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To: D-fendr
A question for you on the large scale, with perhaps a bit of theodicy thrown in: Do you believe this is the best of all possible worlds (universes)?

I think most of my previous reply had theodicy thrown in there. My answer to your question is: I can imagine better, but I am not sure if is possible, never mind "necessary."

1,523 posted on 07/22/2010 7:02:15 AM PDT by kosta50 (The world is the way it is even if YOU don't understand it)
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To: kosta50
I can imagine better, but I am not sure if is possible

Usually the improvements we imagine have negative consequences to the whole.

If, for example, you remove those exploding stars, there would be nothing past the basic elements, and no earth and no us. We're composed of the result of past violent massive explosions.

If we remove mutations that result in all manner of disease, we remove the engine of speciation and all the positive results of "good" mutation. If we remove pain, we remove key information for survival. If we remove the capacity for evil, we remove the capacity for good.

It's all a package deal, the way the world works; remove a piece and the whole doesn't work, we end up with chaotic nothing. Opposites are part of the whole, both are necessary for anything to come into existence.

Humans still have the option to opt out of the who system.

Still the default for humanity is compassion. While evil and lies and ugliness exist, goodness, truth and beauty are favored by the cosmos.

The alternative is random nothingness, I can imagine that. But it would not be the best of possible world, it would mean no world possible.

1,538 posted on 07/22/2010 10:58:18 AM PDT by D-fendr (Deus non alligatur sacramentis sed nos alligamur.)
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