Nothing requires it, but it is a consequence of the freedom of nature.
The universe would be better if we can find ways to prevent it from happening, or happening as much, or finding ways to help such afflicted people live better lives.
I'd say he is making the world a better place and eradicating polio is a very good thing.
A loving God wants us to express his love in this world, as Bill Gates does, through feeding, healing, nurturing, sharing resources... The same forces that shaped the parasites shaped us.
And humans can be criticized along the way whatever they do. Advanced medicines, surgeries, and techniques, only occurred in highly developed economies that passed through the industrial age and did and still are doing considerable environmental damage.
And a lot of advanced medical stuff ends up being tested on mice and then other animals. Does a loving god want humans to solve various forms of suffering even if it creates some suffering in the process? Does she support the philosophy that the ends justifying the means? Without animal testing, those various medicines and things have to be used, untested, on human patients. It's basically dealing with a rock and a hard place.
You don't get one without the other.
Well you could, with a loving and powerful god.
I mean, most Christians probably assume there isn't Onchocerciasis in their heaven. Heaven is where they get the good without the bad, meaning that somewhere along the line they believe that's possible.
And that is an indictment on those of us who have resources that can help but don't. I agree there is suffering. So, would it be better for all those who suffer (or are unhappy or have low life satisfaction) to commit suicide? Or, is it better for them to have hope that things will improve for them and it is better that more people feel that they are called to help improve things for others who are worse off?
I wouldn't want people to commit suicide. The point I was making is that quite a lot of people, especially in less economically developed areas, are reporting themselves an "F" on a happiness rating.
The way I see these teachings is that those religions are describing the world as many experience it, and offering hope that the future will be better. I disagree with any that teach abandoning this world as unredeemable, and I don't think that is what Christianity is teaching. It is a twisting of the message to only focus on the afterlife. But, to those in desperate situations, belief in an afterlife also can offer comfort and hope.
Christianity tends to have among the more specific answers to the problem of suffering, but by extension one of the most disproved ones. It centers around the concept of original sin, with the idea that the world was once perfect (which is not supported via biology, geology, or cosmology for the history of the universe, and is in fact quite discredited) and that it was humans that messed it up literally or metaphorically, brought original sin, and now need to be saved from it to restore perfection again. But all of that is basically wrong when compared to the actual scientifically-studied history of the planet and the universe.
Or, it could be a universe where a loving being created a universe in which humans can make life better and lessen suffering.
But see above, about what costs people have to pay to do that, and the nearly infinite number of things that have to be dealt with. Every disease, every impoverished area, the overpopulation that results, and then there's nothing we can do about the suffering of wildlife due to natural causes.
Some of the most horrible things happen without anyone predicting it, even if they did have the best intentions. When Europeans arrived in parts of the Americas, they didn't have the best intentions (rather bad ones actually), but even if they did, it wouldn't have affected the fact that the diseases they brought with them decimated the populations they encountered. It's sort of a harsh cosmic joke for isolated populations to meet each other for the first time and then one of them gets decimated by invisible disease before either side even developed germ theory yet. If we're being creative, I'm sure we can imagine a universe, especially if it were governed by some sort of loving force, where that kind of catastrophic nonsense doesn't have to occur.
I agree with all of this. Even our best intentions can turn to disaster. But, without trying, with caution and humility, we would be losing one of the best aspects of being human - our desire to help others and make the world better for all.
Yes, there are many sources of suffering, and we create a lot of it ourselves. I'm not sure where you are going with this because I think you would agree that the 'Bill Gates' of the world, everyone who tries to cure diesease and increase the well-being of other people, and at the same time take into account the preservation of our environment, are doing a good thing in trying.
I do agree with people like Bill Gates that do what they do. The more charitable aspects of humanity are on an endless quest to try to reduce the unlimited varieties of suffering that humans and other animals are afflicted with. What your argument seems to be saying is that a loving god created endless varieties of suffering for humans to try to work through and come up with imperfect solutions to, with some of those solutions causing other types of suffering in the process.
That's where I was going with that argument- that there a lot of possible missteps and inevitable shortcomings.
For example, when there's a Super Bowl, manufacturers make apparel for both teams as winners, so that they can sell them right away regardless of who wins. They used to destroy the wrong ones. Then they started sending them to impoverished countries instead, to give free clothes, but then arguments popped up about how tens of thousands of free shirts are putting local clothing businesses out of business, since they can't compete with free, which makes the population more dependent.
Or, there's the rice problem with Haiti. American rice is highly subsidized, and starting in the 1980's, due to government programs that some officials including Bill Clinton publicly now regret, American rice started being sold to Haiti at a cost below locally produced rice, which put local farms out of business and dramatically reduced Haiti's ability to feed itself, making them more reliant on foreign imported rice and other food. The program of low cost rice to Haiti basically just ended up benefiting American farms at the cost of Haitians.
So a lot of times, when haves try to help out the have-nots, they end up messing things up with aspects they didn't foresee and making things worse.
Some others just focus on assuring and comforting the weak, poor, etc. that the glass is empty but it will be better next life/afterlife. If more people focus on making their life and this world better - there will be much more happy people, most frequently happy.
