I see I'm a little late to the party, may I join in with some observations?
Since the fundamentals have been dispensed with, I will forgo my opinions for the moment. I have found an interesting line of thought here that coincides with my current line of investigation. Please accept my post as much in the form of a question as statement, as what I have written here are only thoughts.
Pseudonymous, I hope you will forgive me for pulling a collection of your posts for the sake of discussion. It's late, so I am going to approach this randomly. I hope it will make sense in the end.
as humans, all we really have to contemplate our reality is the "as above, so below" rosetta stone. for a truth to be a absolute truth, it must reflect all the way up and all the way down. this tool has always been one of my greatest assets in discovering the mechanics of the unknown. it has also been a way for exploration using what logic & reason we have...our ability to imagine stems from reflecting on the known as to how it might point to the unknown.
I see you looking outward, as I am looking back. Therefore, if "as above, so below", then let us consider. First, we both recognize that we can only speculate, neither of us has any firm proof. Since that has been dispensed with, allow me to postulate.
The creatures that were to become man at an early stage of development had no cognitive ability, and were not capable of rational thought. Suffering, to them, wouldn't exist in any sense we are familiar with, merely a prelude to certain death. Somehow, somewhere, sometime, increasingly supported by archeological evidences, man gained rational thought. Along with that rational thought, archeologically simultaneously, he also gained tools, weapons, primitive social morality, likely communication, and spiritual awareness. With this dawning compassion, came what we could call suffering. That is, fighting through the pain to keep on existing for the sake of those you "loved" and for the sake of those who "loved" you.
i think evil is not applicable in my perceptions. more like obsolete, as i think it was a vehicle for consciousness to evolve within. and if consciousness had evolved to the point of experiencial knowing that it was not the vehicle it evolved within, then it would be obsolete.
This dealt with a question as to whether or not nature was evil. Nature is nature (yeah, that's really profound...LOL). It is neither good nor bad, yet it is both. Chi requires chi, life feeds on life. That is the circle of life, and depending on your vantage, whether you are eating supper or being eaten for supper, is whether or not it seems good or bad. But stepping back from that vantage, it is simply the way it is. It is satisfying the natural bodily mechanisms for converting "food" into "energy".
if self awareness, as described in my perceptions, is the goal (whether consciously or an effect) of this evolution, then nature would be a huge distraction in the least, but likewise up to the present evolution, a necessary sensual tool to have gotten us here collectively.
Certainly, pain induces fight or flight responses. While animals have been known to survive while injured (such as the bear that roams the woods somewhere south of here dragging a broken leg), typically such injuries are a prelude to becoming somebody's lunch. Suffering, then, is quite limited in the natural order of things, existing primarily in humans. I will go along with the argument about suffering being a component of self-awareness (dawning of conscious rational reasoning), but I am inclined to think it is not the primary one, or even a significant one.
i would state that it is nerve endings that define suffering and/or pain. there seems ample evidence that pain and suffering are a universal of all sentient forms that have a nervous system.
it is a considerable amount of contemplation and reasoning which returns me to the original post. i notice everyone tends to answer human-centrically, as if we were here since the first single celled organism decided to dine on its neighbor. pain and suffering, existing perhaps for billions of years, in countless experiences, exposes a not so nice deity...which of course might be the case. but to say that any conscious being would allow such a billions of year stretch so that humans could come along and learn from it seems arrogant in the least.
Biologically, these two statements contradict each other at the elemental stages. If nerves are required for pain (and physical suffering) then single celled creatures would not feel pain. At best some simple creatures have an instinctive reflex for survival reasons. But nervous systems are not developed until much farther up the chain, reducing the billions of years to perhaps 1 billion at best (I would have to consult the chart). Simple nervous systems I believe were primarily reflex and musculature, pain receptors did not form until much later.
Since the law of the jungle, fight or flight, survival of the fittest was required by nature to balance the "orgy of bloodlust" (I believe is how you phrased it) necessary for survival (sustenance, chi requires chi), pain was probably an inducement to stay alive. That is, when overwhelmed by pain, the creature was no longer in a state to survive. Now, I see it could be argued about parasitic feedings (worms, disease, flesh eating maggots) that might cause discomfort that could be termed suffering. But if that suffering became overwhelming rather than nuisance, or the effects of parasitism overwhelming, then once again that critter becomes supper for someone.
As humans, it is not natural for us to want to view anything other than in a human-centric manner. That is our point of reference, and it is to that that we must return, until the spirit passes to its next vantage of reality.
this is exactly what my contemplations over the past several months have been about. is the duality the cause, or is it an effect of evolution of awareness? is there a deity behind the duality, or it is a natural and inherent manifestation of sentient life? evolution has, whether by design or not, led us to experiencially know (for some) that consciousness exists beyond the physical body's demise...that the body is but a vehicle for consciousness, and not consciousness itself.
When all is said and done, I don't think this collective line of reasoning points to whether or not "God" is "conscious". I have my personal inclinations, which I have deliberately avoided for this thought exercise. Logically, God, consciously or unconsciously, could create such a self-sustaining enterprise as nature. Just as well logically, nature "just happened." Likewise, logically, good and evil as such might not exist. Of course, I think the collected experiences of the multitudes of humans through the centuries would tend to negate such a contention.
Some matters are probably best left to individual experience. Experience is not always the most pleasant teacher, but her lessons are seldom forgotten by anyone with a lick of sense.
P.S. I found some of the "suffering beyond the body" concepts intriguing, another line of thought for another day.
P.P.S. I like your e.e.cummings writing style, it takes getting used to though.
