Pro-life/reverence for life

[Lark]

There are entire philosophies and some psychological schools of thought created around the idea of being life affirming or life affirmative and revering life, do you think that these are useful and a valuable contribution culturally or are these mistaken, creating a false dichotomy of life affirmative vs. life negating and placing those who do not conform to their ideas in the later category?

 

[lunalum]

Yeah, I do think it's a false dichotemy because most of us value life over the alternative whether "pro-life" or not, some of us just value some forms of life more than others.

 

[UniqueMixture]

I like life. Does it have vaginal truth?

 

[Spamtar]

I am pro chosing life.

 

[Lark]

I sort of saw this thread going in the direction of there being no really "pro-death" thinking, with few exceptions even those that say otherwise imagine that there is some afterlife or vision of life which they are prepared to sacrifice for, although strange one line posts or mentioning vaginas is probably what I should have expected instead.

 

[Randomnity]

If you're not talking about abortion at all, you might want to edit the title, since pro-life is pretty much never used to mean anything other than anti-abortion people, so you might get derailed based on that...

 

[Coriolis]

Yeah, I do think it's a false dichotemy because most of us value life over the alternative whether "pro-life" or not, some of us just value some forms of life more than others.

Yes. Reverence for life by any name so often comes with not just a double standard, but a many-layered standard. There is human life, animal life, plant life. Some view the earth itself as a living entity. Few people, however, accord the same respect to all forms of life, judging by their behavior. The Jains probably come closest, forebearing to eat even vegetables whose harvest involves killing the plant.

The better question might be what does "reverence for life" mean to each of us, and how does that meaning inform our actions?

I sort of saw this thread going in the direction of there being no really "pro-death" thinking, with few exceptions even those that say otherwise imagine that there is some afterlife or vision of life which they are prepared to sacrifice for

I would suspect most of us are "pro-death". Which of us really wants the alternative - immortality, like the vampires of legend?

 

[Lark]

Yes. Reverence for life by any name so often comes with not just a double standard, but a many-layered standard. There is human life, animal life, plant life. Some view the earth itself as a living entity. Few people, however, accord the same respect to all forms of life, judging by their behavior. The Jains probably come closest, forebearing to eat even vegetables whose harvest involves killing the plant.

The better question might be what does "reverence for life" mean to each of us, and how does that meaning inform our actions?


I would suspect most of us are "pro-death". Which of us really wants the alternative - immortality, like the vampires of legend?

Oh, interesting turn in the discussion!

 

[UniqueMixture]

What about the best of both worlds [MENTION=7280]Lark[/MENTION]? Keep death, but make it non-permanent by re-sleeving the soul into a new body? That way your actions still matter/change your relationships, but not in a manner that is completely destructive.

 

[Tiltyred]

Sometimes I think all this reverence for life is naive and romantic in the worst sense of the word. Sometimes I think we're just stuff that recycles itself into more stuff and it's all pretty much pointless. You can revere it all or not -- it doesn't care. I think it's pretty clear that as human beings we don't much give a damn. We are constantly at war and constantly polluting every aspect of the planet. Until some of that stops enough that it's an abnormal state of affairs rather than business as usual, I can't see any discussion about reverence for life being anything but hot air.

 

[Thalassa]

Pro-life is a misleading term because there are supposed "pro-lifers" who support the death penalty. It also intrigues me that in my country the very people who are most loudly pro-life have no issue starving the child once it gets through breast feeding, or denying the child or his/her mother basic healthcare.

Furthermore, being pro-choice doesn't even mean that you're "pro-abortion" ...it's not like people who are pro-choice think abortions are some wonderful, fabulous, easy thing. Most people who are pro-choice don't think abortion is something that should be taken lightly or used a form of birth control.

You can even be pro-choice (for other people) but be firmly opposed to having an abortion for yourself.

Another problem is that some people don't believe life begins at conception, so the way they are looking at it, they aren't even "killing" anything that is independently alive.

 

[UniqueMixture]

This is not about abortion marms. More about the oversoul

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

We are subjective. This is such a broad approach. Yeah. Generally, we universally value life in a Hallmark sort of way.

 

[Klondike Pete]

There are entire philosophies and some psychological schools of thought created around the idea of being life affirming or life affirmative and revering life, do you think that these are useful and a valuable contribution culturally or are these mistaken, creating a false dichotomy of life affirmative vs. life negating and placing those who do not conform to their ideas in the later category?

Yes.