Theodicies

I guess it just exceeds my "boggle threshold". Just one objection would be the Intelligent Design one. Presumably, ultimately, Consciousness is an immaterial essence imbued into matter for a purpose by the Designer(s), and that intelligent purpose starts with the Designer(s)' desire for living organisms to carry this consciousness into the world in order to experience the world, manipulate and interact with it, and make a life in it. Bacterial consciousness would not seem to be part of this manifestation.

It seems to me that there must be some level in the tree of life below which the complexity and level of abilities of the "body" becomes insufficient for consciousness to make sense, and that would be somewhere between insects and bacteria.

I guess to me it seems trying to explain why the the Designer(s) did something is quite difficult. Most of this universe is a cold empty void, and the stretches between worlds that have sentient life are so vast we might never make clear contact with extraterrestrials.

A great deal of life on earth itself involves what seems like purposeless suffering and the allowance of great evil through history.

A bacteria seems to be as much a viable choice for a soul to experience the physical as an insect or rodent, if these same souls are willing to be born into abject poverty where they have a strong chance of experiencing the evils of this life?

Regarding my statement that the focus should prioritize ending the cruelty of factory farms over the idea that humanity will become vegan, I was talking in terms of strategy.

One day humanity may completely remove itself from eating animals, but my suspicion is this won't happen until lab grown meat is widely available...and even then many will refuse it.

However I do think, given veganism's success from a mocked subculture to many restaurants offering vegan options, that it might one day be possible. But in the current time period I think even many meat eaters would join in the fight against factory farming.

I hope that clarifies what I was trying to say, though you may still disagree.

Regarding the nature of this reality and the Designers...I agree with you that it feels like something has gone wrong. Not in the Gnostic sense that evil forces completely control this reality but perhaps more like a solar powered smart building that has been overrun by Nature. It still somewhat works as intended, but many parts don't function with their original intention.

This feels the most logical to me, as I don't think this world is exactly like a prison but neither is it a school or gym or anything else that yields more reliable positive results for participants.

I do suspect that the Designer(s) of this reality are not the One who is the Ground of Being...though I am not sure what said One is doing to alleviate all the suffering on our world that I presume exists to some degree across realities...

I agree that the Designer(s) have accomplished miracles of intricate irreducibly complex designs in physical biology and nature, and presumably also in the design of the other, spiritual realms, but from the human standpoint the Earthly physical design part of this design is sadly flawed by the prevelance of great amounts of suffering. I might just comment that this quality of experience dichotomy between the physical and spiritual realms does seem to be a mystery, how many deep NDEs seem to get a glimpse of a very much better place in spirit - an afterlife of brilliant joy and love and impossibly bright light usually of a Being of some kind, and how many spontaneous episodes and moments of "Cosmic Consciousness" as explored some time ago by Bucke also seemed to reveal a transcendentally good spiritual reality.

If the Designer(s) as very high, powerful and superintelligent being(s) (although of course not perfect) did both acts of creative design, then there must have been some sort of plan behind the effort, and it would be interesting to speculate on its nature. There is the old question of whether all the rampant innocent suffering of this world is an intended part of the plan, or mistakes in the design, or mostly inevitable tradeoffs considering all the multiple diverse design requirements. My personal opinion is that it is mostly inevitable design tradeoffs, as explained briefly in my theodicy posted a while ago. If this is the case then the Designer(s) didn't make mistakes - they merely accomplished the best of possible worlds to beings of their powerful but ultimately limited nature: the combined continuum of the physical and the spiritual/transcendent.

I agree that the Designer(s) have accomplished miracles of intricate irreducibly complex designs in physical biology and nature, and presumably also in the design of the other, spiritual realms, but from the human standpoint the Earthly physical design part of this design is sadly flawed by the prevelance of great amounts of suffering. I might just comment that this quality of experience dichotomy between the physical and spiritual realms does seem to be a mystery, how many deep NDEs seem to get a glimpse of a very much better place in spirit - an afterlife of brilliant joy and love and impossibly bright light usually of a Being of some kind, and how many spontaneous episodes and moments of "Cosmic Consciousness" as explored some time ago by Bucke also seemed to reveal a transcendentally good spiritual reality.

If the Designer(s) as very high, powerful and superintelligent being(s) (although of course not perfect) did both acts of creative design, then there must have been some sort of plan behind the effort, and it would be interesting to speculate on its nature. There is the old question of whether all the rampant innocent suffering of this world is an intended part of the plan, or mistakes in the design, or mostly inevitable tradeoffs considering all the multiple diverse design requirements. My personal opinion is that it is mostly inevitable design tradeoffs, as explained briefly in my theodicy posted a while ago. If this is the case then the Designer(s) didn't make mistakes - they merely accomplished the best of possible worlds to beings of their powerful but ultimately limited nature: the combined continuum of the physical and the spiritual/transcendent.

I agree that it gets very confusing and frustrating when we try to reconcile the suffering of this world with the accounts of mystics, mediums, and NDErs who tell us something incredible awaits us.

I do agree there were probably some trade-offs, or limitations of the Designer(s). The fact that much of our universe is a massive void - something that I believe is rarely corroborated in descriptions of the afterlife - makes me think this reality is made by Demiurge type entities where as Reality as a Whole was made by the One. Though the exact nature of the One is elusive, and I'm not 100% sure It is conscious as we would understand consciousness...

[Laird]

The previous five posts have been moved into this thread from the Do plants have minds? thread as discussed there in the posts starting here.