I look at this world from the viewpoint of wisdom; I see all the death, predation, pain, disease, filth, untold amounts of completely pointless suffering and so on. I do not believe that all this is the product of blind evolution and random chance, and I certainly do not believe that it is the product of a good, benevolent god. I believe that there is a wicked ‘creator’ behind it all (which doesn’t necessarily have to be an entity, it could also be some sort of mind or awareness). He/it is insidious and uncaring, an evil sadist, or a predatory beast. The concept that this universe was created by something evil is one that very few people are able to stomach.
If there is a good, divine god, then He had no hand in creation, creation is not His work, He took no part in it.
It’s our fault, it’s a fallen world!! Goddammit Eve!
Just wanted to beat the holyrollers to that.
Carry on.
Postulating an evil creator-god is exactly as useful as postulating a benevolent creator-god. If it helps you get though the day, fine, but don’t pretend it contributes to your understanding of the universe.
But what about the beautiful sunsets?
Yours seems like the mirror image of the arguments that the creationists use - there is so much beauty in the world that there must be a benevolent god. But your argument seems easier to counter, since in a universe where “shit happens,” you’d expect a lot of bad, chaotic stuff without there being a need for an evil creator.
I recall encountering one person whose theology defined the creator as a different entity from the ruler. It could be that 5he universe was created by a being in the last throes of dementia and the deity we know is a different being who was called in by the council of Gallifreyan SuperGods to deal with the creator’s infinite fuckup.
About as likely as all this being created by something lactose intolerant.
The unpleasant reality is that negative is stronger than positive. Pain is more intense than pleasure, and people will work harder to avoid a loss than to obtain a gain (that is my understanding).
The movie ‘antichrist’ was supposed to end with the conclusion that satan created the world, not god. sadly that plot got out and they had to change the plot to something stupid instead.
But was all this created by something evil? No, it was created by something amoral. Amoral is not the same as evil. A rock is amoral, Ted Bundy was evil.
We were created by natural selection. natural selection has no morals, and doesn’t care if we are miserable or blissfully happy. just so long as we are engaged in behaviors that enhances our survival odds. If the planet being full of miserable, suicidal, cruel, desperately unhappy animals had a 1% survival advantage over a world full of blissfully happy, loving, friendly animals, then the planet would be full of evil animals within 100 generations.
But again, evolution is amoral. Evolution invented pain and suffering, but it also invented social cohesion and love. We have pain because it enhances our survival odds. But we also invent and innovate medical and agricultural advances because those enhance our survival odds too (a well fed, healthy society has massive survival advantages over a starving, unhealthy society).
Basically, evolution created both good and evil. Best to side with good (aka pro-social) behaviors to make the world a better place. Did natural selection create pain and suffering? Yes (I assume pain and suffering only started to exist ~500 million years ago, probably not long after the Cambrian explosion). But natural selection also created love and social responsibility. Natural selection is why people like Bill Gates donate billions to help cure malaria and provide working sanitation to people. Because those things reduce pain and increase survival odds.
Also if it helps, pain is pretty rare in life (not human life, I mean all Life on earth). The vast, vast majority of life on this planet is single celled organisms. They are not capable of pain. Plants aren’t capable of pain, and most animals aren’t capable of pain (supposedly only vertebraes can feel any pain, and 97% of animals aren’t vertebraes). Only a small % of life forms on this planet are capable of pain, and an even smaller % of them are capable of emotional pain.
Also the universe at large is pretty much devoid of pain and suffering too. most of the universe is just rocks and atoms, feeling pain requires an advanced nervous system in a biological organism. That seems to be pretty rare in the universe.
Possibly some form of Gnosticism?
OP: How does your view account for the existence of Good? Of beauty, love, pleasure, peace, and joy?
If God were evil, the cruelest thing he could have done would be to refrain from creating us.
I have the same question. There’s a bunch of good and pleasant things in this world for it to have been created by something evil. How did those slip in?
Your evidence of a evil creator is that there is so much suffering in the world. But generally speaking, what we consider to be suffering is actually the lack of things we take pleasure in. As a stark example, those who lost their children the recent school shooting, are suffering because of the love and pleasure that their children gave to them that no longer exists. That most people try to avoid death, is evidence that most people prefer existence to non-existence. That being the case, an evil entity would be best off not bothering to create the universe in the first place.
Those things had to be included so we would have a basis of comparison and realize when we were suffering. Plus there is the bonus of passive suffering because we aren’t getting some pleasing thing in addition to the active suffering from pain and disease and such. The good and pleasant things are here to make us suffer too.
I see the possibility that the world was created by an evil entity as slightly greater than the possibility it was created by a good entity, just since there seems to be so much more suffering and pain than joy in this world, but they both seem pretty damn remote to me. If some entity, rather than natural processes, created the world or the universe, I think the idea that they’re still paying any attention to us, when there appears to be an uncountable number of interesting things happening elsewhere in the universe, is rather egocentric and childish.
The evils of this world that I mentioned are infinitely more intrinsic and fundamental, and thus make this world irredeemably evil.
Well, joy itself is subjective and personal. For instance, your joy at winning that race is offset by the sadness of the loser(s). Joy and happiness are kind of selfish things that come with a cost. Based on what I know about the second law, I am going to guess that the amount of good in the world must be derived through a greater, possibly much greater, amount of not-good.
I agree with this. Life is full of suffering and deprivation, which is bad. But the good and pleasant only seems to be so because it alleviates the suffering and deprivation in some way or another.
But the fact that you keep on keeping on is — evidence of what, exactly?
If a guy wrote all of that stuff in a suicide note, I’d maybe disagree about whether he was right; but I’d grant that he believed that the bitter outweighed the better. But if a guy relays all of that stuff as if he truly meant it, and then he — casually goes back to the everyday enjoyments of his daily life? What’s my takeaway?
Right y’are; It’s hope that kills us.
Masochism.