>It is our biological purpose I believe through the science of evolution, however.
The science of evolution doesn't say that it is our purpose. In fact, biology students are sometimes even trained to rewrite statements about natural selection that imply any teleology (stuff like "in order to"). Again, saying that something is the biological point is as meaningless as saying that the physical point of the sun is to become a red giant.
The Sun analogy doesn’t make sense. You are describing the existence of an object/being in terms of existence and death. This is more analogous to an individual than a biological _system_.
Indeed a star can’t reproduce as far as we/I know. However I’d argue a star that contributes to life, as the Sun does, is far more meaningful than one that does not. My evidence is me. There is no one to speak for the stars that don’t contribute to life.
Perhaps my language was too strong. I do believe it’s important we make accommodations (extra time off when having or adopting a child for both parents, accommodations during Covid and work from home, etc) that those of us (myself!) don’t get.
I feel like more and more society is penalizing people for having kids and I feel like that’s a sickness in a society.
How, though? Tax breaks haven't gone away and FMLA has been expanded. This, despite the fact that we're seeing the environmental impacts of rampant, unchecked population growth every day. If there's a sickness in society, maybe it's an inability to look in the mirror and say "hey, maybe we don't need humanity to occupy every square inch of the planet".
At the risk of over-using a tired phrase: that's just, like, your opinion, man.
Life has no purpose beyond what we individually ascribe to it.
> However I’d argue a star that contributes to life, as the Sun does, is far more meaningful than one that does not.
That may be true, but a human that reproduces does not necessarily contribute to life more than one that does not. And even under individual circumstances where that reproducing human contributes to life more, that does not make reproduction its purpose.
For the record, I have no issue with parents getting some more work flexibility due to COVID. It's absolutely the right thing to do. But this has nothing to do with some abstract notion of life's purpose; it's because children need child care, and not allowing parents the time to fulfill that obligation is an awful thing to do to both child and parent.
I am explicitly privileging society allowing additional time for parenting. It should not be a game of everyone gets x-days. “Use them to go to a ball game or take care of your kids. Your choice.”. It’s equivocating raiding kids with personal obligations. Our biology drives most of us to want to create life and a just society should appreciate that. Putting it on the same level as personal interests doesn’t make sense to me.
And to clarify as I have in other responses - I’m not saying it is the purpose of life. But that it’s pretty much the biological purpose. We have infinite other purposes and it’s up to each individual to find theirs and their priorities. As a society though I think we can and should privilege the raising of children.
The biological point still exists. It’s up to you to judge how much that means to you - to some nothing; to others everything. Why else would we have an entire chromosome dedicated to aiding in the reproduction of ourselves? Why do my plants spend so many calories on developing seedlings to reproduce a variation on themselves?
Reproducing doesn’t say anything about you in my opinion. It is our biological purpose I believe through the science of evolution, however. And to the original point of the thread - it’s a benefit to society to have healthy, educated children in our society. This is the gift to all of us that parents give us. We should privilege that. We shouldn’t penalize this because of not only the societal benefit but because it’s objectively natural. The proof is the 7 billion people on earth. (Natural doesn’t mean better. It just means the biological drive our sex hormones and sex mechanisms grant us)