Words too unkind for a mother (of a different kind)

Someone once told me that they saw nature as a "disgusting" system that rewarded organisms for adopting an every-thing-for-itself modus operandus. While agreeing with the basics of what was said -- nature can be a "cruel" mistress, and it does revolve around death and killing -- I, on the other hand, see it as a staggeringly beautiful system partly because this cruelty needs to exist in order to create all the incredible diversity we see around us -- including intelligent folk like us, who can then sit around and contemplate how contemptuous and disgusting it is.