The common denominator between all religions is not even creation, but the question of why there is suffering.
Intuitively, a perfect existence would have everything in its place with no need to do anything therefore there would be no suffering.
But there is movement and there is a devil or whatever you want to use to characterize suffering. In fact, everything starting from its very conception begins to suffer to various degrees as time goes on.
So let's ask the question. Is suffering an indicator that God is imperfect? Is it an indicator of an alternative creator of the physical world that is not God?
And what do we do about suffering? Like the Buddhist we live minimalist? Or like the Catharies we sit it out to starve ourselves?
The degree of suffering is variable to everything conceived and it is built into its conception, like a demonic possession.
So here is the basic universal question. What do we do about it.
Laws don't help because they just result in bureaucratic random effect on suffering.
Churches of various religions may be better but they don't get very far either because of doctrinal self trapping.
So let's have a free association of thoughts, what can be done about suffering?
Oh, I can do free association well, great! Fascinating topic that something can be done about human suffering.
The first thing that came to mind is that two people can have the exact same things happen to them in life, let's say a doppleganger even, and one could have a 50% amount of suffering while the other reports a 25% level of suffering. Why do you think that is? I'm guessing some of us are just wired differently, but also I happen to know that sometimes a person is more dramatic, or less, than others about feeling how much they've suffered in life. A common measure for pain at the ER is scaled from a 0-10 and there is little doubt two people suffering from the same level of pain for same condition will score their pain quite differently.
A Buddhist might say that all pain in inevitable, and that suffering is optional. That sounds very promising, but I'm wondering if that tiny Buddha writer has had say, pancreatic cancer ,and still maintain that position. Possibly so.
As far as where we are now with reducing human suffering, we're currently making strides to accomplish that (if only our ethical decision making could keep the pace). There are numerous advancements related to pain reduction (suffering) on the horizon for reversing the process of aging. In Israel, they've discovered how to use pure oxygen to reverse, not just stall, but to reverse aging. I read also about "age refresher machines' that are also being funded to include organs, cells, and another company will freeze your dead body for $200,000 bucks.
Death scares a lot of people, even the idea of death, and even for some believers who still want to live longer on Earth. We want life and a long one. Now, had we been given a normal life span of 200 years, most humans would still wish for more. So maybe in that way, suffering serves a purpose that in the latter years people suffer more pain, and the idea of leaving Earth and their families is more accepted.
If human suffering can be defeated, it could be done with age reversal techniques, freezing dead bodies to later unfreeze at a much later date when unheard of procedures will be commonplace (sounds risky but I'm not a scientist and I'm thinking from a 2020 perspective), and the additive of human-machine symbiosis.
The Future Machines of the Year 2100
Since these strategies to find the fountain of youth are currently evolving so quickly, it's still hard to imagine that a machine will be able to turn a 40 year old into 25 year old, or 60 year old into 30. If people have the means, it will be on the market and available.
DARPA told
Popular Mechanics that war could soon use “an unprecedented degree of human-machine symbiosis...with interfaces between these powerful systems and their human operators as seamless as possible.” Machines going to war (assuming there will still be war) would prevent all kinds of horrendous suffering.
DARPA told
Popular Mechanics that war could soon use “an unprecedented degree of human-machine symbiosis...with interfaces between these powerful systems and their human operators as seamless as possible.” Machines going to war (assuming there will still be war) would prevent all kinds of horrendous suffering.
Editing note: I cannot find the original link but this one covers it well.
What will the world be like in 2100? - Humane Future of Work
Considering your remarks about movement and relating that to high risk, catastrophic consequences from manipulating our atmosphere is described in better detail than I can in the following linked article, although on a much smaller scale we've been doing that for years, but not with swarms of hundreds of drones in the sky at the same time leaving dust particles in the air. That will be one of the costs for exploring things we've yet to do.
I wanted to add that I'm not backing people playing God when it comes to certain procedures. That said, however, if a person is suffering and it can be reduced or eliminated medically, by all means do it.
I used to have a lot more faith than I do now about a Creator of life, but it's even harder for me to understand how everything, so perfectly fitting with a multitude of specific measures (exact distance between Earth and Sun to work right) in the grand scheme of things, and to believe that it all just happened by some random energy event takes just as much faith imo.
