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Atheists & Agnostics

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Duppers

(28,270 posts)
Sat Oct 5, 2019, 02:20 AM Oct 2019

The inherent cruelty of nature [View all]

"I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged onto a half-submerged log. As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split, and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children. And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

- Terry Pratchett in "Unseen Academical"





I didn't know quite where to post this but knew folks who occasionally read here might also appreciate my aversion to both deities and predation, no matter the beast - human or otherwise.
Here, Sir Terence Pratchett decries them both.



12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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That's not evil Cartoonist Oct 2019 #1
Yeah, except humans dine on other humans too Auggie Oct 2019 #3
Language needs polar opposites to define words. safeinOhio Oct 2019 #2
A reminder of a definition of "evil" Duppers Oct 2019 #4
This reminds me of my own response to a blog post DavidDvorkin Oct 2019 #5
Nature at it's best, the ever fragile food chain mountain grammy Oct 2019 #6
Mother and children dining upon mother and children Farmer-Rick Oct 2019 #7
You understand. If there were a "god." Duppers Oct 2019 #8
True. Farmer-Rick Oct 2019 #9
Same as it ever was.... Bayard Oct 2019 #10
+100 Duppers Jan 2020 #11
nature is not cruel.. nature is not kind... uriel1972 Jan 2020 #12
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