Apologies. I was thinking of MeowMix's position, which is that God could create a world with virtually no suffering, except for unrequited love.
It is not necessary; the chips fell as they did. It would be better to cure and eliminate it, and if possible should be done.
No particular form of suffering, competition, starvation, extinction, is necessary, but it is a consequence.
It is an expression of the attributes of God. Values are from our perspective.
The discussion is about the existence of a
loving god. Its inherently about values. Any value I talk about here is only in reference the claim of theists that profess belief in a loving and all-powerful god.
So the question is, is a microscopic parasitic nematode that eats ocular tissue an expression of god, and the context is to see how the theist will reconcile that with the earlier claim of love and omnipotence. Nature has all manner of utterly creepy, destructive, and astounding complex and ingenious ways of causing suffering.
Crazy outcomes just happen sometimes. As an example, I was watching a documentary about arctic life. In the winter the ocean mostly freezes over, and animals can get trapped. There were a bunch of beluga whales stuck at a small hole in the ice, which was otherwise frozen for miles in every direction, and they were keeping the hole open due to constantly going up to breathe and move the water around. They had no access to food there, so they had to use energy reserves for six months of winter and descend into states of severe malnutrition. Polar bears can occasionally kill a beluga for a feast, so polar bears were around the edge of the hole, taking swipes at the belugas when they came up to breathe. All of the belugas had deep, horrible-looking scars covering every inch of their backs from repeated polar bear gashes over the long winter. Whales and dolphins are some of the smarter and more emotional creatures on earth, and this group spent six months in a constant state of swimming up and down to breathe, starving, and getting cut up over and over without rest. Would that state of affairs be an attribute of god too? Does it have concern for the well-being of the belugas and the polar bears?
Apologies. I did not connect all the dots in my response to you. I think it is not possible to have a different set of physical laws that 1) allow life to exist, 2) allow growth and change, 3) are consistent at the level at which life operates (ie, above the atomic level), so that 4) we can get reliable information about our environment, which includes 5) scientific inquiry, and 6) allows freedom and autonomy.
The universe apparently expanded from the Big Bang with heterogeneous distribution of particles that, when combined with gravity, eventually resulted in formation of galaxies, solar systems, and stars. The second law of thermodynamics is that if its a closed system, which as far as anyone can tell the universe is, it can only lead towards eventual homogenization, since entropy can only increase, meaning like a big homogenous soup of particles that cant support life or any organization.
Within that framework, our solar system started out as a molecular soup from a nebula, with enough matter concentration due to gravity in the center to ignite a fusion source, and smaller bits on the disk to form planets. So far, it looks like all of the other planets probably dont have life, because conditions for life as we know it are pretty specific and require a lot of variables. So, most of it is barren.
As our planet cooled, life was able to form on a thin film across the planet, above shifting tectonic plates, and below empty space that will kill life by freezing the body, boiling the blood, and with radiation overexposure. The atmosphere keeps most of that out, and the magnetosphere protects the atmosphere from being destroyed by solar winds. Thats apparently what happened to Mars- its magnetosphere went away and without that protection, the solar winds stripped most of whatever atmosphere it had away. Our atmosphere is a fairly fragile thing, and can lead to instances of temporary or permanent runaway cooling or heating, like the hellish conditions of Venus thick hot atmosphere.
Life developed in that environment through the predator/prey cycle of constant killing, plus diseases and viruses, with a variety of mass extinction events along the way whenever that extremely precarious balance that was previously described faltered by the smallest bit. There are various cosmic events that can and do kill the majority of life on earth, including nearby supernovas, or cosmic gamma ray blasts, or massive asteroid impacts. Most planetary bodies look like targets at a shooting range, covered in craters and all that, and Earth is the same except that the surface is dynamic enough to cover them up over time. There are also Earth-based extinction events caused by eruption of super-volcanos, or possible instances of enormous gas releases from the crust that an abruptly alter the characteristics of the atmosphere.
Basically, most of the universe appears barren, with rare bubbles where enough of the cosmic forces cancel out into an unsteady temporary balance where life can develop with occasional extinction events and random smaller acts of natural violence.
So what youre saying, is that this was the single best way to achieve those goals you listed regarding intelligent life? That theres no way to have done it differently, even given omnipotence and omniscience, to make the universe a suitable place for those goals?
But I can't imagine this infinite number of ways. Can you please describe it?
Sure, here are some ideas.
-A universe that isnt trying to kill life in as many ways as was described above. A universe where most of it is in a pleasant state of balance for life, rather than allowing life to form only in fragile little temporary bubbles spread across the otherwise apparently barren cosmic environment.
-A universe with some form of magic. Im not just talking about keeping all of the existing laws particles and tweaking them; Im talking about if the universe could have been created from the ground up in any logically possible way. What if benevolent beings could spiritually/magically heal themselves and each other, like the character of Jesus did? Humans have no problem writing interesting imaginary worlds where stuff like that can happen. What if physical progress didnt happen just in the form of technology, capable of being hoarded by few, but rather could be developed by anyone spiritually or magically, like healing effects or other effects? As it stands, in order to have things like advanced medical techniques, we need the complex industrialized society around it which tends to be in opposition to the rest of nature. Imagine if the system of nature was flexible enough where people could better their physical conditions without having to leave nature, like a tribe that could cure health problems better than modern medicine can do?
-My mother is sort of a fundamentalist about liberal new age theology. She believes in the Law of Attraction and structures her life around it hardcore. The belief is basically a panentheistic one, where humans are part of god and co-creators with god, and so their thoughts can shape reality. In their view, most people can only shape it a little due to imperfection and lack of certainty, but a master that is enlightened, which they use Jesus and his claimed miracles as an example, can produce dramatic effects. They believe group-focus can have larger effects amongst themselves, so like, they have organized conscious creation services where church leaders will help church members pray for their issues to resolve. Even though my mother is really hardcore about it like being a church leader, going to church-related things six days per week, and putting up notes everywhere in her apartment to remind her to consciously create every moment of the day, she has all manner of terrible conditions that only keep getting worse, and her goals generally keep not working out, and shes been at it for decades now with little to show for it. But I mean, imagine if that worldview was actually correct, that humans had a spark of divine in them and with enough love and clear-thinking could potentially do anything in small amounts, amplified by group effort?
-Imagine your idea of the afterlife, whatever it is. You said in a recent post you think its like a baby being born into another step of the process. So the question is, do you think you could be born with an accidental birth defect in the afterlife? Could you get there and have your equivalent of ocular tissue eaten out by an organism after a while and be permanently disabled for the duration of that life? I imagine you probably dont believe that, but you can confirm that or not. People often imagine that the afterlife just works. Like, things dont get randomly screwed up there like they can here. The platform on which things happen, just works better and more consistently there. And no viruses or diseases.
-A universe where all injuries will eventually heal completely if given enough time and care. Lifelong injuries are kind of lame and not good for hope and all that. So you can still have your suffering if you want it with injuries and death and stuff, but theres always a possibility for complete renewal, even if it takes a while.
-A universe that is more consistent about not causing birth defects like babies being born without limbs or alive and conscious with their intestines hanging out from unformed skin or things like that. Or where people dont develop crazy health problems later in life that arent based on lifestyle choices.
