To me, the answer is that pain down here is of no concern at all to the beings above this level. They can take no sadistic pleasure in it because it is irrelevant to them -- it is like a story from a distant land. Even for the animal in question it is unpleasant and maybe unbearable, but it is relevant only in the moment, and once it passes or the animal dies, it has no further influence.

Godzillatemple, Comment one reveals one explanation. Notice the first two words ---"To me" found in the very first post too! This is the same as saying that this is my opinion. I have no facts to back it up. I made it up because it makes sense in my mind from what I know or think is the truth.

Thank you, Aguazul for your perfect illustration.

If someone is not fully informed of all the details of a situation, they will try to fill in the blanks with what they think is true.

Certainly a good and loving God would not design living beings that would eat each other and cause a slow and agonizing death to others for their own benefit. Certainly a wise, intelligent being would not design a vegus nerve of a giraffe to run the entire length of its neck loop back around near the heart and then travel back up the neck again. A wise engineer would change the design so that it would travel the optimum way of a few inches across.

It is difficult for people to imagine "no cause" because we cannot even imagine the amount of time that has passed for an change to occur. We see the results of the passing of a massive amount of time, but not the effort, changes, adaptations. We see the accumulation of centuries of advanced knowledge. We cannot see thirty or forty thousand years of slow adaptation and advancement. We have nothing to compare the time. We walk into a grand building and marvel at the skill and intelligence needed to accomplish the task, and attribute it to a higher being. Yet many centuries ago, people invented the post and lintel, a relatively simplistic form of construction. Knowledge was built upon and eventually the complexity of knowledge grew. If we reversed time, the primordial soup seems less exciting. How would a God character regulate the behavior of such a simplistic and unruly lot?

I have met several people who recall going to their local university and using a computer that took up the entire building. Then as technology advanced, the size was reduced to a room. They used bulky tape to record information, a lower 'life form" compared to my flash drive that hold 8G. This recordable device is flawed by today's standards, but it was the best thing going. I understand that my first mac was powerful enough to launch a rocket to the moon. This technology was created and manipulated, so we assume the same about evolution. The difference is that engineers and designers today take into account the optimum way to accomplish a task. Nature does not.