME ppl, but not someone like pootin.
Oh, wait, pootin is a theist!

How about we get back on topic?

Imagine being the Ukrainians who are being raped, tortured, deported, and/or murdered by the mafia leader of Russia.
Think about the Russian conscripts that are thrown into the meat grinder with the threat if they don't go, they will be shot by their own side...
All for a power-hungry dictator who has no respect for human life, only his self-aggrandisement.

Where it the justice?
Where is the humanity?

THIS is the REALITY of our life system...
THIS is an existence we were FORCED into, kicking and skreaming...
This nonsense MUST stop.
Holster your penises and let the suffering of humanity end...

I thank you...
<Pepe steps off his soapbox>
<exit, stage left>

Well, that would explain a lot. A lot of theists believe the world is evil and thus it is fine to destroy it, for the afterlife which they will find does not really exist and maybe some realize at the end and they think.but wait I wanted to experience things but my religion was all wrong and now I am just dying with none of the promised rewards...now I want to live no, no don't die on me 'bodddyyy i thought i could wait till heaven...*death rattle*.

It was an easy mistake to make, it looked much too weak to be humour.

What I mean is that morality has to be linked to the cosmos in order to be truly valid, instead of just being an arbitrary predisposition of some humans. Some people are inherently moral, others are not. What is the authority to decide which one is right or wrong. In a nihilistic amoral universe they are equally right or equally wrong or the question of right and wrong is irrelevant more precisely.

My interaction with Mikah is subtle.
We have a luv/hate relationship, btw.

There’s zero subtlety in me. There is some diplomacy, though.

That’s part of my “disorder.”

It’s garbage to preclude yourself from having kids because you are autistic. That’s my unsubtle opinion.

This is true, but it seems like overthinking to me. Helping people generally is a satisfying thing to do, and it typically doesn't cause any harm (physical, mental, social). That's all the justification that I need.

I think it can be very hard to let go of the hope that there's some omniscient being out there who can tell us what to do. But even if there is, it doesn't seem to be talking to us. We're on our own with decisions about morality, at least until we're dead and then it's too late to turn back the clock. Luckily, most people are fairly harmless and a lot of people are willing to help others. We also have the utilitarian moral touchstone of maximum happiness for the maximum number of people, and the Wiccan Rede of "do what you will, harm no one." That seems to cover the basics, and although it's not perfect (it's hard to know whether some things do more harm than good or vice versa), if the solution to a moral dilemma is that unclear, then it's perhaps somewhat likely that getting it wrong won't do a lot of damage. Sure, there are exceptions where we can't predict the outcome of our behaviour and can make the wrong call and thus do enormous damage, but I think that's more a problem of unavoidable ignorance than of morality. It can mean a lot more hard work to work these things out for ourselves rather than defer to an authority, but I think that in many instances moral decisions are dead easy. When they're not, we just have to give it our best shot and hope it works out well.

Is anyone suggesting this or are you simply making a point?

This has gone a little off topic, but its still interesting. I have something to add on the subject of a faith-based afterlife vs. oblivion.

I have no faith and no expectation of an afterlife. The simple reasoning behind that is that, so far as I'm aware, my consciousness didn't exist before I coalesced into this composition of matter and energy pulses, why should it exist once after it has decomposed?

But this raises a problem. I don't think the human brain is capable of comprehending 'oblivion'. The brain perceives the world through physical input. How can something that functions in that way understand oblivion?

I can't imagine the past, the time before my birth, without putting myself in it. I am, at the very least, a point of observation in that imagined past. So I can't imagine myself not being there. I can't see or touch or hear anything that anyone else has seen, touched or heard. If I'm imagining a history in these terms, which are the only terms my brain can understand, I have to put myself in that history. Don't I?

And I think the same is true of any state after death. I can't imagine these states, oblivion included, without projecting myself and my senses into that state. At which point I cease to be oblivious.

So 'oblivion' to me describes a state that I cannot physically imagine with the equipment I've been given. I actually think this is the root, this simple inadequacy in the human brain, to why human beings are compelled to create afterlife myths for themselves.

And I include 'oblivion' as an afterlife myth. I'm not sure it's any more rational, or any different, to heaven or hell or whatever you want to imagine happens after death.

The best argument I've heard for an afterlife is the observation that the universe contains the same amount of matter and energy now as it did when it was born. Nothing is created or destroyed. Why would consciousness be different? Of course that doesn't preclude consciousness being a collection of 'consciousness atoms' that can disperse and reconfigure in another person creating a different consciousness.

It would explain why people are getting stupider as the population increases if there were a finite amount of consciousness to go around...

Your avatar suggests differently.