RipVanWinkle Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 How good or bad is life? if you had the choice to be born again at the same time and place you were before, with same family, the same body (including your brain), would you do it? Assume you would not remember your prior life, but somehow you learned the lessons about life that you now have. Would you do it? Second question,: Same as the first, but your new life would not be with your current family, nor will you be born in the same place. But you would be born in the same country in which you were originally born, specif place unknown. Would you roll the dice? bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luvtosew Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 Yes to the first question. I would rather my first family and place, but if I need to be reborn into a new family that would be ok. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 I'd like to be born Italian. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Positivist Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 Great question! Finally, something light-hearted! :-) 1. I don't think I could relive my current life again without the knowledge of a health condition I have that is easily treated but difficult to diagnose. If I could be made aware of that at a very young age--instead of finally figuring it out a few decades into a hellish life--I'd live my life again. I would just hope that I'd be truer to my skeptical self next time 'round. 2. I'd like to be born into a family of thinkers. Oh, and by the ocean. (Rolls dice.) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amateur Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 I'm keeping my family. But it'd be nice if my mom could've lived longer than 58 years, well, as long as she was healthy and not in cancer-pain. And I'll keep my own self, except can I turn in the migraines and heart valve problem? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanderinstar Posted September 25, 2013 Share Posted September 25, 2013 Even though large portions of my life have been a mixture of torment and hell on earth I think I would live again because the pure moments of joy and beauty, of connection to people and nature are so damn precious. I just wish they took up more of my life than I have experienced. If I got to ditch the mood disorder and severe abuse as a child (hence bad PTSD) then I would love to keep my family (minus abuser and location). I'm with positivist on Q2. Thinkers and by the beach,BUT please no abuse or server trauma and no mental illness. Either way, as much a life kicks me around I still love the richness of life in all its forms. I only ever lose my love of life when I am very depressed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipVanWinkle Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 The point of the questions are missed if you add conditions to your answers. The first question gives you the benefit of any wisdom you had in this life, but no knowledge of what happened during your first life. So to what extent would having your current wisdom alone change your life even though you remember nothing? The second question is intended to determine if you want to be born again in your home country on the same date as your birthday, with no control over anything. Nothing is guaranteed except the date you are born and the country you're born in. You could be born wealthy or poor, smart or stupid, sick or well , talented or not, attractive or ugly,. Like genetics (sort of) it would be a huge dice roll. Would just being alive be worth the gamble? bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wanderinstar Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 The point of the questions are missed if you add conditions to your answers. The first question gives you the benefit of any wisdom you had in this life, but no knowledge of what happened during your first life. So to what extent would having your current wisdom alone change your life even though you remember nothing? The second question is intended to determine if you want to be born again in your home country on the same date as your birthday, with no control over anything. Nothing is guaranteed except the date you are born and the country you're born in. You could be born wealthy or poor, smart or stupid, sick or well , talented or not, attractive or ugly,. Like genetics (sort of) it would be a huge dice roll. Would just being alive be worth the gamble? bill ah, ok i think i understand now. I think I would choose to live again and roll the die on Q2. They are tough to answer because contradictory forces pull me in opposite directions and i want to say, 'Yes, but...' to both Q's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rach Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 I would have liked to live with mum and dad and had been brought up in my own culture with others of the same culture. I was brought up "white" and it's been very hard, because it's not me. I've always been expected to be somebody I am not. So I just wish I could go back in time and have lived the life I was meant for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 It's a bit pessimistic, but I think Twain got it right when he said we are cursed to love and cling to life even though it mostly brings us misery. I've had some good times, but I'm not so sure the bad haven't outweighed the good, even though, like most people, I tend to remember mostly the good times and discount the bad ones. As it wouldn't cost me a thing to not live again and would likely cost a great deal to, I'd probably opt out for these reasons: ...a God who could make good children as easily a bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave is angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell--mouths mercy, and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules and foregiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him! 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipVanWinkle Posted September 26, 2013 Author Share Posted September 26, 2013 I don't think I would want to be born again in the same family, not that they were bad. Even if I held on to my current wisdom, such as it is, for various reasons I don't think the new life would be any more enjoyable than the first. But I probably would risk a new life in a different place with a different.family. Or I might chicken out because there would be no telling what this new life would entail. bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Denyoz Posted September 26, 2013 Share Posted September 26, 2013 My answer is NO to both questions. I guess this is a good way to measure our level of depression. I expected so much more from life, I'm not sure why. I'm very disappointed in what this planet has to offer. I might want to come back as a bird. I want to fly. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lerk Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 How good or bad is life? if you had the choice to be born again at the same time and place you were before, with same family, the same body (including your brain), would you do it? Assume you would not remember your prior life, but somehow you learned the lessons about life that you now have. Would you do it? Second question,: Same as the first, but your new life would not be with your current family, nor will you be born in the same place. But you would be born in the same country in which you were originally born, specif place unknown. Would you roll the dice? bill For question 1, when my wife says "if we had it to,do over again" I say (if I don't mind her getting mad) that we would make the same mistakes the second time. We knew they were unwise when we made the decisions in the first place. I may say I would change some things, like never "obey the gospel", but I am who I am, and I've always been a pleaser. I doubt I would be any more assertive of my own wishes the second time around. I would probably marry a depressed woman again. I would probably say yes, I'll live the life over, but I doubt I'd do it any better. For 2, being born in the US isn't much of a crap shoot, so life would probably turn out okay. Maybe I'd wind up in an atheist family the second time around! Or maybe they'd be really wacky fundamentalists. Or abusive. Or rich and loving. But odds are my life with a random family, being born in 1960, wouldn't be much different than it actually turned out, so yeah, I'd do,it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vigile Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Seems to me that the questions in the OP relate very much to the decision whether or not to bring kids into this world too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
duderonomy Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 I'd do it again, whether I could know then what I know now or not. That birth got me this far, after all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Marty Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 It sounds horrible, but if I was given the choice I wouldn't even have chosen to live this life. It is nothing but an endless game of working for numbers that you give away as soon as you earn them. Relationships are nice but most all are fleeting and even the ones that last for a lifetime, you are still alone and still live your life alone. I find no truly redeemable feature to life, other than it's eventual cessation... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipVanWinkle Posted September 27, 2013 Author Share Posted September 27, 2013 Well, Mark Twain said that any reasonable man over 60 would choose not to live his life over again. I think he was talking about the very same life. I wouldn't either. bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lerk Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Well, Mark Twain said that any reasonable man over 60 would choose not to live his life over again. I think he was talking about the very same life. I wouldn't either. bill I'm not 60 yet, so maybe I don't know anything. I used to say that the only reason I needed to hang around here was to take care of my wife, and once she's gone, I might as well go, too. I don't really feel that way anymore. I'm not in any particular hurry to die, and I enjoy spending time with my two adult sons and their wives, plus there's a grandbaby on the way. Okay, maybe I wouldn't want to repeat the whole thing (what's the point?), but if we're talking about doing it from scratch, why not? It's kind-of a pointless conversation. There's no purpose in life if you think a purpose has to be bigger than, well, bigger than anything, bigger than self. So what? It doesn't have to have an ultimate, larger-than-life purpose or a future life after this one's over to be worth living, it just has to be more positive than negative. So what if I'm just some biology? I'm biology that knows what I am, and as long as I'm not in too much pain, it's all good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deva Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 No to both questions at this time, if I had the choice. I am a pessimistic person. The value of life, as I perceive it is generally lived most of the time by myself, and by most people I observe as well, seems to be not worth doing again. I believe under certain circumstances it might be worth doing again, but without being able to choose all of them, I would not participate as the question is presented. However, I still think rebirth happens whether I like it or not. I also qualify my answer by saying "at this time" because I am apt to change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RankStranger Posted September 27, 2013 Share Posted September 27, 2013 Yes to the first question. To live my life over- but not be quite so clueless starting out? Hell yeah I'd do that. Now that I'm older and not AS clueless, I can see that my life has been fucking STREWN with missed opportunities. But I was too clueless to see lots of them- and I had no real guidance on the matter either. The second question would depend on the specifics. Do you mean leave my current life right now to roll the dice? Or finish out this one, then roll the dice on a second random life. If it's the former option, then no- I'm happy enough with my current life. If it's the latter option, then yes. I could always opt out if it doesn't pan out so well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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