Don't worry Leavingwt, its all related, and your question brought up the ' its either God/abiogenesis ' statement. I'm off to look up abiogenesis, strangely enough I heard that it was mentioned in a demo at an assembly.. FRANKIESPEAKIN-- Thanks for that, I couldn't agree more personally. To be fair though, those who see God as the source of all things, who directly designed us, may think the idea of a God giving us qualities that he doesn't have sounds contradictory.. Kind of like a man born blind (and if he were the first man on earth with nobody/nothing to learn from) teaching his wife (the first woman, also blind) what colours/trees etc look like. How would he know what they looked like?
Theists, why does God allow suffering..
by The Quiet One 754 Replies latest watchtower bible
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bioflex
@The quite one: Let me start by asking you to define suffering in the context of your post, i see you mentioned animal suffering, well what about plant suffering too? when you buy that orange from the market and slice it up to fill your desire do you in any way feel the orange might have suffered? after all its a living thing too right? So why just concern yourself with animals?
Is it because plants cant make those sad faces? or perhaps because they dont have blood? If i am allowed to speak my mind, frankly i think most of you are acting hipocratically. Why are you pretending to care for animals all of a sudden?
If there is one thing i find intruiging, its how evoltion tries to clasify humans and animals as not so different, i mean dont they teach that we all stemed from the same ancestry way back in time? And i am not too familiar with the concept of evolution but if life started in a basic singular from then dont both animal and plants share the same ancestory? So its like
(Human = Animal = Plant) = Life(Billions of years back) . i could be wrong though but i think you get my point.
Now back to your question about why God allows suffering(animals specifically). If there is anything to be said i think the bible has quite detailed answers about your question, that is if you believe its credible enough for you.
Genesis 1: 30(KJV) = And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
That should give you an idea of how God intended things to be. Man and animals alike were not created carnivorous from the beginning, they were made to be herbivous from the start. And it was so till the falling away. One thing you should realize is that the earth was made for man, and man was to dominate it all. Any action of man did not just have effect on him alone, but on the earth and all that exist on it too.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was the enbodyment of all the principles of good and evil we experience today, violence, pain,suffering to name a few.
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cofty
bioflex - Clearly you didn't bother to read the thread before you posted.
Let's ignore the craziness of the first half of your post and concentrate on the second half which has been offered unsuccessfully as an answer numerous times already.
Man and animals alike were not created carnivorous from the beginning, they were made to be herbivous from the start. And it was so till the falling away.
Take just the one example of the cheetah. Every feature of its body is designed to catch prey and tear it apart. Its eyesight, hearing, camoflague, teeth, claws, skeleton, muscles and digestive system. Its very muscle fibers called myosin are of a particular type that permits it to accelerate to 60mph to catch its hapless victims.
So how many of these features did the cheetah have before the naked lady listened to the talking snake and ate the fruit?
Now ask yourself the same questions for every one of the millions of predator and parasitic species on the planet.
Your answer doesn't work for reasons I have explained at least four times now.
Why do believers so rarely try to really engage with a question? Its like listening to a JW with their robotic "Reasoning Book" answers.
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Qcmbr
The more you read the bible the more you realise that it simply tells the stories of gods inflicting pain and death on everyone else.
Adam an immortal being along with his immortal wife bring death to all life on earth (though of course the mythmakers knowing nothing of the microscopic world include no detail on how one could eat anything without some life at some level dying) and then another immortal being , God, repeatadly acts as a tyrant killing all those he decides to in a global flood and in various plagues, firestorms and human utilising genocides, then - immortals having failed in eden, failed to eradicate evil in the flood and having absolutely zero impact worldwide except on a bunch of goat munchers a few hundred thousand strong who've managed to get themselves conquered by Rome (amongst others) despite aforementioned immortals apparently being on their side - the divine numpties decide to have another stab at it and send another immortal (Jesus) who promptly causes another supposed massacre of babies and then buggers off to Egypt to hide. In a three year preaching period this immortal manages to sow confusion (especially amongst his direct followers who clearly often haven't a clue what he's on about), stir up a half arsed insurgency, manages to speak a bunch of waffle about the meek while making no clear statements on slavery, women's rights, gender preference questions, health , science or anything vaguely practical and generally doesn't bother to write anything down so ensuring 2 millenia of war, torture, slavery and scientific retardation and manages to lie through his teeth about ever bothering to return (but when he does its war, death and famine again yippee.)
Gods - a bunch of immortal pillocks who, let's be honest, you wouldn't trust with a janitor's mop.
Humans and the rest of all life - dead, dying, suffering and generally confused by this disastrous management team who after all this still demand to be worshipped.
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bioflex
@Cofty: Did anybody really think god made cheetahs able to run at 60mph so they could be first to the best grazing?
Your reasoning is pretty much flawad on this, you do realise that variation was consistent in creation. Thats the beauty of it. Different animals with different features excelling at different things.
@Ziddina:
I always find it hilarious that humans think that they "design" and "create" things, independent of ANY other natural process...
If one looks at the procession of human technology, one will find that human technology EVOLVES.... Despite the human efforts at "creating" things...
Let me see if I can get a decent progression of the evolution of the automobile, here...
One thing you are missing here is the fact the progression of technology does not change the the product, it only improves it. Just check the evolution of cars and how much has changed over the years and yet they are still called cars. They dont change. So how does is compare to the evolution where one organism changes entirely to another?
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The Quiet One
BIOFLEX: This thread is discussing animal suffering, not vegetables. If you don't know the meaning of the word suffering, use a dictionary. How you can be so arrogant as to declare that we are hypocrites who don't care about animals, when you don't know what I or anyone else in this thread has done to support animal charities, for instance, is beyond me. Is there evidence that vegetables suffer when sliced? If so.. you must believe, from what you have said, that God designed them to feel pain and then gave them to man/animals to eat. Do you even see how much worse you are making your God look?
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bioflex
@Cofty: Its very muscle fibers called myosin are of a particular type that permits it to accelerate to 60mph to catch its hapless victims.
Now what makes you think its because of prey that cheetahs are built to run that fast? So does this mean other animals that hunt similar prey to cheetahs are at a loss for not evolving speed muscles?
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bioflex
@The Quite One: haha, and i am asking how you came to the conclusion that animals do suffer? is it the pain you are concerned about or what?
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cofty
Your reasoning is pretty much flawad on this, you do realise that variation was consistent in creation.
Bioflex - A cheetah is a perfectly designed killing machine. Why?
The same could be said for sharks and ospreys and crocodiles and tens of thousands of other species. Then we cold start on the parasite which constitute the majority of life on earth.
Are you really saying god made all these killing machines after the naked lady ate the fruit?
Now what makes you think its because of prey that cheetahs are built to run that fast? So does this mean other animals that hunt similar prey to cheetahs are at a loss for not evolving speed muscles?
Can you suggest another reason? There are many varieties of myosin and cheetahs have the fastest of all types. Other predators have evolved a range of ways of catching and killing ther prey.
The natural world is carnage by design, you still haven't began to explain why?
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poopsiecakes
Man and animals alike were not created carnivorous from the beginning, they were made to be herbivous from the start.
I canNOT believe I ever agreed with this statement - cognitive dissonance at its best. Ever heard of snake venom? And the many different kinds of snake venom? Was this created by a loving god to neutralize the feisty apples in the trees? How about camouflage? Why did a loving god create animals with perfect camouflage? So that they could hide really well before pouncing to give a big hug? How about the venus flytrap? Was this created by a loving god to catch bubbles?
Seriously bioflex, you really need to read more - or subscribe to Animal Planet. Or something, because your ignorance is embarrassing. The natural world is filled with natural suffering. It's life.