Reverence for Life

[Bright Banana Beard]

Anyone heard about this? I really admire Albert Schweitzer. His philosophy "Reverence for Life" is very well and appreciation. one quote such as "From such a point of view, "good" means to maintain life, to further life, to bring developing life to its highest value. "Evil" means to destroy life, to hurt life, to keep life from developing. This, then, is the rational, universal, and basic principle of ethics."

[Maybe-not]

Destroying life can be good to, if that one life damages of harms other life.
But all in all, I support life, in all it's aspects. For instance, I am a vegetarian.

[Apollodorus]

Sounds like a copy of Schopenhauer's philosophy.

[mykittyhasaboner]

Anyone heard about this? I really admire Albert Schweitzer. His philosophy "Reverence for Life" is very well and appreciation. one quote such as "From such a point of view, "good" means to maintain life, to further life, to bring developing life to its highest value. "Evil" means to destroy life, to hurt life, to keep life from developing. This, then, is the rational, universal, and basic principle of ethics."
i like this philosophy, i really like Alberts critique of Christianity, and his musical work!

[Bright Banana Beard]

Few quotes I will add from him

"Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful."

"The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others."

"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind."

"Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier."

more information about him at http://home.pcisys.net/~jnf/

[AGITprop]

Destroying life can be good to, if that one life damages of harms other life.
But all in all, I support life, in all it's aspects. For instance, I am a vegetarian.

You are harming the plants. How could you? :)

[al8]

Why does one have to put life as an abstraction on a pedistal and "revere it"?

[Niccolò Rossi]

I would agree with al8. On what basis can anyone declare life the subject of special reverence? Sure we should try to preserve the life of our fellow humans for societal stability and the prevention of suffering, but why revere it? This kind of hippie liberalism is a joke.

[Not entirely illiterate]

Of course one should always remain empathic to all forms of life. All life is essentially the same, we are all built by the same brick, we are all nourished by the same spring. I am also a vegetarian, although not for this reason, but for economical, dietary and political reasons.

However, I cannot but reject the notion of death being 'evil'. First of all, concepts such as good or evil are human inventions and have absolutely no physicality outside the human mind. Giving them an objective form is Maya, self-deceit. Furthermore, one must realise the non-duality of existence, bearing the notion that life is not separate from death, they are neither the polar opposites of each other nor the opposite of that notion. Life cannot exist without death, flowers cannot blossom from a soil that isn't nurtured by death. Life cannot thus be destroyed, since it arises in the midst of death at all times. It is the essence of the revolution; you may keep its head under water for the time being, but it will always rise again, in one form or the other, and nothing can stop it. It is the law of the universe. It is the Dao.

Thus, life needs not be worshipped or revered. Simply to be alive is to rever life.

[Bastable]

"An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while the pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is colorblind."


No, i don't agree with that

"It is best to be pessimistic about everything, then you can only ever be pleasantly surprised."

[Not entirely illiterate]

The notion of the wise being colorblind remains the most profound having been said in this entire thread. Everything is just Maya.

[careyprice31]

"reverence for life?"

this is a joke right?

its obviously a lot of members of RL only care about themselves and their own species .

itsnt "reverence for life" kind of deceptive if one only cares about some lives?