Why do animals need to suffer?

  • Thread starter Thread starter HSTV
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
As a child, I used to love watching Wild Kingdom with my grandfather. Seeing a lion take down a gazelle is absolutely breathe taking. In giving it’s life, that gazelle supports an entire ecosystem not just the lion. It’s beautiful.

In the end, what we are talking about is a matter of perspective. If I’m only focused on the death of the gazelle or the killing action of the lion I miss the beauty of the “circle of life” so to speak.
 
Bradskii said:
…

Sorry, you missed a bit. The bit where the majority of sentient creatures either try to avoid being eaten alive or actively each other creatures. Not always when they are dead.

Who on earth designed such a system?
Click to expand...
I don’t understand your comment about missing something.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
As a child, I used to love watching Wild Kingdom with my grandfather. Seeing a lion take down a gazelle is absolutely breathe taking. In giving it’s life, that gazelle supports an entire ecosystem not just the lion. It’s beautiful.

In the end, what we are talking about is a matter of perspective. If I’m only focused on the death of the gazelle or the killing action of the lion I miss the beauty of the “circle of life” so to speak.
Click to expand...
So you think it’s a beautiful design. That a zebra is actually being eaten while it struggles for breath. The lions go for the genitalia and soft underbelly first. They don’t check to see if it’s feeling anything.

Ah, the magnificent circle of life.

What you watched was a sanitised version suitable for kids. I doubt if you could watch, and listen to, anything that comes close to real life.
 
Bradskii said:
I doubt if you could watch, and listen to, anything that comes close to real life.
Click to expand...
Not only could I, I have done. I lived for several years in the mountains and other rural places. Not to mention having hunted and processed animals myself.

You can’t see the forest for the trees. It is indeed a magnificent self-sustaining system.
 
Last edited:
mrsdizzyd said:
40.png
Bradskii:
I doubt if you could watch, and listen to, anything that comes close to real life.
Click to expand...
Not only could I, I have done. I lived for several years in the mountains and other rural places. Not to mention having hunted and processed animals myself.

You can’t see the forest for the trees. It is indeed a magnificent self-sustaining system.
Click to expand...
If a co-hunter started processing an animal while it was still alive, what would you do?
 
So your point is that a loving, compassionate, merciful Gd could not have designed such a system, and that if a god did design this system, he would have to be sadistic? I get it. It might seem that way looking at nature, and not only the animal kingdom but the lives of humans throughout the millennia as well. Here, my friend, is where faith and hope enter the picture. When ordinary human reason cannot explain what appears to us as evil and horror, we rely on faith and hope to carry us through life without despair. We trust that Gd has a purpose for our lives and for the lives of all His creatures. We are commanded to love one another including animals, and this too makes our lives worth living.
 
Bradskii said:
If a co-hunter started processing an animal while it was still alive, what would you do?
Click to expand...
Make sure it’s dead. It’s easier to process an animal when it isn’t trying to kick you in the teeth. Wild animals also prefer their prey immobilized. It’s safer.
 
Our family recently lost a beloved pet under tragic circumstances, so trust me, I’ve thought about this a lot.

The problem of suffering, whether human or animal, is one of the most perplexing questions facing those who believe, and many of the finest, holiest, minds in Church history have tried to see some light in what appears to be a great darkness. We have to remember that we live in a fallen world. All things are gravely broken, “groaning” as Scripture says. And that’s not just mankind. I think we in the modern West live such comfortable lives that it’s easy to forget this basic fact. So yes, it is deeply troubling to watch animals suffering (and this is leaving aside the far more important fact of human suffering) - many of us have probably seen in documentaries examples like Brad mentions above: a zebra slowly being eaten alive, fox pups whose parents have died starving to death, polar bears desperately seeking food and getting weaker and weaker…The examples are endless, and painful.

This is actually where I find Christianity both truthful and consoling. We are told, right up front, that we live in a world terribly damaged. Things are askew, all things groan…But we also know there will be a “new Heaven and a new earth”, things will be made right again, because in our hearts we know all things need to be.

Now as to the question of whether animals will be in Heaven, we simply don’t know. If I, by God’s grace, make it to Heaven, will our little cat be there to greet me? Again, I don’t know. Certainly our primary concern (and joy) will be being in the presence of Almighty God, His Angels and the saints in Heaven - and surely that is enough. But on the other hand, it seems strange to me that God would create us in this world, with all its joy and beauty (in spite of the sorrow), and then place us in an existence with no real relation to what we’ve come to know in our lives.

The late Father Benedict Groeschel said it is a “reasonable hope” to expect to see our pets in Heaven. We shall see. And how all the wild beasts, not to mention insects and fungi, will fit into this picture is a mystery - none of us has any idea - but it is right, surely, to have a quiet confidence in our Heavenly Father, Who, we are assured, has great things planned for those who believe in Him. That’s all we really need to know.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
40.png
Bradskii:
If a co-hunter started processing an animal while it was still alive, what would you do?
Click to expand...
Make sure it’s dead. It’s easier to process an animal when it isn’t trying to kick you in the teeth. Wild animals also prefer their prey immobilized. It’s safer.
Click to expand...
So processing whilst it’s still alive is a bad idea. Very cruel I would suggest. If someone said that this was the way their system operated, then we might suggest they needed to redesign it to cause less pain.
 
As I said, you can’t see the forest for the trees. You aren’t alone in this myopia, but you can choose to do something about it.
 
Last edited:
mrsdizzyd said:
As I said, you can’t see the forest for the trees. You aren’t alone in this myopia, but you can choose to do something about it.
Click to expand...
So you don’t think it’s a bad idea. Or maybe you do and you realise that it contradicts this wonderful ‘circle of life’ so you’d rather not say.

So if hyenas eat their prey alive (’ Like dogs, but unlike other animals in the same habitat, hyenas do not kill their prey directly. Having chased their prey to exhaustion, their prey is unable to mount any further defense of itself, and is captured and eaten while still alive’: http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/animals/mammals/hyena.htm) that’s OK. But for you and I, well - best dispatch asap less one gets a hoof upside the head.

So let’s skip the majestic lion and the beauty of the hunt and ‘quick’ kill. Let’s go with a pack of hyenas running down an antellope until it is completely spent. And then eating it alive. And don’t forget where they start.

Would that be something you’d describe as ‘breath taking’?
 
I am not sure what you mean by their souls are not conscious.
Science has been able to demonstrate that some species are indeed self-aware. Elephants, bottlenose dolphins, great apes, and others.

We need to be cautious when it comes to declaring anything about the souls of animals. The Church magisterium, in Her wisdom, doesn’t declare much about animals, either.
 
Animals do not perceive anything as either good or bad. They have no choice in anything. All they can do is an instinctive reaction to stimuli.
 
That is not true of all species. Read up on some of the research that has been done on the more advanced non-homo sapian species
 
Bradskii said:
So let’s skip the majestic lion and the beauty of the hunt and ‘quick’ kill. Let’s go with a pack of hyenas running down an antellope until it is completely spent. And then eating it alive. And don’t forget where they start.

Would that be something you’d describe as ‘breath taking’?
Click to expand...
Myopia on full display again!

What is breathtaking is that the whole system functions together to be self-sustaining and life giving. Yes, even the Hyena or insert any other animal or organism you have objections to here. All of it. Neither the fact that some animals must give their lives to support the system nor the variety of ways in which that is achieve present any existential crisis for me and it never has.

The modern man is so squeamish about these things. I don’t for the life of me understand why.
 
Last edited:
mrsdizzyd said:
The modern man is so squeamish about these things. I don’t for the life of me understand why.
Click to expand...
We aren’t talking about squeamish. I’m sorry if you got that impression. We were talking about what we find acceptable or not. Well, I guess that one’s personal level of squeamishness would be applicable to that.

But a huntin’ and shootin’ gal like yourself objects at slicing and dicing animals that are still alive. With very good reason. One shouldn’t cause more pain than is necessary to another creature in order to feed oneself. Makes sense, doesn’t it? For a moral creature such as ourselves?

But a hyena? It’s not interested in morality or whether you would throw up watching a gazelle being eaten alive. It doesn’t care how much pain it inflicts.

Now me, I know why that happens. It’s nature, red in tooth and claw. It is literally (in a lot of cases) the survival of the fittest. Those with the incisors will tear those without them apart. Your problem is that you will claim that that system has been specifically designed.

If you do, then I will state that it is a cruel and inhumane design. And my evidence is…hyenas!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top