The universe exists to give us the opportunity to be selfless caregivers for our fellow human beings or be callous or even predatory towards those we deem "other" or "lesser". This why we each are born with a sense of morality, however molded from culture to culture and manifest from person to person, except in the rare cases of people, like Lee, that have physical pathologies that hinder it.
The non-pathological of us each have the free will to choose to self-evolve ourselves during our lives towards greater compassion for all those around ourselves, or to selfishly gather as much material pleasure as we can for ourselves regardless of the cost to others, be it monetary, emotional, or physical.
We are all actively evolving ourselves every day of our lives, for better or worse, even if all it amounts to is repetitively strengthening one's already accepted habits and attitudes. The exception being when disease or tragedy takes away our ability to rationally choose, as happens with people such as Lee. That is where compassion from our fellow human beings is part of the potential we must each welcome, for such is the moral requirement of being a human being.
We have been given what is both a great gift and a great responsibility with our free will and the mind required to learn and wield it justly and for the benefit of the whole and not just some preferred sub-group.
God is not a white man (full-disclosure: white guy here); It didn't give us free will only to then take it back from us because that means we can become, for example, callous, self-serving, corrupt, power-seeking, hypocritical fake-Christian deceivers of men.
No. The polarity of our morality extends to whichever direction the person can imagine. That is why we are both treasured above all creation and capable of the most brutal of atrocities.
We are free to be good or evil and that means we are also free to not give a fuck.
I don't think anyone has the perspective to make a definitive judgement like that. The situation could be like a young child judging his parents to be cruel and uncaring for making him go to school, which he dislikes. There could be unknowns that would change the judgement if understood.
It feels a little bit condescending to compare the amount of suffering caused by things like dementia to an unruly kid who doesn't want to go to school.
> It feels a little bit condescending to compare the amount of suffering caused by things like dementia to an unruly kid who doesn't want to go to school.
It wasn't a comparison, but an attempt to illustrate how things may look different based on your knowledge and understanding. Obviously such an illustration is going to be trivial compared to the real thing, since you have to substitute something simple that everyone knows for something no one does.
This is known as the "problem of evil" and has intrigued philosophers and theologians for centuries. There are quite a few responses to the problem[0] though it's up to you to decide if they're convincing or not.
