You Don't Necessarily Owe God Anything

[Immortal]

IIIIITHE1IIIII said:

People generally don't directly choose to be miserable though. If an "emo teenager" becomes miserable because its band stopped playing then it is still just as miserable as any other miserable person. The only difference is that we find the emo kid's reason more silly, and therefore find it harder to sympathize with it.

Still, let's say that the kid could have chosen not to be miserable. In that case I agree that it should appreciate the little things in life more. But what about the person who was born a slave two hundred years ago and never got any notable social contacts, and who's greatest wish was to end all the suffering? Should it learn to accept and appreciate this humiliating situation? Should it thank God for its life that God has made possible?

Don't they? It's arguable that people are completely in control of how they feel in the long term and if they try to be happy, they will. Thinking of life as valuable and wonderful and thanking God for it forms part of trying to be happy, really. If the reason we can't sympathize with the emo teenager is because we find his reason for sadness silly, then we find it easier to blame him for it since he could just try to think about more positive things in life. Same logic extends to poor people who should learn to get on with less material wealth. Even to this slave who, despite working all day, every day, at least gets to live, which, using this logic, is the most important thing of all. Meaning he still has something to be grateful for.