Unfortunately life on this planet aint wonderful at all. Everybody suffers, disintegrates and dies.

Being alive is wonderful. Even pain is wonderful — and almost always preferable to non-existence. Don’t forget that our bodies create pain for our benefit — for the goal of staying alive. So no matter what any of us may think about it, our bodies have already determined that life is worth the price of pain.

Our bodies implicitly know that what lies after death is not preferable to what exists now while we live. The common sense conclusion from this is that death is not desirable for an organism so long as its life is still viable. (There are exceptions, particularly with social species where, sometimes, individual deaths can benefit those who remain. But even in these cases, the evident goal is to maximize life.)

Yes, everything gets eaten, and that certainly tells us there is no “perfect God”. But we also know that getting eaten is not to be desired. Death holds no value. Only staying alive is valuable. When we get to the point that staying alive is no longer possible, our bodies naturally bring the pain to an end and we die.

And if you really observe “nature” it is a horrific universal death machine which is completely indifferent to the well-being and survival of any and every form, especially biological forms.

Nature is not a “universal death machine” any more than it is a universal life machine. Nature isn’t “indifferent” nor is it caring. Nature, as you know, is just an abstraction we use for everything around us. It is not a being, doesn’t have consciousness; nature, as a personification, doesn’t “do” anything. You look around yourself, John, and you see “universal death”. But death is undesirable only because life is possible. If there were no such thing as life, then to complain about a “universal death machine” would make no sense.

It is only because something valuable and wonderful exists, life, that non-existence can be seen negatively. Life is something remarkable, something above and beyond non-existence, something which did not have to be. And yet life happens and happens only for the living.

That it comes to an end only ratifies its extreme value. In that sense, death is needed to make life wonderful. Pain is necessary for the same reason. I think you’ve been looking at this all wrong.

Everything that the universe/world gives “birth” to or “creates” is eaten.
The Hindu image of the Goddess Kali says it all—”she” (the Goddess) that “creates” everything is a blood-thirsty bitch who devours her babies for breakfast.

These three references give a much more realistic account of what life on this planet is really all about.

1. http://www.dabase.org/dualsens.htm
2. http://www.easydeathbook.com
3. http://adidam.org/death_and_dying/index.html