>>All those actions existed in the animal world long before man. So, did a loving creator create/force/coerce these actions in the animals?<<
I believe God purposely created animals as predator and victim right from the beginning, as a representation of what was happening in heaven.
>>And how can you blame humans for the same actions?<<
Are you saying because many of the instinctual animals were created as hunter and hunted, thinking humans can do it too with no recourse? I wonder what Adam thought as he observed a created world of predator and prey?
Satan keeps walking around like a roaring lion, seeking to devour someone...
Which came first? Satan as a devourer? Or the created predator? I believe Satan came first.
Satan the serpent. Which came first, the animal or the slimy slippery cunning spiritual being? I believe Satan came first. His image and likeness came later.
I have a sense that the animal kingdom was created after the Satanic rebellion in heaven, as a likeness of what was going on in heaven between spirit creatures and God and what was to come in the physical creation of mankind.
I do not believe that spirit creatures can be "devoured" as in annihilated as humans can, but were "eaten" by Satan in the sense of being torn from God's side and used to keep alive and support his evil "I Am A God" trip.
>>The Bible, in error I believe, states at Genesis 1:30 that all creation ate green vegetation before Adam.<<
It does not say that. It says green vegetation was given to all animals to eat. It does not say all creation just ate vegetation. Look:
Gen 1:30
30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground--everything that has the breath of life in it--I give every green plant for food."
>>This is patently untrue. The writer (Moses?) was ignorant of the existence of dinasours waaaay before his time and the supposed time of Genesis.<<
Predator and prey were created from the beginning by God. Spiders since creation always spun webs to cocoon their prey and suck out the life juices. Sharks since creation have always eaten meat. Snakes, since their creation, always snuck up on their prey and swallowed them whole. Lobsters were created with them big fat crunching claws for one thing only, crack the shells of the other crustaceans it was going to have as a meal. Whales always ate plankton, etc, etc, etc...That's the way God planned it, that's the way God meant it to be.
Even inside my body at the cellular level are predator and prey. The body was created EXACTLY like the heavens. GOOD and BAD. Good cells attack the bad cells. Antibodies are PREDATORS on the bad. VIRUSES and BACTERIA are predators on the GOOD.
The physical world was created in a heavenly environment of GOOD AND BAD. I believe the physical creation mirrors what's above.
>>The dinasours were every bit as "evil" (predatory and their prey) as animals always have been.<<
God created it (predator and prey) that way for a reason. So we would know what the deal was in heaven.
>>So, "evil," if I've defined it right, has always existed as long as there has been life on this earth.<<
Evil existed as the being Satan before Genesis 1:1. The physical creation was a representation of the violent discord that the heavens were thrown into by Satan. The symbols of serpent and lamb are perfect for the two who were at odds before Genesis 1:1.
I see this:
The Lamb (Christ) is eaten whole by the snake. Little did the snake know that this particular lamb is going to eat him from the inside out.
>>This fits the evolution theory much better than a creator.<<
I believe creation was a physical picture of the heavens messed up by Satan. There were two created (Adam and Eve) in their (God's) image and likeness that were plopped down into a physical world of predator and prey, which was a depiction of the Father and Son in a heavenly rebellion. Adam and Eve were contaminated by the "evil" (Satan) around them that the physical world was created in the likeness of.
>>If you created life systems, would you have them viciously (and they are vicious) eat and hurt one another?<<
I surely would if I were trying to tell my physical creation what heaven was like with the existence of Satan in Adversary mode.
FOOD. In food is life. God created a world that also depicted the answer to this creation of good and bad. Things that die are food for the living.
Food is death. For everything alive, something else must die, whether it be plant or animal. The earth itself is BOUND OVER to a death cycle. Fertilizer is death. Fertlizer means life.
God created a world that NEEDED death to continue LIFE. That physical picture of death for life is Christ. The true food. Only by the death of the true food could life have any hope of continuing.
>>Surely you could come up with something kinder than that!<<
No, there was no kindness in creation at the time Genesis 1:1. As a matter of fact, it was in utter spiritual conflict and upheaval.
>>Even Isaiah said that that would be done away with (the wolf will lie down with the lamb, etc.). This highlights the offensiveness of the killing fields of nature.<<
It highlights that predator and prey shall end on earth as it will in heaven.
>>Evil exists in man because he has evolved from animals and that trait of utilizing another life to preserve your own has been there 'from the beginning' of evolution.<<
No, I believe evil exists in man as a result of evil's (Satan's) contaminating effect. God created things that infect by contamination (like yeast) in the image of Satan.
>>For what it's worth, my 2 cents,<<
"Two" cents is in the image and likeness of God.
