I tend to agree with Armin Navabi on most things…

But this is absolutely untrue. Someone or something that doesn’t exist CANNOT be deprived of anything. By Armin Navabi’s interpretation, we “deprive” countless people of “pleasure” everyday through contraception, abortion and family planning. By his view, we’re all immoral by simply not having children; we should be pumping them out as much as we can and at every opportunity.

What similar arguments try to do is decouple suffering from pleasure in two ways, 1. they treat pleasure as if it’s its own self contained thing that’s to be considered in isolation so that it justifies existence and 2. some have argued that, in some gradual way, suffering leads to pleasure, thus eliminating suffering altogether.

These arguments are moot at best. Suffering will always be suffering no matter what sequence or configuration it lies in in contrast to pleasure. Life contains both!