ABEL\'S UNIVERSE (General)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Saturday, November 19, 2011, 01:51 (4563 days ago) @ Abel
edited by unknown, Saturday, November 19, 2011, 02:02

What you are describing is exactly what DHW was calling predatory self-interest. i.e. satisfying your own interest regardless of the cost.

The Elohim (angels) eat food processed from vegetable sources. So they are vegetarian.

This is a direct contradiction to your entire theory, in which you state that your 'gods', angels or whatever you call them arose from a highly predatorial environment.

dhw: "Of course life and Nature are based on the concept of equilibrium, but you don’t need predation for equilibrium, for suffering, or for death. (Thank you, Tony, for proving the point.)"

I have read Balance_Maintained's hypothesis and I disagree, the system you propose would not achieve homeostasis, but rather teeter-totter between extremes creating extinction events and reducing biodiversity to just a handful of species. Then one world-wide extinction event and the whole biosphere is lost. Since I have reams of empiric evidence on my side, the continued efforts of our ecologists and scientific communities as well as our governments to maintain our biodiversity, it seems you should take your hypothesis to them. Perhaps you can save us all a lot of time and money.

Ok. We have pointed this out in other posts, but I will reiterate it here. Do not simply say "I have reams of empirical evidence" and then not produce any. Secondly, current ecologist and scientist are working in a world that has already been thrown wildly out of balance by mankind. If Mankind was removed entirely out of the equation, the world would re-balance itself over time. Lastly, I did not say that things wouldn't teeter-totter. I said that the system is self-righting. Over the course of time it would eventually setting into a much more stable precession, but the process would involve gradualistic changes in birth rates etc.

And dhw, if you ever saw what was left of a child who was born without the ability to suffer (feel pain), then you would not wonder why there was suffering. You would see that a child who feels no pain doesn't understand why he/she shouldn't gouge their eyes out, or put their hand into flame. Those who have lost the ability to feel pain because of Hanson's Disease (leprosy) understand their need to suffer. As now they must survey every inch of their body for injury every day.

Or perhaps you'd feel better if we felt no cold and did not seek warmth, or did not feel the heat so did not seek the shade. If we felt no hunger, would we not starve? There is a need for suffering or it would not exist.

And this is exactly the point I was making in counter to your argument that the survival instinct was the root of evil, and DHWs refinement of your claim by saying that predatory self-interest(as defined above) was the root of all that is evil. So, if the survival instinct, of which pain, pleasure, hunger, and a myriad of other sensations are ancillary, is the root of all evil, then by your logic the only true pure souls would be those that felt nothing, including the desire to live. By extension, the only righteous thing is a dead thing.

--
What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.