By the way, I know you were considering making a thread about the whole mythological angle, kind of a C.S. Lewis argument from world religion. That's an approach I'd really like to see, what with the whole "literally a pagan" thing I've got going on.
Might still do so, but it would be a long OP, which might get lost in rambling...
Apologies in advance.
On topic, are you taking the existence of natural evil in the direction of a self-forging theodicy? The natural world must be as it is if the ultimate telos is to produce morally responsible creatures. I am seeing shades of that here, though I may just be projecting my own line of reasoning upon what you're saying. The only difference might be that I take a very hard Christus Victor approach to theology and say that everything must be restored and renewed, not simply our own nature, or no reconciliation is possible.
Not entirely. Must it be so? I don't know, but it certainly seems to be as it is, and morally responsible creatures resulted. As I said previously though, I don't really hold to the concept of Natural Evil at all, as Evil is based on volition and consciousness, claiming to be 'as gods' when knowledge of Good and Evil was gained. Suffering need not be 'evil' as even a 'good' in excess becomes a vice. It has a role, which in itself, might procure good, a crucible burning off the dross like a Purgatory. The Christian view is certainly that Christ's Passion was a ineffable Good, being Salvific, though horridly painful and terrible suffering, and a product of human evil.
Years ago, I read a book on the Vikings that had an illustration of an early mediaeval crucifix. Christ is shown crowned, eyes open staring forward, and triumphant on the cross. While I understand what they were trying to depict, I've always thought it a jarring and unnatural depiction. Christ overcoming Death and restoring and renewing the entire Creation, has a wonderful Milton-esque quality, lifting up man and beast. I don't know what nature the New Earth would have, but I am sure a lot of what we think is in error about it. My Lewisian soul likes the idea as found in Great Divorce, that as we become more real as we move closer to God, is within an element of transformation, and what such transformation on earth is free of pain? The very water and grass is unbearable, until they move in deeper. In like manner is the Orthodox idea that Heaven and Hell are just a different experience of God's energy and emanation. Not that I think pain is good of itself, nor that pain would be there in the end. I just think it is a nuanced and difficult thing, and the Christus Victor of ending sin and suffering is itself not clear in terms - for Christ has Conquered, yet Sin and Death still holds us in bondage in the here and now. Even if the early Church often held this theory of Atonement, they still saw us suffering with Christ, that the martyr was exalted by being Christ-like. We overcome in Christ to be the dead-in-Christ. The theodicy is perhaps of suffering subsumed within Christ, victory via Christ, that we win by enduring with Him. But who can say?
Relieving pain is my daily bread, but it actually doesn't exist outside a sense as the experential. In medical terms, Pain is defined as a subjective experience by the patient. There are no good monitors for it, as even EEG or vital statistics have poor correlation to reported pain. Not even mentioning mental anguish. We recognise it in others by projection or self-reporting, in animals by anthropomorphisation from signs indicitive of it in humans. This is why some people argued animals felt no pain, or babies for that matter, until quite recently. Nothing changed but our interpretation of signs here. I don't deny pain, but it is intricately bound to the experience thereof, not the observation thereof. Pain shows something is wrong, something must change - could it even exist outside a framework of lack, need and imperfection? Perhaps the same stimuli after the Parousia, might just not be recognised as such? I am speculating here, but therein may lie the sacrilegious in Sado-Masochism, upon which it draws to pervert the natural order.
This is a good point. Nietzsche pushes too far in the opposite direction, prioritizing conflict over cooperation to the point of evolutionary disadvantage, but my underlying question is whether or not Christianity does the opposite, favoring compassion and cooperation to an unhealthy degree.
(Of course, there is also the underlying issue of whether Christianity does any such thing. We focus on the apparent meakness of it these days, but there's a lot of steel beneath the surface there. And a lot of misinterpretation. Perhaps the conflict between evolution and Christianity involves a misreading of both.)
If all acted with Christian charity, we'd have a Paradise. Humans though, create a lot of our suffering ourselves. We that are comfortable, rest higher up in a pyramid of suffering or grand cycle, built upon the poor and labouring - though we still each diffuse suffering in all directions. This is the point in Brothers Karamazov of Mitya and the little peasant children in his dream, or Father Zosima saying how we are all guilty. This is anti-evolutionary, for each working for himself, ultimately builds an unstable pyramid in which the lower will resent or destroy the other, or will descend lower within it. A true Christian society would put a true communist utopia to shame.
It depends where we place the onus of Evolution, whether we see it from the perspective of an individual gene or a broader perspective. Is it purely a process of genes propogating themselves, or the survival of animals or species or kinds or Life in entire?
It is because we are assuming the negative view of creation, of nature as evil, red in tooth and claw and selfish. We assume cheaters abusing the good graces of the cooperative, thus gaining for himself, but this only works up to a point - the boy can only cry wolf so many times. An absolutely cooperative society would be better for all, such as we see in bees or ants. For though we talk of queens and workers, there is no real hierarchy there. The very fact of Selfish Genes is hopelessly anthropomorphic. For the cheater out for himself to prosper, there must be so many working for the good of all, the parent or the giving. The classic Prisoner's dilemma. So I don't really know how cooperation can be to an 'unhealthy' degree, for the cheater is the one parasiting on the success of his species as whole, to further his own genes. In so doing, if he is too successful, his strategy collapses and cooperation ceases in entirety - to the detriment of the species as a whole. Such cheaters put stress on the success of the species, so that it is less resilient to external problems, and evolutionarily one can never go it alone, as you require mates to procreate and a genepool of sufficient depth to keep doing so.
The idea perhaps is that the old order is tyrannical, holding back necessary innovation, so individual action must be permitted. This is true, that renewal must occur, but there is no reason such development need be inimical to cooperation either.
In Christianity, I don't think it clear that your own genes are disadvantaged in the long run. Mediaeval nobles employed Almoners to distribute alms in their name, and the Church has always run orphanages and hospitals. Working for the good of all, all gain. You can cheat the system certainly, with gain for yourself and your children, but for your line to survive if you perpetually do so, I think unlikely. Regardless, the point of Christianity is not evolutionary advantage, but Salvation. The kingdom is not of this world.
I mean I care about this less than I did a couple days ago and am unlikely to really push back with the hard pagan angle that I was planning 48 hours ago. The Christian apologists seem to have won. The modern concept of progress does not work outside of the Christian context. I ended my self-imposed exile from the Christian-only sections here yesterday, because I could no longer reconcile my revelation-free Platonism with my eschatologically tinged politics. I'd prefer the real thing, no matter how apparently crazy it is, to the safer option that only gets me half of the way there. (Well, at least until my mood changes, that is. 
But if there's ever intellectual assent, it'll be over Christianity's progressive vision of the unfolding of history.)
