Each one of us was harmed by being brought into existence. That harm is not negligible, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad—and considerably worse than most people recognize it to be. Although it is obviously too late to prevent our own existence, it is not too late to prevent the existence of future possible people.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that existence is inherently harmful, and while we cannot change our own birth, we can influence the future of potential lives.
David Benatar’s quote reflects a philosophical stance known as anti-natalism, arguing that being brought into existence causes harm and that even the best lives have significant suffering. He emphasizes that recognition of this harm is crucial and implies a moral responsibility to prevent the birth of future individuals to mitigate further suffering, thus highlighting the burdens of existence versus the absence of life.
In practice
In a philosophical discussion about the morality of bringing children into the world.
It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place.
We believed in God, trusted in man, and lived with the illusion that every one of us has been entrusted with a sacred spark.
Eradicating a religion of kindness is, I think, a terrible thing for the Chinese to attempt.
How horrible, fantastic, incredible, it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas-masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.
Rivers and mountains are beautiful and made heroes bow and compete to catch the girl- lovely earth. Yet the emperors Shih Huang and Wu Ti were barely able to write. The first emperors of the Tang and Sung dynasties were crude. Genghis Khan, man of his epoch and favored by heaven, knew only how to hunt the great eagle. They are all gone. Only today are we men of feeling.
I don't necessarily agree with everything I say.
To become who we are as creatures made in the image and likeness of God, we have to be nothing and everything at once, since this is what God is. ... If we accept who we are, we are manifesting God and radiating Christ. The latter unfolding of the divine life within us does not need to go anywhere _x000D_ or do anything special.
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