Or is this just one of those things you’re not supposed to think too hard about?
(Edit) lmao, people who’ve never heard this mantra whenever you say that maybe there should be less suffering in the world… I envy you.
Guys, ‘suffering is good’ is literally a Christian thing. Mother Theresa used it as an excuse not to treat people because ‘suffering brings you closer to God’.
It’s bullshit, of course. It was made up as an excuse for treating people badly and (surprise!) making more money that way.
But that’s where OP gets the idea from. Religious indoctrination.
It’s bullshit, of course. It was made up as an excuse for treating people badly and (surprise!) making more money that way.
Must be why Mother Theresa was so rich.
Net worth over $100m when she died according to a quick search
Can I get a source on that?
https://www.thelist.com/345292/mother-teresas-net-worth-at-the-time-of-her-death-may-surprise-you/ Not the most reliable sources but saw a few other like it making the claim
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Yup. Because she didn’t use the money she got to treat people properly.
Suffering isn’t good, but good can come from suffering, but certainly doesn’t always.
A harsh breakup can lead to personal growth.
A loss of a job could lead to a better job and possibly better money management strategies.
But a kid born into abject poverty in an undeveloped villiage, spends his whole life scraping by in suffering always hungry until succumbing to a slow painful death – no good, no meaning.
Mostly the idea that suffering is good is more common in religious ideologies that need an excuse to explain why their powerful god doesn’t step in and fix things.
Throwing money on lottery can make you rich. Or it might not. Honestly, the odds are stacked against you.
What doesn’t kill you, may make you stronger… unless it maims you for life. People who have survived wars aren’t necessarily stronger. Quite the contrary actually.
But a kid born into abject poverty in an undeveloped villiage, spends his whole life scraping by in suffering always hungry until succumbing to a slow painful death – no good, no meaning.
But what about if they grow up to become a mob boss or billionaire or supervillian as a result? 😅
This is basically saying too much suffering is bad (succumbing to hunger). But a little (harsh breakup) can be good.
So this doesn’t suggest suffering is bad after all. If good can come from suffering, then suffering cannot be necessary bad.
No, it’s not. It’s saying that any amount of suffering is bad, but a tolerable amount of suffering can have good secondary effects (but this is not guaranteed, it’s circumstantial). The secondary good doesn’t mean that the bad part didn’t happen.
So we agree. Suffering has both good and bad parts.
So you can’t say suffering is (always) bad, because it can have good (secondary) effects.Goodness in one aspect doesn’t cancel badness in another…
It can be always bad AND sometimes good.
I never said they’d “cancel” whatever that means.
yeah we agree suffering can be both good and bad.
Fuck you. Suffering is objectively bad, even if you 'make something good out of it".
What the fuck is wrong with you to defend suffering? YOU suffer. Enjoy your own suffering. YOU learn from it. Don’t sit here and pretend suffering is good in any way, you fucking psychopath.
you clearly have mental problems xD I was just trying to view it rationally. A path you never dare to ponder I suppose
You claim that suffering is bad, at the same time you’re insulting other people.
I reject the premise, and I doubly reject the conclusion.
Does anyone actually believe that suffering gives life meaning? I’m sceptical.
Tbh I did, in my early youth. Films and art often depict suffering that way and being happy was generally just not on my agenda as a goal, because of my career and academically fixated parents.
Suffering isn’t good. The growth that can be achieved through suffering can be good. There is a very big difference. Suffering doesn’t guarantee growth. Experience gained through suffering might not always be good (we may become jaded or cynical, or worn down).
Putting that aside for now, hurting others is bad. Inflicting suffering on others is not good, and doing so to try and force “personal growth” in a direction you desire is absolutely not good. That’s strange, cruel, controlling behaviour. That’s sort of like playing god.
When people say that suffering builds character, or reference bible passages like Romans 5:3 (And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience;) (apologies, I don’t know similar teachings from other faiths although I’m sure most faiths have a similar concept to this somewhere in them), they are typically talking about a sort of impersonal “suffering”. The death of a parent, sickness, poverty, that kind of thing – and crucially this idea is often separated from “blame” and is instead a sort of “faceless” suffering. It could be set up like this so that people can focus inwards or on something spiritually, rather than getting stuck in a cycle of blame or revenge, but other times the suffering in question is literally blameless, such as a parent dying of old age.
Either way, the key part in your question is that experiencing suffering is an unfortunate but inevitable rite of passage, and hopefully a person will learn and grow as a result, but that intentionally causing suffering is a choice to hurt another human and is bad. It’s sort of two separate things, really.
I’m aware that I answered a slightly different question, but I’m not sure I understand what you mean when you say suffering is good because it “gives life meaning”?
How the hell thinks suffering is good? That’s cult level thinking.
Some asshole tried to tell me yesterday that Palestinians think suffering is good because they believe they’ll be rewarded in the afterlife for it.
What a cunt.
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Some humans feel that it adds to life like: “It builds character” or “pain makes him a real man”. Or that Suffering could enable people to appreciate the good but no, hurting people in general is unessessary because the world does that daily. Actively harming humans is actually counter productive because too much suffering can turn them evil or into living husks/zombies due to too much loss.
Now there are select humans that would benefit from this as they seem have not been exposed to any hardships of the masses. Still the pain didnt give meaning. all it was is a catalyst to give a person empathy. Even then physical pain is not the solution it needs to be a series of emotional experiences/trials that can be overcome.
The only people I know where suffering is the meaning/point would relate to something like karma or something like a slaanesh cultist who couldn’t live without pain because without it they have no life.
Post-traumatic growth is a thing. No need to cause more suffering, it’s locally available and plentiful in most parts of the world.
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The idea would be that the existence of suffering gives life meaning. By knowing that the risk of suffering is always there, we strive to avoid it and value our pleasures more because we can compare them to an unpleasant alternative.
How true “an existence without suffering would be meaningless” is open to debate, but there’s at least some day to day support. If you’ve ever been really hungry and demolished some fairly average meal while finding it delicious, or had the best glass of ice water after walking in the heat, you get that. And if we think of rich, entitled people, who appear to have no conception of how fortunate they are, instead getting upset about minor inconveniences, it gives you some indication of what life with less suffering might be like.
Calm down, Loviatar.
If and only if suffering is good. I’d argue it’s not.
Occasionally experiencing suffering will lead to character growth, but mostly in dealing with future suffering of yourself or someone else. Not ever suffering and not needing the growth would be better.
But there is suffering in the world and occasional small doses is dealt out to everyone without anyone of us actively trying.
Schopenhauer’s Theory of Human Suffering and Lack of Meaning: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/history-of-nihilism-in-the-nineteenth-century/schopenhauers-theory-of-human-suffering-and-lack-of-meaning/E64B94DBB5CC35F61046073595377F25
He seems like a happy chappy.
Being hurt and suffering are not the same.
I would classify “suffering” as a particularly intense kind of “hurt”.
You can be hurt but are not suffering and you can suffer without being hurt.
Got some examples?
The Second Arrow parable does a pretty good job.
You are walking in the woods and suddenly you get struck by an arrow (someone fires an arrow at you) and it hits your arm and it really, really hurts - it’s very painful and you feel that physical pain in your arm, and it’s bleeding. And then immediately your mind starts to think - "Oh my god, what’s gonna happen? What if I bleed to death? What if this is infected and I can’t walk back properly? Or I lose energy and I can’t get back to my family? What’s gonna happen to my family? What’s gonna be happening to my husband / my wife / my children? What’s gonna happen to me or what’s going to happen to their future, how will they be doing?”
The Buddha describes the first arrow as the physical pain and the second arrow is what your mind does - it starts thinking about the worst scenario that can happen. And he says “be warned of the second arrow.”
The first arrow represents the pain - the actual physical pain, and the second arrow represents what you call suffering. So we distinguish between pain and suffering.
Makes sense, thanks!
Does this mean people who harm themselves are trying to move the locus of hurt from internal to external?
That’s a good question. I’ve never studied the topic, but your answer sounds reasonable. I did read over some relevant bits from Wikipedia
While the motivations for self harm vary, the most commonly endorsed reason for self harm given by adolescents is to get relief from a terrible state of mind.
Many people who self-harm state that it allows them to “go away” or dissociate, separating the mind from feelings that are causing anguish. This may be achieved by tricking the mind into believing that the present suffering being felt is caused by the self-harm instead of the issues they were facing previously: the physical pain therefore acts as a distraction from the original emotional pain.
Alternatively, self-harm may be a means of feeling something, even if the sensation is unpleasant and painful. Those who self-harm sometimes describe feelings of emptiness or numbness (anhedonia), and physical pain may be a relief from these feelings.
Those who engage in self-harm face the contradictory reality of harming themselves while at the same time obtaining relief from this act. It may even be hard for some to actually initiate cutting, but they often do because they know the relief that will follow. For some self-harmers this relief is primarily psychological while for others this feeling of relief comes from the beta endorphins released in the brain.[93][medical citation needed] Endorphins are endogenous opioids that are released in response to physical injury, acting as natural painkillers and inducing pleasant feelings, and in response to self-harm would act to reduce tension and emotional distress.
The main difference is that suffering is internal while being hurt is an external factor that can lead to suffering. People suffer from all kind of things: sickness, being bored etc.
Yes, that’s what a lot of rich people think. They’re helping people build character by acting like monsters.
“Your Honor, I was only trying to make his life more meaningful” doesn’t really hold up well in court.
I would argue that challenges are a part of what give life meaning rather than suffering because they can teach us resourcefulness, resilience, gratitude, and provide a sense of accomplishment after completion. But challenges don’t have to include suffering, and the meaning isn’t always a positive thing.
Ultimately it’s up to each individual to decide what gives their life meaning. Who’s to say everything needs to have a meaning anyway? .
