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.

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.

It seems like you are not keeping in mind that actually dying is this slave's greatest wish. Knowing that it would all be over by tomorrow would make it extremely happy, because then it would not be suicide/a sinful way of dying.

Effectively, yes.

That said, I think that no one who believes in this kind of logic would really concede that anyone's life "is a lifetime full of hunger, torture and misery". Even slaves had it better than that.

I'm not sure how that affects the argument I was trying to make. "Wanting to die" is already wrong, I'm pretty sure. Committing suicide is just going through with it. This guy should try to change his view on life and convince himself not to want to die.

By the way, why do you use "it" to refer to this individual? Really getting into the conservative slavemaster logic, huh, :P?

Your argument states that the people who are miserable for not being free at all (beyond having a "free" will) should appreciate what they have when in reality they don't have anything valuable to appreciate. Again, except maybe the thought of prematurely dying some day. You are asking for too much from these people, and so is God. You can't simply force people to like something that they dislike.

I used the word "it" for the simple fact that there were and are both male and female slaves. I mean, even today we sometimes hear stories about some crazy dude or even dad keeping a young girl as a sex slave. They deserve recognition in my opinion.

But they do have something valuable to appreciate; life in itself. It's not too much to ask from someone if they have the most wonderful thing there is.

And you realize that you can't use "it" to refer to a human being in the English language, :P? "He or she" or "they" would work better. Unless you're trying to objectify them. Since we're trying to get into the heads of slavemasters, that seems fine.

I'm not sure about that.

Anyhow, your logic would indeed apply to a normal gift. This is because it's unfair to ask someone to appreciate a gift whose value is subjective and may not be very high to whoever receives it. Obviously, it could something horrible that the person will not benefit from and suffer as a result of so their consent in receiving the gift matters.

However, since life is objectively wonderful and is simply the best thing that could ever happen, you just have to show your appreciation and be grateful for being allowed this opportunity.