# How likely is it that all this was created by something evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2018, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000 "2018-02-17T16:06:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/61 "2018-02-19T21:30:34Z")
Well, if the creator was that good, he could just wire the brains of seemingly rational people to perceive the world as either being created or as being not created, which ever is more suitable for the divine strategy. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2018, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/62 "2018-02-19T21:40:56Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I am curious but skeptical. For one thing, how could you possibly tell the difference between a universe that wasn’t created and one that was created to look as though it wasn’t created? The point of origin tag is sewn on the outside, but if you look in just the right spot you can see the stitching from inside. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/63 "2018-02-20T15:03:05Z")
Well, I’m an atheist who hopes he’s wrong (I want an afterlife), but I do agree think Testament God was a complete psychopath. I also do not believe, if they should they exist, the Old Testament God and Jesus are the same person, at all, in any way. No way that guy came down here and decided to chillax. I tend to take the deist approach if God exists. He made it, and then backed off, intervening rarely if at all, leaving men to their own devices. That would completely reconcile why earth is sh\_tty. If earth was supposed to be like heaven with no problems, then what’s the point of the distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/64 "2018-02-20T17:29:03Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > 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… Why not? Natural processes explain all of it far better than the alternative of supernatural creation. How did you come to eliminate natural selection, et al, as an explanation for what you’re observing? ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/65 "2018-02-20T19:40:41Z")
> [@](#): > > death, predation, pain, disease, filth, untold amounts of completely pointless suffering Why on earth would a natural process preclude these? Why would a natural process “create” something utopian by human standards? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/66 "2018-02-20T21:55:31Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Well, I’m an atheist who hopes he’s wrong (I want an afterlife) … I had this acid trip. I became aware of the fact that the smallest entities in the universe each entirely contain the whole, and the passage of time is the paradoxical imbalance of the universe trying to resolve itself. The entity of you emerged out of the decay of a pi meson, merged with the entity of a free neutron that bound to an atom of fluorine, gradually progressing into what inhabits your present transient form. Your metaphysique is a composite unity that will continue to progress as each of its host forms fail to support it. The end of the line is the entire universe itself, after which the greater being which you have joined will emerge from the decay of a tau lepton to continue its sojourn toward universal wholeness. Creation is not a moment but an eternity, always happening. The downside to this view is that saving lives is not necessarily a good thing, because fighting off the inevitable might be restraining the progress of of metaphysical being toward reaching wholeness. The other downside is that I have not been able to find the guy that made that acid. That was a fucking good recipe. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/67 "2018-02-20T22:13:37Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > I had this acid trip. I became aware of the fact that the smallest entities in the universe each entirely contain the whole, and the passage of time is the paradoxical imbalance of the universe trying to resolve itself. The entity of you emerged out of the decay of a pi meson, merged with the entity of a free neutron that bound to an atom of fluorine, gradually progressing into what inhabits your present transient form. > > Your metaphysique is a composite unity that will continue to progress as each of its host forms fail to support it. The end of the line is the entire universe itself, after which the greater being which you have joined will emerge from the decay of a tau lepton to continue its sojourn toward universal wholeness. Creation is not a moment but an eternity, always happening. > > The downside to this view is that saving lives is not necessarily a good thing, because fighting off the inevitable might be restraining the progress of of metaphysical being toward reaching wholeness. > > The other downside is that I have not been able to find the guy that made that acid. That was a fucking good recipe. Cool trip man. My hope is that life is a video game, and after I die I can just put in another quarter. 😃 But only if I can buy a DLC with a million dollar bonus pack first. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/68 "2018-02-20T22:18:34Z")
> [@Ashtura](#): > > Cool trip man. My hope is that life is a video game, and after I die I can just put in another quarter. 😃 But only if I can buy a DLC with a million dollar bonus pack first. my other cheat code is JESUS. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/69 "2018-02-20T22:21:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If you’ve ever read a novel, or seen a movie, or played a narrative-style video game, you’ve experienced a world that does have a creator. Could you tell from the nature of that world whether its creator was good or evil? Why does he have to be either (or not both)? There are any number of open world games that let collections of players do pretty much do whatever they want. What many seem to want to do is troll, grief, hack and otherwise create a shitty experience for everyone else. ---
**Author:** ![Not\_Carlson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bc79bd/32.png) [@Not\_Carlson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Not_Carlson)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/70 "2018-02-20T23:04:24Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > 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. That was beautiful. I feel like I was just serenaded with [the universe song.](https://youtu.be/yq4uCWtQE24) To the **OP** : Chin up, lad. It can’t be all that bad. ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/71 "2018-02-20T23:13:30Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > 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. “The Bird is cruel!” ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/72 "2018-02-20T23:17:15Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If God were evil, the cruelest thing he could have done would be to refrain from creating us. “What? Out of senseless Nothing to provoke A conscious Something to resent the yoke of unpermitted Pleasure, under pain of everlasting penalties, if broke?” :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/73 "2018-02-20T23:46:03Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Its like cavemen from 10,000 years ago talking about what life will be like in 10,000 years and all they can talk about is how the sticks they carry would be extra sharp, and the fire in the cave would never go out, and there’d always be mammoth meat to eat. They wouldn’t imagine quantum computers, or gene therapy, or large hadron colliders. Who needs 10 Kyears? I once did a fun talk on prediction in science fiction based on Star Trek (TOS). You know - turbolift doors that are at almost every supermarket, Yeoman Rand having Kirk sign orders on her tablet, Uhura and her Bluetooth headset, away teams calling on their cellphones, Sulu inserting a USB memory into the nav console, McCoy using a pressure injector, _etc., etc., et cetera_. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![MacLir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9e8a1a/32.png) [@MacLir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacLir)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2018, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/74 "2018-02-20T23:51:04Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > I am curious but skeptical. For one thing, how could you possibly tell the difference between a universe that wasn’t created and one that was created to look as though it wasn’t created? I have heard an argument based on the concept that a created universe would be discontinuous and have pixels. By the way, the Universe **is** discontinuous (quantum theory) and **has** a pixel size (Planck length) 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Marcus\_Flavius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@Marcus\_Flavius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marcus_Flavius)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/75 "2018-02-21T00:44:25Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Why not? Natural processes explain all of it far better than the alternative of supernatural creation. How did you come to eliminate natural selection, et al, as an explanation for what you’re observing? I haven’t eliminated natural processes or natural selection. I just disagree with the idea that they are “blind.” I would argue that life on Earth serves a cosmic “plan,” and is modified at the macro level in order to fulfill this function. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/76 "2018-02-21T03:21:18Z")
> [@Marcus\_Flavius](#): > > I haven’t eliminated natural processes or natural selection. I just disagree with the idea that they are “blind.” > > I would argue that life on Earth serves a cosmic “plan,” and is modified at the macro level in order to fulfill this function. how would you argue this ? what is the plan? What evidence that we are fullfilling a ‘function’ within it? ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/77 "2018-02-21T03:40:27Z")
> [@simster](#): > > how would you argue this ? > > what is the plan? > > What evidence that we are fullfilling a ‘function’ within it? The plan is beyond our comprehension. The superbeing is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, yet somehow it has wants, it can take action (something that would seem impossible for an omnipotent entity) and it gets angry. If you cannot make sense of those contradictory properties, any “plan” is going to be impossible to ken. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/78 "2018-02-21T03:41:52Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Our imagination is extremely limited. We have 3 lbs of matter in our brains that was designed by natural selection using limited resources, and there is virtually infinite matter in the universe that can be organized and engineered intelligently. It can be organized into an endless number of ways to act as a substrate for conscious experience (or whatever else is possible). > > Its like cavement from 10,000 years ago talking about what life will be like in 10,000 years and all they can talk about is how the sticks they carry would be extra sharp, and the fire in the cave would never go out, and there’d always be mammoth meat to eat. They wouldn’t imagine quantum computers, or gene therapy, or large hadron colliders. Fair enough. I suppose this outcome would be “and then the cavemen found the fountain of youth and a respawning device that will restore then sans recent memories whenever they die”. 10,000 years later, these same cavemen would still be basically cavemen. They wouldn’t have created what we have created. ---
**Author:** ![simster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/simster/32/1047_2.png) [@simster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/simster)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/79 "2018-02-21T04:32:26Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > The plan is beyond our comprehension. The superbeing is omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, yet somehow it has wants, it can take action (something that would seem impossible for an omnipotent entity) and it gets angry. If you cannot make sense of those contradictory properties, any “plan” is going to be impossible to ken. thats complete gobbledygook. ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2018, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000/80 "2018-02-21T04:38:20Z")
> [@simster](#): > > thats complete gobbledygook. well spotted [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-likely-is-it-that-all-this-was-created-by-something-evil/809000.md?page=5)