kane
Student
- Jun 26, 2020
- 171
I'm not a believer, but I find it totally plausible that this world was created. I've heard seemingly credible scientists speculate on whether we might be living in a "simulation", and I can't think of any reason that's not possible. And if it is possible, what are the chances that we're living in an "original", unsimulated reality?
So perhaps the reality we see around us was created, and perhaps that creation had some purpose. The question then arises: what purpose? That's what I have difficulty with.
When I look at the natural world, what I observe is an unending struggle of violence and competition. It's beautiful, but it's also horrific. The primary value seems to be evolution through elimination of those least adapted. And while a species may grow stronger or more adapted to their environment, each individual being is left to struggle, suffer, and die. The forms may grow more complex and more beautiful, but the struggle and suffering is never overcome.
This doesn't seem to match with what are taken to be ethical theistic values - compassion, mercy, the protection of the weak etc. Possibly it sits better with the more genocidal God of the old testament. A God who picks favourites and encourages them to eliminate the surrounding tribes.
It's also possible that whatever created this reality was not motivated by emotion - perhaps it was some kind of A.I., randomly generating universes with no ultimate purpose. But if we do infer an intention to life on this planet, what does that say about such a "God"?
I would suggest that it values us not as beings or experiencers of reality, but as experiments. Possibly God "loves" it's creation, in the same way an artist may love their painting. It may love us as things, as a child loves it's toy soldiers. But I can't see such a God actually caring for it's creation, in the same way you would care for another being. Perhaps God loves the competition, the violence, the suffering? Perhaps it just wants to see what happens. Perhaps it has motivations entirely unrelated to anything we could ever understand.
If this world was created, why should we assume that the creator's values accord in any way with our own, when we've been through millennia of communal living, cultural development, and actually having to experience this world? Why should we project our morality onto a being that would have nothing in common with us?
I've come across various attempts to explain "the problem of natural evil" over the years, but none have really attempted to step outside their own preconceptions. It seems to me far more plausible to discard the idea of a compassionate deity than to come up with elaborate excuses for why their creation doesn't reflect that compassion.
If we do assume that this world was created by a being that doesn't care for our individual experience, I'm not sure what ethically follows from that. It seems like a tall order to live opposed to the values of the reality you find yourself in. To refrain from the urges to compete and reproduce, to do violence and dominate others. Is there a version of a good existence that can be constructed while breaking the cycle of suffering? Could we somehow live in defiance of the "natural order"? Could we relieve the burden of suffering faced by animals in the wild?
Or is it that my moral perception is wrong, and the cycle of suffering and violence is in fact justified by some greater good?
So perhaps the reality we see around us was created, and perhaps that creation had some purpose. The question then arises: what purpose? That's what I have difficulty with.
When I look at the natural world, what I observe is an unending struggle of violence and competition. It's beautiful, but it's also horrific. The primary value seems to be evolution through elimination of those least adapted. And while a species may grow stronger or more adapted to their environment, each individual being is left to struggle, suffer, and die. The forms may grow more complex and more beautiful, but the struggle and suffering is never overcome.
This doesn't seem to match with what are taken to be ethical theistic values - compassion, mercy, the protection of the weak etc. Possibly it sits better with the more genocidal God of the old testament. A God who picks favourites and encourages them to eliminate the surrounding tribes.
It's also possible that whatever created this reality was not motivated by emotion - perhaps it was some kind of A.I., randomly generating universes with no ultimate purpose. But if we do infer an intention to life on this planet, what does that say about such a "God"?
I would suggest that it values us not as beings or experiencers of reality, but as experiments. Possibly God "loves" it's creation, in the same way an artist may love their painting. It may love us as things, as a child loves it's toy soldiers. But I can't see such a God actually caring for it's creation, in the same way you would care for another being. Perhaps God loves the competition, the violence, the suffering? Perhaps it just wants to see what happens. Perhaps it has motivations entirely unrelated to anything we could ever understand.
If this world was created, why should we assume that the creator's values accord in any way with our own, when we've been through millennia of communal living, cultural development, and actually having to experience this world? Why should we project our morality onto a being that would have nothing in common with us?
I've come across various attempts to explain "the problem of natural evil" over the years, but none have really attempted to step outside their own preconceptions. It seems to me far more plausible to discard the idea of a compassionate deity than to come up with elaborate excuses for why their creation doesn't reflect that compassion.
If we do assume that this world was created by a being that doesn't care for our individual experience, I'm not sure what ethically follows from that. It seems like a tall order to live opposed to the values of the reality you find yourself in. To refrain from the urges to compete and reproduce, to do violence and dominate others. Is there a version of a good existence that can be constructed while breaking the cycle of suffering? Could we somehow live in defiance of the "natural order"? Could we relieve the burden of suffering faced by animals in the wild?
Or is it that my moral perception is wrong, and the cycle of suffering and violence is in fact justified by some greater good?
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