(March 9, 2021 at 7:38 am)possibletarian Wrote: There is absolutely no evidence that the earth was ever more friendly to its occupants, in fact their is evidence that it was much less friendly and had extinction level events even before humanity appeared.
This makes me wonder how we apply the idea of perfection to the world. How do we judge?
I think the word "perfect" can probably be applied in two ways. If we talk about "a perfect circle," it means that the example we have in mind meets exactly a precise definition. But if we say "a perfect cup of coffee," we mean that it has the all qualities we like in coffee and none of those we don't. The first usage can't be debated. But the second is based on desire, and if someone disagrees we have no objective grounds for argument.
To say that the world is imperfect seems to me to be of the second type. It means that the world isn't the way we WANT it to be. But why should it be what we want? And why do we assume that our desires are at all important to an omniscient being? I understand that we really really don't want there to be cancer in children, but again, saying that such things make the world imperfect is merely to say that we don't LIKE it.
In the old days people used to value humility, and were willing to admit that maybe they didn't have the capacity to judge. Humility is very much out of fashion now, so we all seem to assume that our own desires are what an omniscient being would do if there were one.
