Parasites and Darwin

[Rose2020]

Entymology interests me and I have been reading a lot recently. I am both fascinated and horrified especially at the things that parasites do, not only to humans but within insect and animal lives. There truly is appalling stuff going on! Like organisms slowly eating other organisms alive.

I read that Darwin himself had a real crisis of conscience about this. He wondered how a loving creator could have done made this so.

I too am pondering on this, as a committed Christian. How in this world everything consumes everything. In my humble opinion I trust that this must be the only way the balance of nature can be maintained. Yet did it have to be so very cruel? I cannot blame people for doubting God.

[Difflugia]

Darned if Jehovah/Yahweh/God doesn't actually fit that definition.

Or at least His priests.

[help3434]

Well of course this all boils down to the definition of "atrocity" doesn't it. If you define appropriately then yes God commits atrocities if you define it some other way he does not.

The first definition I see when I google the word "atrocity" works pretty well for my purposes. "an extremely wicked or cruel act, typically one involving physical violence or injury".

Nobody has yet explained though how God can possibly do anything morally wrong, morality exists within human society which God created, how can one be accused of moral wrongdoing when one exists outside of that created system?

If someone wrongs human society, then of course they can be accused of wrongdoing. I really don't how it is relevant if that being happens to reside on the inside or the outside or everywhere at once or whatever to whether that being did a wrongdoing or not.

If I make a robot and amuse myself with it, then break it up one day because I want to, am I doing a moral wrong? Can a thing I create gain authority over me? tell me what is right and wrong?

If that robot is like every other robot we are capable of making today, that is, not a sentient being, then you did nothing wrong. If it is a sentient being that values its own existence, then I would say that you did do wrong. It has nothing to do with gaining authority. Wronging a sentient being... is wrong, regardless if you are that being's creator or not.

[Purple Knight]

Yes, my question is did God have to make life and nature be so cruel?

It's your God and I don't think you think he has to do anything.

As far as explanations that fit... The answer might be, he actually didn't. Maybe this is a holodeck and much of the suffering is fake. Maybe all of it is fake. If this is a dream, is it cruel? Was it cruel for Rick to do this to Morty?



IMO, if you really believe your religion then none of this is any crueler than that. It's a dream. You wake up. And like Morty, you dismiss it pretty quickly. None of it real. We all do this every time we have a nightmare. Not real. Done. Most of us don't experience lingering suffering because we suffered in a dream, so if you think of the afterlife as being on the top, so to speak, none of this should really bother you.

People suffer because this is reality, and dead is dead.

[Purple Knight]

If someone wrongs human society, then of course they can be accused of wrongdoing. I really don't how it is relevant if that being happens to reside on the inside or the outside or everywhere at once or whatever to whether that being did a wrongdoing or not.

It's actually a good question. On planet Bleropule, there are poot aliens who love to poot. They release hydrogen sulfide when they poot. It's not toxic to them, but it is toxic to the Glubulians on the planet next door. If one day these fellows live together, the Bleropulians are going to have to stop pooting, or the Glubulians are going to have to die off until they can tolerate it. Pooting might be against the law on Glubulus but that says nothing about the innate moral wrongness of the act.

If I make a robot and amuse myself with it, then break it up one day because I want to, am I doing a moral wrong? Can a thing I create gain authority over me? tell me what is right and wrong?

If that robot is like every other robot we are capable of making today, that is, not a sentient being, then you did nothing wrong. If it is a sentient being that values its own existence, then I would say that you did do wrong. It has nothing to do with gaining authority. Wronging a sentient being... is wrong, regardless if you are that being's creator or not.

It depends on how the "deep magic" of the universe's morality works. If the universe's deepest morality is fundamentally capitalist, and the only wrongdoings are force and fraud, and like humans who assign rights only to other humans, gods assign rights only to other gods, then we're screwed because we, those robots, don't own ourselves - we're just God's property whether we have feelings or not. Just as Murray Rothbard chides the animals who, he says, can have rights when they ask for them, God looks down at us and says, sorry Charlie, you didn't figure out how to ask the right question, which I made up and didn't tell you. But if the universe's rules are as you say, and it's about hurting someone, then God is not excused.

And if there are no deeper rules, or if God wrote all the rules, there isn't really any morality, just might-makes-right. If God is so powerful that he literally makes the rules, then there are no real rules, because he can back out. Nothing is binding on him, just others, and that's might-makes-right, and it's not special. I can do this to ants in my back yard. Whoever does X gets squished. Whoever does Y gets a reward.

[help3434]

And if there are no deeper rules, or if God wrote all the rules, there isn't really any morality, just might-makes-right. If God is so powerful that he literally makes the rules, then there are no real rules, because he can back out. Nothing is binding on him, just others, and that's might-makes-right, and it's not special. I can do this to ants in my back yard. Whoever does X gets squished. Whoever does Y gets a reward.

Might makes reality but it doesn't make something morally right just because it if comes from might

[Purple Knight]

Might makes reality but it doesn't make something morally right just because it if comes from might

This is an affirmation that even if an all-powerful being exists, morality is above even that being. Morality is something above everyone, even God, and no matter how powerful anyone is, if they do something wrong, then it's wrong.