ABEL\'S UNIVERSE (General)

by dhw, Friday, November 18, 2011, 19:14 (4563 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: But I was answering your theological question, albeit indirectly. :) If there is no need for a predator to maintain homeostasis, then there is no need to attribute carnivorous self-interest to a creator.

But there most certainly is a need to ask why a creator would introduce predation if it wasn’t necessary. Why wilfully produce callous carnivores to disrupt a world of happy herbivores cheerfully chewing a plenitude of plants? My theological question concerns the nature of a creator who invents killing as a means of survival (though I’m also interested in the diet of Abel’s mortal gods). We don’t hesitate to question the nature of humans who kill for the sake of killing, so why not extend our curiosity to god(s)?

TONY: By the way, I do agree to a certain extent that self-interest is the root of evil. Though, I see it as a specific variety of self-interest rather than self-interest as a whole.

By "predatory self-interest" I mean pursuing one’s own ends regardless of the effects on others. I find it difficult to think of any sort of evil that does not follow this pattern, as laid down long before humans brought it to such a fine art.