On 6/30/2011 2:56 PM, dh@. wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2011 20:57:18 +0100, wrote:

On 29/06/2011 23:33, dh@. wrote:
On Wed, 29 Jun 2011 00:52:51 +0100, wrote:

On 28/06/2011 21:21, Goo wrote:

I did not benefit by being born. Once I *was* born, I was in a position
to receive benefits, but being born itself was not a benefit.

Thank you for giving me your time to explain so clearly my mistake. We
can only set the peg back to the instant where we were conceived.
Obviously, before that moment, we did not exist and could not receive
anything.

Yet you clearly appear to be benefitting from your existence whether the
conception of your zygote was a benefit to you or not.

I do benefit from my existence

That's only true if you would benefit just as well if you did not exist.

He does not benefit from his existence, as he has clearly seen.


from the advantages I was given while
growing up.

You benefitted from your existence then too

Nope - he clearly understands, ****wit, that existence itself is *NEVER*
a benefit.


I didn't benefit from starting to exist because I had no
welfare before

Even though you only seem able to appreciate that you benefitted while you
were growing up

He understands full well that existence is *never* a benefit, ****wit -
it cannot be for reasons that everyone understands. It is the things
that occur once existence is established that may or may not be benefits
- *never* existence itself.


then to gain anything.

What you need to do,
because Goo never could, is explain WHAT about your pre-existence you believe is
preventing you from benefitting from the existence you clearly appear to be
benefitting from now, and HOW you think it's preventing you.

There is nothing about my pre-existence to prevent me benefiting from my
existence now

So you are benefitting from your existence

No, he isn't - he has said he isn't benefiting from his existence
itself. He isn't.


because I didn't have a pre-existence to benefit from in
the first place. Do you believe in pre-existence?

I don't have a belief as to whether or not we experience multiple lives, but

You believe in pre-existence - you are a religious nutcake.


If you can never do
that, as Goo and his boy have not been able to do, then we'll be left with you
appearing to benefit and no reason to believe you're not benefitting.

You still appear to be benefitting

Nope - no one benefits from existence itself.


The same
is true for the billions of other creatures who appear to be benefitting, as
well as the billions who appear to have benefitted in the past. Goo and "Dutch"
both still appear to be benefitting, regardless of anything to do with their
pre-existence.

Here's something for you and the Goober to try: Try explaining how the
pre-existence of future livestock animals now, is going to prevent them from
benefitting from their existence when they do exist in the future. Go:

. . .
Clearly - without any doubt whatever - he doesn't care about animal
welfare, their well-being. Look carefully at that second one, in which
he says that even if all the animals he ate had terrible lies, he would
just ignore their suffering and go on eating them.

You certainly claim to do that

"I eat meat."

"the nutritionally unnecessary choice deliberately to kill an
animal ALWAYS causes a moral harm greater in magnitude
than . . . the moral "benefit" realized by the animal in existing
at all"

""giving them life" does NOT mitigate the wrongness of
their deaths"

"the moral harm caused by killing them is greater in magnitude
than ANY benefit they might derive from "decent lives"

"no matter how "decent" the conditions are, the deliberate killing
of the animals erases all of it."

Nonsense.

George believes it...or at least claims to believe it.

I believe all of them. They're all true. Existence is not a benefit -
it is a condition for benefits to be received, but it is not a benefit
itself.