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Yes .you see, my friend was not moral, and used religion as a crutch for his lack of morality up until that point, and had to learn the hard way that you need to develop a morality all on your own. If you think morality comes only from God, you’re making the same mistake. You’re amoral, but doing as you’re told. (Note: Not immoral. Amoral.) Im not saying sex is a bad thing absolutely. But relative to the religious world-view. All three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) actually prohibit sex before marriage. So there's that .

I have a friend who used to be Muslim. When he stopped being Muslim, he said to me “I can now have sex and drink without consequence”. I have never facepalmed harder. Some people are really so animalistic and primitive in their behaviour that they need an external authority (in most cases a religion )that tells them what's right and what's wrong . They can't derive them for themselves

I actually agree .Long before there were governments or religions the various tribes and extended families of mankind had rules of behavior and rules of sharing. Humans are by their nature social beings and some set of protocols will emerge in any human community.

@Kksd74628 Law is simply codified and enforced morality. If a society feels strongly about a particular moral value, it would create a law to enforce it. If it doesn't, then it won't. Law is not possible without morality, but morality will exist with or without law.

So are you saying that morality is intuitive? Why can't morality be selected consciously? Why do we need prisons and law to make order between people? Are we still not mature /evolved enough to handle morality and be kind and good to each others without fearing the law (or the hellfire in the case of religious people)?

@Judy2 this is not something new I come up with . I've had similar ideas about reproduction and not bringing new lives into this world for almost 12 years now,and I was almost always ridiculed for that by my friends and family. I didn't know back then that philosophers old and new have spoken along the same lines. Now having read the works of Schopenhauer,Cioran and Benatar I'm more than convinced that I am right,but I also do not want to impose this view on anyone else.if someone wants to bring a child into this bleak and mostly hopeless world,they should do it and let their most prized creation suffer. Even Jesus could not avoid the excruciating misery of this world so a mere mortal will most certainly face very serious hardships here. my main question here..: is it ethical to bring a new life into existence without asking for their permission to live in this bleak world? I think that it becomes immoral to have children when one realizes how screwed the world is, that it is going to be a trying place for future generations, and yet one’s selfish desire to be a mom or dad outweigh the likely challenges their children will experience when they’re gone. I think having l children is one of the most selfish acts you can do bringing another life to this world when there are other children out there in need of a loving home. I hope I’ll never see the appeal of having a genetic mini-me. To deny a child a home in order to fulfill your fantasy of having a DNA descendant is entirely self-serving. People don’t bear children because they want to sustain the species, they do it because they want a child. Overpopulation is already a problem. There are already too many children and not enough safe, adequate homes. I can’t see why people aren’t screaming this from the rooftops; why there aren’t billboards everywhere telling people to adopt.

Lol. How cute ?? Seriously tho..are you planning to get married and have children? Its so much responsibility. And you have to not cheat on your wife .whereas if you don't marry you get to have sex with whoever you want. But more importantly..having a children is unethical .Not only are these children going to grow up and contribute to global warming but we don’t really have a fun future ahead of us. At this rate we’re looking at extinction. Apparently in 100 years clouds may actually start to disappear. It’s not ethical to bring creatures into existence knowing what the future holds. And most of us know. We’re aware. But unfortunately, people don’t think about that. They think in the now and their own future. “But I WANT babies!” Yeah and your kid is gonna want air to breath after you leave her in this world you helped destroy. Life is bleak even if we weren’t facing extinction. We’re very aware of death and it drives much of what we do. Living knowing that you’re going to end, maybe horribly, maybe slowly, is terrible. You’re going to face the death of those you love. Your parents. Your spouse. Your friends. It’s inevitable, unless you die early.

Well I'm actually a nihilist and an antinatalism advocator. I believe existence as whole in general is a scary and awful place full of misery and suffering. Despite few moments of pleasure here and there..the overall tone of existence is negative. So who's us to force these babies to come to this fucked up world without asking for their permission?

@Eph75 The SELF does exist. It’s just not divided into many. It is ONE self or Pure Awareness looking through the eyes of all the forms it takes from human, to animal, to plant, to alien. If by ‘self’ we mean that which we refer to as the “I” living in an individual body-mind with all of its particular physical, chemical and genetic features with distinguishing traits and tendencies of thought and feeling and perception, then that ‘self’ does not exist. That self is illusory. If by SELF we mean that which we refer to as the “I” which KNOWS or is AWARE of our experience, then that Self does exist. It just doesn’t exist APART from any ‘other’ self. To be more precise, the SELF does not exist per say, because existence means to ‘stand out’ from. If the SELF is ALL THERE IS (infinite and omnipresent), then it cannot ‘stand out’. It must be WHOLE, undivided - not apart from Reality, but Reality itself. ISNESS or BEING itself. I Am - WE ARE or WE SHARE - our very BEING.

I think in modern terms.."we Appeal to the admin to change the rules of the universe for us". Usually people call this “praying to God for a miracle.” Though billions of people have managed to do this with some success, there’s a slight problem. We mostly don’t know the actual laws of the universe well enough to say for sure how many miracles actually involved changing those laws. That isn’t really any less true today than it was thousands of years ago. The much bigger problem is that everything is up to the admin, if “God” doesn’t feel like answering our appeal, or feels it can be reasonably solved without changing the rules of the universe for us, well then we’re not going to get the empirical evidence of miracles being real. if we had enough knowledge of the rules of the universe to distinguish it from those rules happening to work out in a way that’s favorable to us. The more metaphysical problem is…why does it matter? Since a sufficiently advanced being could answer our prayers without needing to actually change the rules of the universe rather than just use them expertly to solve problems.

In case you are not trolling ..? I'm pointing to the simple fact that sensory experience is happening right now .you are seeing objects .hearing sounds. Smelling stuff and so forth. That is what I call first order knowledge. And it's the only certain thing in the world.

What about deep sleep? It seems like Perfect nothingness. As if nothing ever happened and never existed. It seems like there is no consciousness during deep sleep.. It's not even dark, black or empty.. It's so much nothing that even the concept of nothing isn't it..... What happens exactly during deep sleep? Ramana maharshi used to say 'you are closer to your true nature during deep sleep'.

? Agreed. I call it sensory experience. Like what Aristotle says that all knowledge of what is true and real must begin with "First Knowledge", defined as our sensory experience. The way that I know that 1+1=2 is because I experience it. You can't prove it to me the way that you can prove the Pythagorean Theorem. Similarly, says Maimonides in the same vein, how do you know you are alive? You experience it. That's First Knowledge. So while everything may be an illusion, maybe I'm a cat dreaming I'm a man, the way we relate to this world (dream or otherwise) is based on the starting point of our sensory experience.

You answered only one half of the question..Still you didn't justify how are you certain that you are ? Based on that, we can't analyze who and what we are. Obviously not the body, and most likely not the mind since we have these. If we aren’t either of these it’s almost impossible to work out ourselves what we are because we are limited by the restrictions of the mind and body.

So what is the truth in your direct experience right now ? Is hell true? Do you see hell anywhere you look ?or is it just a belief? What about people being "imaginary "..why don't you go yell at a bodybuilder "Hey, you are such an imaginary asshole " ..or are you afraid that he's gonna beat you into pieces? If you claim something to be true . Prove it .provide some evidence. Test it against actual reality . What you really need to work on is carving out the distinction between reality and beliefs.

Stop feeding this solipsistic nihilistic stupid narrative and you will spare yourself a lot of suffering. BTW my comment was just to poke some fun. It's not meant seriously. I don't believe in hell.

@Holykael what's the biggest problem in your life? I don't believe all this rambling has anything to do with God BS ..there has to be something going terribly wrong in your life ..Do you suffer from a chronic disease? A death of loved ones ? Addiction of some kind ? What is it ? Please tell me .I'm trying to help you out of this funk because I once was there .

She's probably burning in hell right now. So let her alone.

@ZzzleepingBear name one thing that you know /absolutely certain of . And justify how /why you are certain of it . One example is enough .

Most people objectify morality. I mean that literally: they turn morality into an object that they have to ‘discover’ outside of themselves or deep within themselves. But morality is a mode of reasoning, not a thing, and like other modes of reasoning it (hopefully) develops and matures over time and experience. We have one conception of morality now, but with a little more experience of the world we may come to find our current conception unworkable and develop a deeper philosophy about it. That is not less moral and more moral, or wrong and right; that is less developed and more developed. We are all works in progress.

I think you are misuing or misunderstanding the notion of objectivity here . Objective VS subjective doesn't apply to these specific examples by their nature . However when we talk about scientific facts or data or information or moral codes ..then we can apply the notion of objectivity vs subjectivity in this case . I agree . I don't believe there is a fixed objective in life .everyone's born as a clean slate. And its our job to figure out the purpose behind our own individual existence. But of course that's not what most people do .they get brainwashed and programmed by society to fulfil the objective of the cultural norm .

There is no objective reason. Any reason either way must be made up by you . In this case your reason seems to be fear of death. So say thank you to that frear .its what's keeping you alive. (That is in case you appreciate being alive).

@Holykael Think of the mind as a drainage system in a house. When the mind is working correctly, thoughts and action flow clearly and cleanly. There is no disconnection between thought and action. There is no hesitation. When things need to be done, they get done. When the mind is not working correctly, unnecessary and stagnant thoughts clog up the inner workings of the mind and begin to pile up like raw sewage. Thought is repetitive and action is almost non-existent. This type of energy is very heavy, very dense. It’s like being trapped in mental quicksand. People who have been depressed or anxious for a long time know what this feeling is like. If you’ve ever had a main line clog in your house, you know that it is an unpleasant experience. For many people, their mind functions like this all the time. Thoughts begin to build up and pile up without proper disposal. The end result of all of this is a form of insanity to varying degrees. What if I get fired? What if she doesn’t like me? What if I lose a lot of money? The mind then begins to ruminate and chaos ensues. In this state, the mind becomes very dull, making it hard to pierce through anything. Here’s some of the traits of this state of mind: -Hesitancy -Anxiety -Neuroticism -Addictive behavior -Envy -Self-indulgence -Repetitive thought patterns -Any negative behavior you can think of Fun stuff, huh? In order to have the mind function as it should, one needs to realize two things: 1-Thoughts are just thoughts 2-Action must always be taken When you identify with thoughts too much, you begin to be weighed down by them. You end up being a slave to your thoughts. You become entangled in the world of matter, the illusion ..maya.

@Holykael no .you keep attracting negative shit into your life by thinking in a negative way . According to the law of attraction, your thoughts have the facility to manifest in your life. for instance , if you think that positively and visualize yourself with enough money to measure comfortably, you'll attract opportunities which will make these desires a reality. On the opposite hand, if you constantly specialise in the aspects of your life that you simply are unhappy with, you'll still attract negative outcomes and experiences.

@Vynce yes I read the post . and the reason I'm saying this is Because God is neither a male nor a female .and is both at the same time. Let's see how. Before we can understand whether God is male or female, we need to clearly understand that we ourselves are neither male nor female. We are at core spiritual beings, souls, whereas our gender refers only to our shell, our physical bodies. Our spiritual identity is eternal, our gender is transient. Hence both male chauvinism and feminism are two sides of the counterfeit coin of physical misidentification. Only when we distance ourselves from our temporary physical gender will be freed from the ideological preconceptions that are inevitably dragged into discussion on the gender of God. So in the conventional sense of the words 'male' and 'female' where these refer to bodily gender, God is neither. Yet God is both too..as seen in the worship of Divine Couples in the Vedic tradition. The highly inclusivistic Vedic definition of God as the source of everything, the cause of all causes, leads naturally to an egalitarian understanding of God .. as both male and female.