Genocide

[Calgar]

As a Southern Baptist you would be familiar with personally defining a God without divinely given authority as we have in the true Church.

 

[WinterLight]

Why would a being like that create a system in which animals suffered for hundreds of millions of years before people evolved and sinned?

Nothing repulses a hedonistic society more than suffering.

 

[Hokomai]

Nothing repulses a hedonistic society more than suffering.

Or a caring society, or a society full of love and empathy. But if hedonists feel that way, I’m with them!

 

[WinterLight]

Or a caring society, or a society full of love and empathy. But if hedonists feel that way, I’m with them!

Is it possible that suffering has any value?

 

[Hokomai]

Is it possible that suffering has any value?

Yes, of course. But it is a very difficult thing to argue that innocent animals should suffer in their billions because an omnipotent and all-loving God either could not, or would not, come up with a plan for creation that did not involve the suffering, often extreme, of these creatures, who have no hope in Christian thought of an after-life.

 

[WinterLight]

Yes, of course. But it is a very difficult thing to argue that innocent animals should suffer in their billions because an omnipotent and all-loving God either could not, or would not, come up with a plan for creation that did not involve the suffering, often extreme, of these creatures, who have no hope in Christian thought of an after-life.

First, it makes no sense to describe animals as “innocent”: they’re not moral creatures, and so can be neither guilty nor innocent of anything. Second, physical pain is not equivalent to suffering, nor is it necessarily worse than suffering. Third, you’ve assumed (though not in this particular post) that macroevolution is true: this is controversial, to say the least. Fourth, it is hubris to demand that God meets our standards rather than to attempt to meet His standard.

 

[Hokomai]

First, it makes no sense to describe animals as “innocent”: they’re not moral creatures, and so can be neither guilty nor innocent of anything. Second, physical pain is not equivalent to suffering, nor is it necessarily worse than suffering. Third, you’ve assumed (though not in this particular post) that macroevolution is true: this is controversial, to say the least. Fourth, it is hubris to demand that God meets our standards rather than to attempt to meet His standard.

All animals are ‘innocent’ in that they can never be morally deserving of punishment. The pre-sin state of Eden, in which the lion lay down with the lamb, and all animals ate plants, indicates clearly that in the Christian tradition, animals are punished as a result of original sin, I do not demand anything of God. I simply observe that a being which was omnipotent and all-loving would not have created things in this way. This is not hubris, it is an argumnt against the existence of an all-knowing and all-loving God. As or macro-evolution ( a creationist term which I understand to mean the evolution of species one from another, and is not in the least controversial except among the religious) I suggest you Google ‘ring species’ and think again.

 

[Korbin]

I’m somewhat new to the boards here. I see Hakomai very involved in discussions and a member for quite some time. Is there a specific reason you spend so much of your time commenting on a site for which you have no belief? Was there an event in your past that resulted in your disdain for the faith? My questions are honest and no worries if you don’t want to respond here.