Theists, why does God allow suffering.. (page 36)

cofty

if I am correct then he is not my God

Who isn't?

Seraphim23

You mean you can’t remember and yet you mention him!

Caedes

Seraphim, you have failed to show that natural disasters are linked to free will, what mechanism links the two?

"So it also keeps suffering to a minimum when one thinks about it. Certain chemicals that block pain when an organism is under attack more than likely also minimise suffering in the shark."

Do animals feel pain?
"If it is justifiable to assume that other human beings feel pain as we do, is there any reason why a similar inference should not be justifiable in the case of other animals?

Nearly all the external signs that lead us to infer pain in other humans can be seen in other species, especially the species most closely related to us--the species of mammals and birds. The behavioral signs include writhing, facial contortions, moaning, yelping or other forms of calling, attempts to avoid the source of the pain, appearance of fear at the prospect of its repetition, and so on. In addition, we know that these animals have nervous systems very like ours, which respond physiologically like ours do when the animal is in circumstances in which we would feel pain:"
"The nervous systems of animals evolved as our own did, and in fact the evolutionary history of human beings and other animals, especially mammals, did not diverge until the central features of our nervous systems were already in existence. A capacity to feel pain obviously enhances a species' prospects for survival, since it causes members of the species to avoid sources of injury. It is surely unreasonable to suppose that nervous systems that are virtually identical physiologically, have a common origin and a common evolutionary function, and result in similar forms of behavior in similar circumstances should actually operate in an entirely different manner on the level of subjective feelings. "
"To say that they feel less because they are lower animals is an absurdity; it can easily be shown that many of their senses are far more acute that ours--visual acuity in certain birds, hearing in most wild animals, and touch in others; these animals depend more than we do today on the sharpest possible awareness of a hostile environment. Apart from the complexity of the cerebral cortex (which does not directly perceive pain) their nervous systems are almost identical to ours and their reactions to pain remarkably similar"
http://www.animal-rights-library.com/texts-m/singer03.htm

Seraphim23

I haven’t really Caedes, as it is eminently logical to see that choices can only be good or bad and the universe has to have both to make such choice a reality. The mechanism, if you want to call it that, is thermodynamics.

Seraphim23

defender of truth, it is often reported by people, that when attacked in a fight and a terrible injury is inflicted, the pain is often not felt until after the fight is over. In the case of the sharks fighting in a womb, they may well be dead before the pain was to kick in. I’m not making the case that animals don’t feel pain as we do, as that is obviously rubbish.

Survival of the fittest also involves switching pain off during a fight for survival, as the pain would stop an affective defence.