There is nothing “evil” in nature- wether one believes in god(s) or not. Nature is just nature. Everything serves a purpose. An earthquake is not evil, it lacks malevolence. It simply is. If one wants to ask why a god would create a world that is less than paradise.... well, using Abrahamic religions as example, supposedly there was a paradise and humans messed it up, and were thus sent to live in NOT paradise and know paradise after death. The flaw is 2 fold. If one doesn’t believe in god(s) you can’t ascribe malice to nature. If one does believe, you can’t look at what you do not understand and label it evil without the full details.
Life, and thought. Plant or animal I bear my dinner no ill will, one of us had to die- I’d rather it not be me. That’s more or less true of any creature. We have no reason to think spiders hate flies. To the contrary, without the fly the spider would starve, so one could say they love flies. Evolution and the ecosystems it creates occur out of necessity, and near as science can tell the planet itself doesn’t harbor feelings about us one way or another- so “natural disasters” are just what happens when people or things are in the wrong place at the wrong time, no one targets earthquakes or floods- people just choose to be where they will likely happen
If we assume these systems were created, either created and “guided” or let loose with a known outcome by an omnipotent being- we have no reason to assume malevolence. Death is part of life. Things need to die or the system doesn’t work. Why design such a system to begin with? Who knows. We don’t know what death really is, what if anything comes after etc. so we don’t have the details. A standard assumption is an “all powerful being,” but what if like a computer programmer or engineer this being had to design within certain constraints? What if what we see as major tragedies are in hindsight after death- minor inconveniences or trivial matters, or such a “grand plan” is in place we would gladly trade a life of such things for an “eternity” of what comes next?
We simply don’t know. The idea of understanding any power that can create worlds or universes let alone holding it to our morality is already laughable- but beyond that, something we as humans CAN relate to: If someone bumps into you and makes you spill your drink, in absence of any information and unable to clarify because they walk away too quickly to follow: should you assume they are a total ass who did it on purpose, or assume it was likely an accident and they just didn’t notice? In a vacuum of information our conclusions we draw speak to our own character and not that of the other party.
Why even create life then? (I know we've already discussed this, but w/e) Again, reminded of that Dr. Manhattan quote about Mars getting along just fine (assuming it's sterile).
Well, we also get back to the question of “what is after (this) life?” Mars does get along fine. But for all his intellect Manhattan was guilty of being complacent and arrogant. It’s a major plot point of the film and how the scheme was able to be pulled off. He effectively feels he’s perfect, and those issues he has aren’t his fault, but caused by the imperfection of others. Being”perfect” he felt no need to change or grow. And that’s why he felt mars got along fine.
Mars largely doesn’t change. Change is a messy process, growth, life, evolution. Earth has conflict because change is conflict. “Perfection” is a moving target. Things change and that “perfect” beach house becomes under the sea floor and so on. We have to keep moving. We can’t just stand still or the world passes us by. We must adapt and grow, or get left behind and ultimately perish.
In fact- that’s what “death by natural causes” is. The body can no longer keep up. It can’t take in or process or rebuild as quickly as it needs to keep going, and it perishes. One COULD hypothesize that there are lessons or some greater truth or process of transformation to life, or even that life itself exists to instill an appreciation: that are somehow ultimately used in whatever is “after” all this.
It’s all idle speculation of course. If we assume there is a creator or architect of all things, and based on what we can observe such being is immensely powerful in our reality, possibly extra dimensional in nature: we can’t really understand their motives or morality or purpose.
If we speak from a biblical perspective- here’s something of note to me: the Bible ends at Armageddon. “The end of days.” Revelations supposedly prophesies the end of the world as we know it. But... that’s it. No sequel. Now, taking said book for granted, God is eternal. No beginning or end. Always there. By this logic said being would at the very least survive the destruction of our universe; or failing that could actually be our universe (who’s to say we aren’t all essentially “cells” in the “body” of this being? Performing various functions, only aware of what we need to be to fulfill that purpose?)
Regardless, speculation. The point is- from a biblical context we could infer there has to be SOMETHING beyond what we know, and beyond “the end” as we know it or can conceive it. Perhaps- all of this is a Rube Goldberg machine of sorts, a complex series of events set up by a being able to see all possibility, all past and futures, all set specifically in a way that once the pieces start moving they will inevitably land in the correct places to bring about some grand vision of what is “after.”
To those who saw the Thanos films: picture it like Dr. strange x10000000000. The series of events to set off his 1 chance of a future where Thanos lost was complex and improbable. It required a mouse to choose to run over the controls for the quantum machine ant man was stuck in, at precisely the right time and in the right sequence to bring ant man out. Think of all the events it would take for that mouse to be born, to survive, and to be motivated and in the exact place and time, and to have such a gait as to hit the controls of a complex machine trained science tests had some trouble with using- in a way that brought Antman back.
I guarantee malaria doesn't consider itself evil. It's just surviving how it survives, which unfortunately means horrifying death for the rest of us. Kind of like humans and the planet, tbh
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· 5 years ago
And if God doesn't interfere with free will then why did Lucifer have to give it to us?
It’s somewhat open to interpretation; but I’d argue Lucifer didn’t give humans free will. Humans were created with free will. There isn’t a compelling argument based on available information that Lucifer could intrinsically alter or add to human beings in such a fundamental way. It’s most likely that fee will existed all along and it just didn’t occur to humans to disobey their god. In a religious context “good” is that which pleases or obeys god, evil is anything else. The always existent choice was to obey or disobey. Lucifer tempted human to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Not giving free will, but giving man the knowledge to interpret from their own perspective what was “good” or “evil” independent of that which god had decreed.
In other words, he gave men the ability to justify a wrong choice as a righteous one through their own morality instead of divine morality. He more or less added shades of gray to human morality- in the present world gray is a useful shade to have, but in a paradise free from danger or want, such shades would not be needed and would only serve as a potential avenue for corruption
When I clicked the notification link for some reason I thought this was the fridge door post, and I just read "in other words he gave men the ability to justify a wrong choice as a righteous one through their own morality instead of divine morality" and I was thinking wtf HAPPENED that lead us from fridge doors to this??
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Being perpetually confused makes life more entertaining
Curious, where did you develop that view?
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Being perpetually confused makes life more entertaining
Parallel from time to time- but that would even be odd for me! Glad you’re keeping amused though.