Are you with Leibniz or Cicero?

[Mudhammam]

I choose option C:

I am alive right now without all of your ignorant bullshit infecting me.

What "ignorant bullshit"?

[Silver]

What "ignorant bullshit"?

The tripe you provided in your OP.

[Mudhammam]

What "ignorant bullshit"?

The tripe you provided in your OP.

Uh-huh... No idea what you're talking about. I suspect you don't either.

[Silver]

Oh, I know.

[downbeatplumb]

"Had we not the knowledge of the life to come, I believe there would be few persons who, being at the point of death, were not content to take up life again, on condition of passing through the same amount of good and evil, provided always that it were not the same kind: one would be content with variety, without requiring a better condition than that wherein one had been."
- Leibniz, Essays in Theodicy, Pt. 1, §14

"Nay, if some god should give me leave to return to infancy from my old age, to weep once more in my cradle, I should vehemently protest; for, truly, after I have run my race I have no wish to be recalled, as it were, from the goal to the starting-place. For what advantage has life - or, rather, what trouble does it not have?"
- Cicero (speaking through "Cato the Elder"), On Old Age, §23

I don't like binary choices, only a Sith lives by absolutes.

[Gemini]

I don't like binary choices, only a Sith lives by absolutes.

Philosopher: "P."

Sith: "No."

Jedi: "No."

Philosopher: "Okay then. Not P."

Sith: "Yes."

Jedi: "No."

Sith: "Um...what? You know you have to chose between P or not P. If you're not with P, you're against it!"

Jedi: "Only a sith deals in absolutes! What if I want to chose both P and not P? Or maybe neither P nor not P?"

Sith: "Don't you realize what will happen if you do that? All propositions will become true. You'll be a sith!"

Jedi: "Okay then. I'll eliminate the disjunctive syllogism."

Sith: "You can't go around eliminating valid forms of deductive reasoning just to maintain your harebrained logic!"

Jedi: "Oh, go build a death star."

[emjay]

Of those two, I'm with Cicero.

I don't want to be too morbid but you have no choice in being born and everybody is guaranteed to suffer in life, even if only in the inevitable death. So I'm with Buddhism on that: life is suffering. And although you can have highs, are they a worthwhile trade for the lows... do they neutralise them? I don't know but I don't think so... no amount of highs could make up for the worst pains because you still have to go through it at some point, and when you're actually enduring it, that can be hell on earth... and that hell is contingent on being born... if we weren't, it wouldn't be there.

[bennyboy]

I don't see it that way. Most of the worst pains are psychological: missing someone, fearing something, etc.

But in the end, unless you are really a wreck physically, you can forget even the death of a loved one long enough to hear the birds singing outside your window in the morning. This is the lesson of Buddhism-- that we inflict the pain on ourselves by hanging on to it.

I can say from my own experience that mental pain can be transmuted to beauty almost every time.

[emjay]

I don't see it that way.  Most of the worst pains are psychological: missing someone, fearing something, etc.

But in the end, unless you are really a wreck physically, you can forget even the death of a loved one long enough to hear the birds singing outside your window in the morning.  This is the lesson of Buddhism-- that we inflict the pain on ourselves by hanging on to it.

I can say from my own experience that mental pain can be transmuted to beauty almost every time.

Yeah, I'm starting to see that too. To live in the moment, without attachment and to dispense with the 'second arrow' would probably cut out 90% of human suffering. Even in the process of death, the worst part of the suffering would probably be the second arrow - all the fear, panic, exaggeration, and uncertainty. Without all of that it would just be the first arrow... the direct, physical pain... and pain on its own, though it can be various intensities, is just pain... it sucks but it can be endured and with no desire for it to end or fear that it means the end, death perhaps wouldn't be such a traumatic experience.

But my gut feeling - at the moment at least - is still with Cicero, but then I have not yet understood, in both senses of the term, the First Noble Truth: "There is suffering. Suffering should be understood. Suffering has been understood" and where understood actually means 'stood under' as in mindfully observed and reflected upon, wherever it crops up and in whatever form. So that's my task at the moment and who knows, if it resonates with me and makes sense, then maybe I'll switch sides to the other guy, but till then I'm with Cicero 

[bennyboy]

Since we're talking about Buddhism, it's interesting to note that in that belief system, when one attains Englightenment, one has sided with Cicero, since one will no longer be reborn to live through the trials of life. . . at least as I understand it. So I guess in Buddhism, choosing Leibniz would mean you're still running on that big ol' hamster wheel.