People go on about god as if he is this kind and caring guy, and that all the bad things of this world are somehow related to mans own greed and evil doing (god allows this to happen so that we can have free will apparently). What kind of a creator creates life with the divisions of predator and prey? You have the get-out clause of arabs sawing off the heads of infidels as being the evil created by man, and man alone, but then you have Cubs being picked off by prey and perhaps given an equally unpleasant death. We call this 'nature', but how does a theist justify it? Or if the mother gets injuired and dies whilst trying to fetch food for her young, and the young are left there to starve or be eaten. And why 'pain'? Isn't there any other design that would equally make us want to avoid harm without it being a torturous experience? Can you imagine what it feels like to be burned alive? What if your kids died in a house fire... would you be more upset that they died, or that they had a couple of minutes of agonizing pain that you can not even imagine? If you believe a creator is your fantasy behind this whole debacle, then why do you hold "him" with such high esteem?
Pain, both physical and emotional, is an important part of learning. I heard a story about a girl who was born without an ability to feel pain, and she constantly inflicted horrible things on herself not knowing that they had a poor effect on her health. http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Health/story?id=1386322 Here's the story, I just found it.
So, God invented parasites that live by laying an egg in their host and eating them out from inside? Nice guy, that God. No room for learning there.
Some JW's knocked on my door the other day telling me how love in the world was so out of place that we should be amazed and see it as proof of God. Well, if it is so amazing that there is love in the world, that is not a world made by a loving God.
True. As my mother always used to say: the true opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. God is loving. Nature is indifferent. Right, now I'm just plain confused.
You missed my point. I understand the importance of pain, but my point was that since 'god' is all powerful, he could make a new design for life to avoid harm without it being such a torturous experience when they do experience harm. And if it is true that god created nature, then god is a prick. Like video game creators of violent games, except the characters in this game feel pain.
So according to you, a world must exist where nature is cruel so that we can also experience pleasure? Stop making excuses for this fantasy figure of yours please. I just accept nature for what it is. But if you believe in god, it should be a problem of why nature is the way it is.
Nietzsche oddly presents a rather compelling argument for there not being much pain in the natural world: ...it should be clearly understood that in the days when people were unashamed of their cruelty life was a great deal more enjoyable than it is now in the heyday of pessimism.... -- the bog of morbid finickiness and moralistic drivel which has alienated man from his natural instincts... Nowadays, when suffering is invariably quoted as the chief argument against existence, it might be well to recall the days when matters were judged from the opposite point of view; when people would not have missed for anything the pleasure of inflicting suffering, in which they saw a powerful agent, the principal inducement to living. By way of comfort to the milksops, I would also venture the suggestion that in those days pain did not hurt as much as it does today; at all events, such is the opinion of a doctor who has treated Negroes for complicated internal inflammations which would have driven the most stoical Europeans to distraction -- the assumption here being that the negro represents an earlier phase of human development (... For my part, I am convinced that, compared with one night's pain endured by a hysterical bluestocking, all the suffering of all the animals that have been used to date for scientific experiments is as nothing.) - On the Genealogy of Morals
perhaps what OP is aiming at is; UNECCESARY pain and suffering,such as MENTAL suffering,which for example a kid experiences when his pet rabbit gets torn to bits and eaten by a dog, a Loving god could have simply created all animals herbivores to avoid such and other suffering wouldnt you think??
i was reading something by some italian poet, i can't remember who, but he said god created all the horrible things in the world to keep men focussed on why they're lucky. he said in the golden age without strife, men weren't grateful for what they were receiving, they took everything granted. they ended up fighting amongst each other. with floods, disease etc., men were fighting for their lives, being relieved when bad things stopped and not having time for petty concerns. your life is worth a lot more when its in danger, you don't know how long you have. it was put much more convincingly and eloquently by the poet, i think it was giacomo leopardi.
Please explain how pleasure is possible without it's antithesis. Thanks in advance. Clearly you don't. From what I've read above I understand you hate nature because you are thin skinned don't like discomfort. I can assure you nature and it's cause are no problem for me.
the universe is self sustaining without the intervention of a god, if you look at the universe, not just earth, everything survives by destroying something else.
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/lindex.html Since the universe had a beginning, it wouldn't exist without God. God is the First Cause.
If I were a god and created a whole system and universe, I'd probably include the unpleasant things as much as the pleasant.
OilIsMastery: This does not follow, for the cause of the universe needn't be God. As we debated in another thread.
perhaps one that also creates eternal designations beyond issues of hunter and the hunted quite simply, our experience of happiness and distress in this world is simply an issue of the body and issues of the body are due to karma, performed both in this life and previous lives. Issues of the soul are completely different its called intelligence can you imagine repeatedly taking birth from a mothers womb and repeatedly having to go through the issues of growing up, getting an education, fending for one's self, repeatedly getting involved in raising some sort of family and repeatedly get immensely attached to the whole transient scene in an absolute medium of birth, death, old age and disease and repeatedly cultivating the same stupid idea that this world is ultimately meant for one's enjoyment, which means that one repeatedly comes back to try the whole thing out again? quite simply because he is the shelter of ultimate benefit trying to conceive of something else as ultimate shelter (like the wealth, adoration, distinction or vitality that this body can muster) and playing god off as some sort of labourer that one personally engages to facillitate these things is not only doomed for failure but also childlike
