Shouldn't there be hell to pay for happiness?

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Why is it bad to wish ill upon others?

Is it not logical that we all should have the same misfortunes?...... everyone would be equal, and not feel alone in their struggles.

For instance, wouldn't it be logical that someone who has had an easier, happier life, treated fairly, hasn't experienced abuse etc.... would it be logical for them to deserve suffering at SOME point in their lives?

the Principle of Karma doesn't take just one lifetime to exact it's due.

Merle

so, your saying that during the next lifetime, the Karma may still come, though t may not have came in the first life?

They may wish ill upon you, and if there is anything to "Wishcraft," your misfortunes would then be caused by someone else's ill will towards you.


No. Why should a person with two perfectly healthy legs suffer to have one of them removed just because some junkie down on skid row caught an especially virulent strain of flesh-eating bacteria from a dirty needle?


No. Aside from natural disasters, genetic defects, and parental abuse, many misfortunes are caused by stupidity, ignorance or inadequate preparedness. The rest are mostly deliberate acts.

Never confuse "fairness" with "equality."

Those are exaclty the misfortunes I was referring to......parental abuse, natural disasters, and genetic defects etc.... I wasnt referring to those caused from stupidity.

^ Then no, nobody should be punished for feeling good, just because someone else was abused as a child, was born deformed, or rendered homeless because of a natural disaster. There is no reason to believe otherwise.

Besides, happiness is free, and it is not a sin. Nor is it illegal, immoral, unethical, or politically incorrect.

Suffering is inevitable, while misery is an option.

Last edited by Fnord on 07 Dec 2008, 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Can you explain why life isn't fair then? I want to understand. It makes no sense to me why life is like that.

Define "fairness."

Keep in mind that I've heard "It's not fair" most often from people who did nothing to get ahead in life, but were jealous of other people's good fortune - especially when those other people worked for what they have instead of waiting for it to be given to them ... like a high-school drop-out who questions the fairness of a system that allows a kid with good grades and perfect attendance to have the best-looking girlfriend, a college scholarship, and a new Ford Mustang on graduation.

Fair? I think so. Losers and slackers deserve no rewards.

This post just made my day, so thank you for that.

As a person that generally fits the bill of the more fortunate that you've described, I tend to get incredibly jealous of the people who reach the same point as myself completely on their own because I know that they're probably a more motivated, driven, understanding, and well rounded individual (not all, but many).

On the flip side, what about individuals that have had no motivation and proper attitudes from parents growing up? Is it really their fault that they drop out of high school when their parents don't give a crap what they do?

nope, I think that the environment needs to be encouraging, so that a child can reach their full potential. Not to generalise, but most kids who grow up in a crappy environment, I'd say that the environment is the blame.

Yes. Every person is responsible for their own choices, provided that they know what those choices are.

I grew up with an abusive, alcoholic father. He was also a racist, a sexist, and was jealous of the fact that I got better grades than he did at my age.

("Whaddaya think, your better'n me? You better'n your old man? You're just a punk kid who think's he's a smart-ass!")

I chose to be the best I could be, and to actually graduate from high school instead of getting a GED in the Army. I left home a week after graduation in my own car and paid for college with my own money and labor. I earned my engineering degree, and I always hoped that my dad would someday say that he was proud of me. No such luck.

Well, it's probably for the best. He died without ever taking credit for my success, either. What I am today, I am because I made the right choices instead of waiting for a handout in the interest of "fairness."

I'll never understand why people blame their parents, their environment, or their "Aspieness" for their failures in life. We each make our own way, or we place ourselves at the mercy of a cold-hearted and uncaring world. That is fairness!

Can you explain to me why life would be fair then? I want to understand. It makes no sense that the universe would fit around the moral notions of one of its more recent developments.

yep. Think about it. If some Martian came here and only saw the world for a day, think of what he would see. Some people working hard taking care of every need of little bitty babies, and some people playing piano beautifully and some people can't play a note. so many seeming injustices in the world. But then they didn't see that the beautiful piano player spent years learning how to play, and the baby will grow up to help those that helped him when he was so needful. Like the Martian, we don't see all the lives before, nor the lives after ( the universe is efficient and recycles souls to educate them) but well, we are very aware of what is happening in this life/today.

Merle

The way I see it, things are the way they are. Period.

You have to take things at face value. What you see is what you get. Say a person is struck by a car and killed. The fact that the person loved their 3 kids very much doesn't factor into the equation. Good and bad things happen to "good" and "bad" people equally because abstract ideas like good and evil are irrelevant in real life events. The person was killed because they weren't paying attention, not because the universe is cruel. There is no "reason" why things happen. Everything's a chain of events that started with the big bang and it's still continuing, expanding, branching out. Since everything's just a sequence of events- cause and effect infinitely repeating- none of us have any control. The fact that it seems like we have free will and control is just an effect of some unknowable cause. Even if there were a reason for the way things are, the answer wouldn't change the way things are. So don't waste your limited time on this earth trying to solve questions that have no answers. Morality is an abstract human idea and nothing more.

Well said.

There is nothing fair in life; there are no rules other than those we arbitrarily impose and attempt to maintain, to understand in the world around us, so we categorize and define and try to make sense of it. While I know the intent is to spare those who suffer, the fact is that suffering exists, and you are asking those who persevere and succeed to be the ones who pay the price. This is similar to the mentality of public education, where the less that is demanded, the less expected out of the students, the better off they will be... when in fact, it only serves to bring them down to the lowest common denominator instead of encouraging those with talents, every talent, to be explored and developed.


M.

I agree, there is no "should be," there is only what is.
Morality isn't some external, perfect thing that can be perfectly embraced. Morality is a set of practical rules designed by humans to help groups to rub along together without too much friction. People are neither good nor evil. They are either a threat to the things I happen to care about, or they aren't. I arrived at that conclusion by myself many years ago. Have any famous philosophers come to the same view?

Having said that, I've been programmed to view life in terms of heroes and villains, as I suppose everybody else has, and although I've shaken that off intellectually, I suppose I'll never completely rise above my cultural heritage in terms of the immediate, emotional responses I have to people's behaviour.