' Life is cruel, and unnecessary , by our own definition of same '

Should have read the comments. Didn't think you were being seriously intellectual, maybe just upset or something. In that case I still have my opinion and I'll argue with more rigor this time: Somewhere in the middle of your last round you said, "All I want is acceptance of the fact that the essence of life on this earth is struggle, pain, misery, degradation and failure". I'm willing to accept some points but not others. Let me get on with what I don't agree with first. First of all, I'm not really sure how serious you're carrying the word essence when you're using it here, but I don't agree with an essentialist point of view. Let me explain. It's tempting when we're carrying an analysis to generalize, broadly label and attach certain characteristics to things. For example, people might say something like, "Christians believe in God, the Father, Christ, the Son, and the Holy Spirit". This is a generally true statement. However there are some exceptions like Unitarians for example. Anyways, this is a simple example of what essentialism is, what it means to apply a set of adjectives to a class of things broadly. And that's just an example to show the logical problems of essentialism, but your argument relies on it in a way that is full of way more many wholes. What is "life" in the first place? What are you talking about specifically? Is it the sum of everything that has happened? Is it human life? Is it biological life? Is it the internal experience of our own lives? Whatever it is, it is some grand essential concept which is hard to talk about, because its so general as to become meaningless. Without having the time to examine every instance that you would wrap up into what you call "life", I'll have to say this: whatever massive amount of instances you are talking about, there is no way that when they might be boiled down that they would altogether equal only "struggle, pain, misery, degradation and failure". Those are just way too strongly (philosophically) meaningful adjectives to be possibly the most true characteristics of the massive generalized concept which you call life. So, in layman's terms; to speak of "life" is to speak of something so hazy and warrant to interpretation, that when we come to conclusions about it, they are going to be just as hazy and mitigated, so much so that we can assume it could never be anything as heavy handed and definite as "struggle, pain... failure". I'll admit that this is a very intellectual argument, but it's worth saying I think, and it's what I think every time someone says "life is this" or "life is that". Quickly, I'll add: then what's the alternative? To look at individual instances in their own light. To resist blanketing statements about "life" or "the world" and actually look at the real events/things in the face for what they are in their concrete reality. You know I should probably list all of the good things that are going on in the world at this point, but I don't think I really need to. You know there are perfectly good things happening. Advances are happening everywhere and at a faster pace than ever in technology, globalization of ideas and trade, infant death is plummeting.... there are clearly good things happening. You just think there are way more instances of negative things than positive (I won't deny there are negative things) and that the sum is slanted way toward the bad side. And maybe it could even be argued that things are worse than good (still don't believe that personally), but it's not 1984, right? It's not Mad Max or War of the Worlds. It isn't so bad that nothing would be better. Not everyone has decided to jump out of a building and end it all yet (the closest we could come to your hypothetical oblivion, I think). So though I don't feel like bearing through the tedium of listing the obviously good things that are happening just so you can mention things you think are worse to nullify them, I'm saying even if it were more half empty than full, it is such a massive hyperbole to suggest that therefore it simply shouldn't exist at all. And that by itself makes you wrong. You also ask if life is necessary. What immediately comes to mind when I hear that is, "necessary to what?" Why does life need a reason to exist? It just does. And if there were something else giving it a reason, well then we'd ask, what reason does that thing have for even existing? To whom do we need to justify our existence? The moon? Black holes? Frozen lakes on Mars? if they were to ask, couldn't we just turn the tables on them? It's absurd. We're here already. Whether it is or was or will be necessary or unnecessary is logically absurd and beside the point. Maybe you wanted me to get down and dirty and bring a host of facts to the table or something, well, maybe it would have been nice. Anyways, your statement "life is cruel and unnecessary", and your later demand for me to accept that the world is cruel, suffering.... etc primarily offend my sense of logic and that's how I've decided to respond.