Original Sin explanation

[Gorgias]

Well regardless of you’re saying here, animals are a lot more “innocent” than humans, wouldn’t you agree with that at least?

No. What I’m saying is that, since there is not moral character to their actions, they cannot be either “guilty” or “innocent.” The quality just doesn’t apply to them.

“In all my years on CAF I have never seen this issue addressed in an effective way by a believer.”

No, it’s more like “this issue has been addressed over and over again, each time I raise it, but I refuse to like the answer.”

It’s not a “huge challenge to our faith.” It’s a misunderstanding of the relationship – and the differences! – between humans and other creatures. It attempts to raise animals to the level of ‘human’, and then it acts offended when animals and humans are treated differently.

 

[goout]

“In all my years on CAF I have never seen this issue addressed in an effective way by a believer.”

It’s probably because they choose to ignore this, otherwise it would be a huge challenge to their faith.

May I classify this as a simplistic and cliched idea that ought to cause a look in the mirror for your own faith? Observe:the topic as been discussed to the point of nausea, and you are still looking and demanding answers. Who’s faith should be challenged? Should it be you that questions your stock beliefs?
The idea that this “challenge” has been ignored at CAF is laughable.

 

[jeannetherese]

“In all my years on CAF I have never seen this issue addressed in an effective way by a believer.”

Hmm,
According to your profile, you joined CAF in October.

 

[Gorgias]

ChocolateCake:

“In all my years on CAF I have never seen this issue addressed in an effective way by a believer.”

Hmm,
According to your profile, you joined CAF in October.

@ChocolateCake is pointing out that @FiveLinden wrote this. It might have been more obvious if he had just quoted him directly, like this:

FiveLinden:

In all my years on CAF I have never seen this issue addressed in an effective way by a believer.

It’s probably because they choose to ignore this, otherwise it would be a huge challenge to their faith.

 

[ChocolateCake]

Then explain why animals STILL suffer.

 

[ChocolateCake]

Maybe go back and read. I was quoting another, hence the “”"".

 

[Gorgias]

Then explain why animals STILL suffer.

I would recommend that you search for the discussions FiveLinden and I had on this question, ages ago. Our discussion would go along the same lines, I think (beginning with your definition of what ‘suffering’ means, and whether it requires rationality, and therefore, whether it’s something unique to humans, as such).

 

[FiveLinden]

In this light, atheism is unrealistic in it’s demands for explanations.

Except I am not asking for ‘suffering’ to be explained. I know why animals suffer. They evolved to do so. My question is about how Christians can say 1) there is an all-loving god 2) Animals suffer because of original sin but 3) animals did not commit original sin and 4) animals have no countervailing possibility of eternal life without pain.

Saying ‘it is a mystery’ is another way of saying ‘we have no answer’.

 

[goout]

goout:

In this light, atheism is unrealistic in it’s demands for explanations.

Except I am not asking for ‘suffering’ to be explained. I know why animals suffer. They evolved to do so. My question is about how Christians can say 1) there is an all-loving god 2) Animals suffer because of original sin but 3) animals did not commit original sin and 4) animals have no countervailing possibility of eternal life without pain.

Saying ‘it is a mystery’ is another way of saying ‘we have no answer’.

Do you have an answer? No. So it’s a mystery to you also. Why do you chafe at what Christianity proposes on good philosophical grounds? (ground which you’ve been over hundreds of times)

Let me point something out: you are are objecting to a value proposition, or a moral proposition, as to why animals suffer. You object to the supposed contradiction between a loving God and suffering animals. And you object repeatedly.

And yet, in your search to find meaning here…you propose “animals suffer because they evolved to do so”. Have you ever really considered how empty of an explanation that is for your search?
And God is supposedly cruel!

 

[FiveLinden]

And yet, in your search to find meaning here…you propose “animals suffer because they evolved to do so”. Have you ever really considered how empty of an explanation that is for your search?
And God is supposedly cruel!

I have not said that God is cruel. And yes, there is nothing about the process of evolution that means pain and suffering will not happen to living things. Evolution is not an ‘empty’ or ‘full’ explanation. It’s just a fact. That’s my answer to why there is pain and suffering among animals. It is certainly no mystery to me. I never propose ‘mystery’ as an explanation, or give up trying to find one.

 

[goout]

goout:

And yet, in your search to find meaning here…you propose “animals suffer because they evolved to do so”. Have you ever really considered how empty of an explanation that is for your search?
And God is supposedly cruel!

I have not said that God is cruel. And yes, there is nothing about the process of evolution that means pain and suffering will not happen to living things. Evolution is not an ‘empty’ or ‘full’ explanation. It’s just a fact. That’s my answer to why there is pain and suffering among animals. It is certainly no mystery to me. I never propose ‘mystery’ as an explanation, or give up trying to find one.

I don’t propose mystery as an explanation. That was the whole point. And mystery is not the abdication of reason or the abandonment of search. Quite the opposite.

The lack of knowledge inspires the search for it. (unless you’d rather despair at not finding a materialist explanation for everything?)
Mystery is necessary for human beings. To chafe at it is to go insane, because demanding to know everything makes you like unto God.

 

[Gorgias]

My question is about how Christians can say 1) there is an all-loving god 2) Animals suffer because of original sin but 3) animals did not commit original sin and 4) animals have no countervailing possibility of eternal life without pain.

Saying ‘it is a mystery’ is another way of saying ‘we have no answer’.

We’ve had this discussion, too!

Maybe “some Christians” say this, but Catholics don’t. (At least, not if they know what they’re talking about.)

Is it unfair? Perhaps. Is it God’s fault, or humans’? It’s ours. The sin of our first human parents caused a whole raft of bad consequences. (You know, just like overuse of fossil fuels causes bad effects in our world today?) So… would you make the claim “how can Christians say that there is an all-loving God, since creation suffers from the effects of AGW?”

Of course you wouldn’t – that’s absurd! Same. Thing. Here.

 

[Cathoholic]

FiveLinden to @Gorgias . . . .

Saying ‘it is a mystery’ is another way of saying ‘we have no answer’.

FiveLinden. you and I have had this discussion too.

If there were not truths ABOVE mere human reason you could bet you were dealing with another mere human.

You EXPECT to have truths ABOVE human reason (mysteries) with an INFINITE God.

If you didn’t have truths ABOVE mere human reason, I would not be a believer in our Triune God.

Someday we will ALL be SHOWN God in a way unimaginable (for our judgment).

By that time there will be no more changing for us concerning our belief as we will be out of the realm of time.

We will have chosen our own fate. God will respect and honor our choices.

May we all choose well. (But we need GRACE to do that.)

God bless.

Cathoholic

 

[1Lord1Faith]

mainly want to know if Original Sin affected the entire planet (and perhaps the entire Universe), so now Earth is an imperfect place because of that

I don’t think the Church teaches this. If it did, I think it would be in the Catechism on the section concerning Original Sin, but I don’t see any teaching like that in there. At the beginning of the section on Original Sin the Catechism seems to merely acknowledge that it seems like there is a link.

385 God is infinitely good and all his works are good. Yet no one can escape the experience of suffering or the evils in nature which seem to be linked to the limitations proper to creatures: and above all to the question of moral evil.