What advantage could there be in the suffering of millions of the lower animals throughout almost endless time? The presence of much suffering agrees well with the view that all organic beings have been developed through variation and natural selection. 98% of every species is now extinct. If there was a designer why was he so wasteful? And, why would he so cruel and indifferent? Lets call it The Darwinian Problem of Evil. In nature, there is nothing but blind indifference. If there were a perfectly kind god, he would have communicated with us that we should treat lower animals kindly. But, that is not what we find in the Bible. Its pretty much the reverse. Religion has to tell us with probability, not possibility, why a god permits animal evil. For those of you who think free-will is a Biblical excuse for human evil, you cant use the free-will defense you use for human evil because animals dont have the choice or free-will of whether or not to kill or be killed. For those of you who think moral lessons as a Biblical excuse for human evil, there cant be any moral lessons an animal can learn from suffering, so that wont work either. I know in the past Ive gone to great lengths to discuss human evil and its Biblical so-called excuses, and I hinted about animal suffering, but this is just about the animals. Firstly, the most traditional answer is that the animals began to suffer do to and after the fall of Adam & Eve. But, what did the animals do to deserve that! Can animals, legitimately, bear the penalty for human sin? This hypothesis of corruption by man does NOT account for animal pain during the hundreds of millions of years when the Earth contained living creatures but did not contain man. Secondly, C.S. Lewis speculates that the animals were corrupted by Satan prior to man arriving on the Earth. If a god entrusted a fallible angelic beings such absolute control over his creation that it was within their power to brutalize the animal kingdom for all time, then he cannot be exonerated from all culpability for what allegedly happened . Such action indicates either incompetence or that the sufferings of the lower creatures are unimportant to the creator. Why would a god allow Satan to do it? If there was a fall, why did not the god immediately nullify the consequences of the fall or restrain the activities of these rebellious forces that there would be no physical evil or animal pain? What would we say if a father did not stop a pack of wolves from running through the open doors of his house when he had the means to stop them? Would anything justify his inaction? ff a god was omnipotent, there could be no Satan. A Satan is just the result of ancient people trying to figure out why so much suffering happens on such a massive scale. Thirdly, Christians argue that animals have no souls, cannot think, are machines who feel little or no pain. Since its been proven animals have a central nervous system, we know they feel pain. WE can also hear it when they scream. We can observe them pain guarding. Fourthly, Christians have argued that a god doesnt care about the animals. He is indifferent to their pain. Only anthropomorphic imagination allows us to accuse a god of cruelty in this regard. But, if a god h as an entirely different standard of goodness, then why would we believe him to be good at all? This is simply repugnant to thinking people. This would deny the omnibenevolence of a god. This would attribute to a god a moral fault. Fifthly, Christians have argued that a god is much more interested in human soul making. But, the interests of all sentient beings are worthy of equal consideration and respect depending on their capacity for thought. Sixly, Christians have argued that a god may resurrect all sentient animals to a new life, either on a new Earth, or in Heaven itself. C.S. Lewis believes this one too. But, how can 3 billion years of animal suffering just to fill heaven with all of these resurrected animals be morally justified? If heaven is meant to reward creatures for their suffering on Earth, then this does NOT morally justify their suffering! A heaven with all creatures in it would have to look like the Earth to make them comfortable. And, would carnivorous animals stay carnivorous? If my arguments succeed, and I think they do, there is no reason to think there is any good solution to animal pain. C.S. Lewis admitted it is just guess work. He, nor anyone else can answer this problem. A religion that can only stand on such dubious guesswork is not a religion we have any epistemic right to accept. The intense sufferings of animals through billions of years so far, have no credible excuse and are simply incompatible with the god proposed by Christian theism!
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 01:50:19 +0000
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