Theists, why does God allow suffering.. (page 40)

defender of truth

"Animal suffering seems at odds with the Christian idea of a loving and powerful God.
After all, if God was all-powerful he could prevent suffering, and if God was perfectly good he would want to prevent suffering.
But animals do suffer on a colossal scale, and as there doesn't seem to be any logical necessity for them to do so Christians have some explaining to do."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/animals_1.shtml#section_4

Saved_JW

Being a philosophy nut myself, I would have to ask a question with your question.

how does one determine if suffering is evil? what standard are you judging this by?

cofty

how does one determine if suffering is evil? what standard are you judging this by? - Saved JW

Why do you think we need one?

Are you in any doubt that things which cause conscious creatures extreme physical and emotional pain are not good?

Is this what happens when theists run out of excuses for god?

cantleave

how does one determine if suffering is evil? what standard are you judging this by?

I guess you could use the Golden rule.........

defender of truth

Saved Jw..
Revelation 21:4
New International Version
"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
Even the God you believe in supposedly thinks that suffering is something that needs to be done away with.

I can see where you are going with this, though.
"But DOT, if you don't believe in a God, where do you get the standard for what is evil"?
Well, not only is the question of suffering being evil or not off topic, and not even slightly relevant to why God allows animals to suffer.. but it would also seem to be suggesting that atheists may as well just kill and maim anything they come across as they please, if they can get away with it, as without an external set of morals nobody can decide what is good or bad.
Please feel free to take your philosophies to this thread..

http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/175688/1/God-Morals-and-Atheists#.U68Gdl2t-o8

....

Also, here's a good quote from a great thread:
Terry posted 6 years ago(5/13/2008)
Post6353of15843
Joined6/19/2004
"Nothing mysterious about morals.
Morals are the most practical behavior possible.
Morals stem from the fact we cannot succeed for long in society if we harm others or lie to them.
It is disadvantageous in the long run to kill, lie, cheat and otherwise harm your friends, family, social contacts and "shit where you eat."
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/158287/1/Where-do-atheists-morals-come-from#.U68Gyl2t-o8

defender of truth

To reiterate (in case I sounded a bit harsh or dismissive), the OP's question was this:

'Why does God ,as viewed by theists, allow animals to suffer?'.
The God of theists is personal, present and active. If he cared about animals, then he would not have left them to experience severe pain and painful deaths throughout their already pitifully short lives, regardless of whether you believe in evolution or Gods direct influence on their design throughout all 'creation'.

He either made animals in a way that causes them to suffer and inflict suffering on other creatures that were designed to experience it, or He allowed them to evolve and fight to the death in many horrific and pain-filled ways. He does not care about them and is responsible for unimaginable animal suffering.

What a callous God that is. Who would worship it?

defender of truth

"The Komodo Dragon of Komodo Island. It has the most basic venom system available. It has cultures of bacteria that live in its mouth that are completely poisonous to mammalian blood. It survives by ambushing a herbivore as it minds its own business and goes about its day eating plants. The animal survives the bite and usually walks away. Within three or four days though it falls over dead from blood poisoning. The Komodo Dragon will follow it until it falls over, and then it begins to eat it alive."
http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/beliefs/111762/2/Animals-didnt-sin-so-why-do-they-kill-each-other#.U7CYLl2t-o8

.....
"..the caterpillar of the geometer moth. Against its will, it is recruited to defend the developing young of a parasitic wasp, and the only ‘reward’ it gets for its trouble is to be eaten inside out by the larvae of its attacker.
The vast majority of wasps are “ parasitoids“, animals that practice the grisly art of body-snatching. They lay their eggs in the bodies of other living animals to provide their newly hatched grubs with a fresh supply of meat. Like HR Giger’s alien, the full-grown larvae then burst through their host’s skin, usually killing it in the process.
But the fate of one type of caterpillar Thyrinteina leucocerae doesn’t end there. It is targeted by a Glyptapanteles wasp that, on a single pass, can lay as many as 80 eggs onto the hapless host. Two weeks later, the larvae burst through their host’s skin. But despite its injuries, the caterpillar remains alive and stays near the hatched grubs as they spin their pupae and turn into adults. It never moves and it never feeds. All it does it violently swing its head in response to nearby movement. After the adult wasps fly off, it eventually dies.
Amir Grosman from the University of Amsterdam has found that the caterpillar’s strange behaviour is all part of the manipulations of the wasp. Its last act is to defend the very grubs that spent the last two weeks killing it, playing the role of bodyguard as well as incubator...
In natural conditions, the caterpillar’s vigil ensures that more wasp pupae survive. When Grosman removed these unwitting guardians, the death rate among the pupae doubled. Some were eaten and a few, in an ironic twist, became hosts themselves to other wasp grubs – a case of so-called “hyperparasitism”. Clearly, the young wasps benefit from their warden’s actions but the caterpillars themselves get nothing. Every last one of them was dead within a week after the pupae opened and the adult wasps emerged."
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2008/06/03/parasitic-wasp-turns-caterpillars-into-headbanging-bodyguard/
....

"Screw-worm fly
An insect parasite of warm-blooded animals. The fly has red eyes and a shiny blue-green body and looks similar to Australian blowflies. Flies lay eggs on the edge of open wounds from scratches, injury, branding, dehorning or castration. Larvae hatch and feed on the underlying flesh causing extensive tissue damage. Left untreated, animals can die from infection and loss of tissue fluid. Its known for the larvae to eat their host from the inside out!"

"Naegleria
brain-eating amoeba
Infection with Naegleria causes the disease primary amebic meningoencephalitis (PAM), a brain inflammation, which leads to the destruction of brain tissue. Initial signs and symptoms of PAM start 1 to 14 days after infection. These symptoms include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and stiff neck. As the amoeba cause more extensive destruction of brain tissue this leads to confusion, lack of attention to people and surroundings, loss of balance, seizures, and hallucinations. After the onset of symptoms, the disease progresses rapidly and usually results in death within 3 to 7 days."

http://listverse.com/2010/01/13/top-10-most-horrific-parasite-infections/

....
"The head-splitting fungus
Cordyceps fungi
Imagine something infiltrating your body, controlling your behaviour and, when it’s done with you, bursting out of your head. That’s exactly what Cordyceps fungi do. Infected ants become disoriented and are often expelled by their colonies. The outcasts climb to the top of the nearest plant, clutch to the stem, and die. When the fungus matures, its fruiting body blooms out of the ant’s head, spreading spores on the wind to infect other hosts."

"The zombie wasp
Ampulex compressa
This resourceful wasp preys on cockroaches, turning them into zombies to feed its young. The female wasp aims a sting directly into the roach’s brain, disabling its escape reflex. She then leads the zombie roach back to her underground nest, lays an egg on its belly and seals it in. A larva hatches from the egg and burrows into the roach, where it devours the insect from the inside to form a cocoon from which it will later emerge as a new adult."

http://m.sciencefocus.com/feature/health/10-deadly-parasites

Focus

how does one determine if suffering is evil?

Come and visit me, Saved_JW, and I assure you that within five minutes you'll have no need to seek further determination.

The answer will be blowing in your wind. Applying the Golden Rule would have sufficed, but experience is the best teacher. Frightfully expensive, though - and in this case, draughty.

__

Focus

("Prominent Bethelite" Class)

race andros

post on reconciling animal suffering...helped me greatly. try to stop hating, you are wasting your time with god u believe does not even exist. try nlp.

Focus

race andros, face the facts. Animals deserve it.

Lets consider pigs, since I see here that the Swine Class predominates.

A long time ago, in the Garden of Farmyardeden, Adam Adolphus Pig ate an apple, at the behest of Eva Brauni Pig, that had dropped from a magic tree but which had been prohibited to them by Farmer J.E. Goober (a gAWD who was his own dad, but that distracts from the main story).

For this they condemned all their descendant piglets, down to the n'th generation, to a life of misery, torture, evil and worse.

Anything wrong with that? They misused their free will.

They must pay, even the ones who are a bit more equal than the others.

They will pay!

Now pass me that ham sandwich, boy.

__
Focus

("George Orwell" Class)

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

Share this