You have been more cautious about what you suggest is true, which is a first step towards gaining a more perfect understanding, I believe, so that is a good thing.
I agree. Caution is at the heart of the scientific method. It is indeed a good thing.
Have you backed off on your belief that animal suffering would indicate there is no God?
No, at least an all-loving and all-powerful God. Animals suffer, in their billions, and before there was sin in Catholic belief, but after there was time. An all-powerful God could have prevented this. An all-loving God would have done so. Therefore there is not an all-powerful and all-loving God. This argument does not address the issue of whether there are god(s) that are not all-loving, or all-powerful.
Your concept of justice, suggesting that innocent animal suffering is injust, is subjective (unless you can offer an objective proof of your definition of justice). You cannot use a subjective belief to suggest the non-existence of an objective being. Subjective beliefs probably can’t prove anything.
You are the ‘objective v subjective’ dualist in this argument. I do not have to think within those categories. I think in terms of observation, consideration, agreement. The people in my community generally think it is wrong for animals to suffer needlessly, or for innocent people to suffer. I predict that if we all take that approach there will be less suffering and more happiness. Therefore i call it good. Others will always be able to disagree. This is not the assertion of a moral absolute. That is what Christians do. I am not a Christian, and cannot be required to think or debate as if i am.
If you’d take God over natural selection, but don’t, is there a third option? Or do you land on the position you don’t want (natural selection)? Help?
Well, there are many ‘in between’ points, but on the basis of repeated observation, it is clear that life developed one species from another, and that all life now observed is related to all other life by descent. The behaviors of species exist because they are adaptive, or because they are associated with an adaptive behavior. This is the reason there is suffering. As humans, we can agree (my proposal) or not, to do what we can to minimize it.
If we are not higher or more evolved than the animals, what use is justice and reason? If those are of value, then we are indeed more evolved and higher. If we are not, then that clearly indicates that justice and reason are not higher functions than survivalistic selfishness.
A thing does not have to be ‘higher’ to be ‘more useful’ for certain purposes. My dog has a better sense of smell than me. It is more useful for certain purposes, such as finding the chocolates my niece left lying around and giving himself chocolate poisoning the other day! Humans evolved from animals which almost certainly had a better sense of smell than we have. we traded it off for some other advantage (probably to do with the shape of our heads and brain function). We are not ‘higher’, we are ‘lower’, in usefulness terms, but we are ‘more evolved’ in the sense that we are more different from our ancestors than is my (recovered) dog.
And isn’t it ironic that in a world without God, your very being and existence was brought about by the very injustice you seem to abhor?
I abhor it only in so far as it is possible to do anything to minimize it. Otherwise, I simply observe it. There is a big literature around this deriving from animal ethics committees (experimentation). The evolution of our brain to the point where our brains become not only self-aware, but self-reflective, and develop empathy with others of our own and other species is as far as we know a unique evolutionary development. Our consequent belief that there is a ‘me’ inside my body almost certainly led to religious belief. As Marx said, in one of his moments of being right: religion is the heart of a heartless world; the spirit of spiritless conditions…it is the sigh of the oppressed creature. So it is not so much ironic, as tragic, but our minds have also developed an appreciation of truth, and in a sense, the study of it does indeed set us free from suffering.
Dan
I think my hope (rather than view) is I think in the minority even among Protestants. I’m just saying ‘no souls = no going to heaven’ is inconclusive. Well, I don’t know if we suffer for satan’s sin, but I think the reality of sin is that it affects more than the sinner.