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[-] coffee@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago

If there is a god, it takes a special sadist to allow the amount of torment present on earth.

So I prefer to believe there's no higher spirit ravelling in the suffering of all creatures rather than there being a malevolent creator watching with glee as we die a slow, painful death.

[-] DocBlaze@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

doesn't really have to be a sadist. consider the theory were all just temporary beings in a experimental universe, observed by the supreme scientists that created us, almost like a child playing the sims. an ecological researcher observing a lion eating a deer isn't supposed to interfere in natural selection for the deer's sake if they want their study to have any merit.

[-] CommanderCloon@lemmy.ml 7 points 1 year ago

The researcher observing the lion didn't create the concept of suffering tho

[-] DocBlaze@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

true, but perhaps if we are created beings, could it be considered just a complication of the model? for example, consider a simulated universe like our own, where a being might get hit by a car. with AI evolved suffient enough, that AI would feel pain and perhaps suffer horrible injuries, even if the intention of creating the independent systems of automobile mechanics, and the laws of physics, and the evolution of the human nervous system wasn't to induce a state of suffering.

more specifically, on the biology of the nervous system, it's interesting how fear/pain/suffering itself was just a byproduct of natural selection meant to help us by telling our dumb humanoid ancestors the things we should avoid - things that cause physical damage to our flesh or our mental state, or make it harder to survive. so these things are meant to help us, or we wouldn't have evolved it at all.

[-] thelsim@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I love what-if scenarios :)

I think you could go one step further with this theory and say that humans are not that important at all. I mean, why would we think we are? Because god told us so? Maybe he just said that to account for some variable and left it at that. Hasn't looked back at what we were up to since.
In some distant corner of the universe is a much nicer planet where everyone is living in harmony and peace. We're just the control group :)

[-] DocBlaze@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

yes. once I listened to Neil Tyson describe how big the known universe actually is, it's enough for the mathematical probability that we are the biggest influencers on it that exist to approach zero

[-] Mane25@feddit.uk 2 points 1 year ago

When I was religious (I'm not any more) that was something that never actually troubled me. I believed that god was benevolent but that suffering must be necessary in ways that we humans can't conceive of. Who were we to question the grander plan?

[-] yogthos@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

basically believing in god is akin to believing that this is all just a game of sims some twisted being is playing

this post was submitted on 28 Aug 2023
201 points (100.0% liked)

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