> The idea is that God -- being good -- would never have intended nature to be full of violence and deception
That is interesting, I was not aware of it. It is kind of the opposite in Hindu philosophy. There is this idea of 'matsya nyana' which roughly translates to 'survival of the fittest' or 'law of the jungle' (it literally means bigger fish eats smaller fish) and the stories say that being civilized means that men must conquer this inherent desire for conquest and violence. When things go bad men behave like animals and destroy one another.
That is interesting, I was not aware of it. It is kind of the opposite in Hindu philosophy. There is this idea of 'matsya nyana' which roughly translates to 'survival of the fittest' or 'law of the jungle' (it literally means bigger fish eats smaller fish) and the stories say that being civilized means that men must conquer this inherent desire for conquest and violence. When things go bad men behave like animals and destroy one another.