Why do animals suffer?

[Omyo12]

CONTINUED (2):

“For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.” (2 Peter 1:16)

St. Peter was the first pope, btw, and He was infallible when he wrote that. And so was St. Paul:

“The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons… If you point these things out to the brothers, you will be a good minister of Christ Jesus, brought up in the truths of the faith and of the good teaching that you have followed. Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives’ tales; rather, train yourself to be godly.” (1 Timothy 4:1-7)

Dear Saint, do you mean like the “Godless myth” of Evolution which has arisen in these “later times”? I’m trying to point it out to them! Help! Mother Mary, “destroyer of heresies”, please help. Do you, dear Saint, think that the theory of evolution is a “doctrine of demons”?

Our Lady of La Salette (1846): “In the year 1864, Lucifer together with a large number of demons will be unloosed from hell; they will put an end to faith little by little, even in those dedicated to God. They will blind them in such a way, that, unless they are blessed with a special grace, these people will take on the spirit of these angels of hell; several religious institutions will lose all faith and will lose many souls. Evil books will be abundant on earth and the spirits of darkness will spread everywhere a universal slackening in all that concerns the service of GOD.”

I’ll take that as a yes. :sad_yes: Dear Lord, what do You say?

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’” - Jesus Christ

And Your vicars?

“… since it is He through whom all things were made and without whom nothing was made, and who enlivened man, shaped from the slime of the earth, with the breath of rational life, the same would restore our nature, fallen at the beginning of time, to its lost dignity, and He would be the Reformer, too, of that of which he was the Creator.” - Pope St. Leo the Great

What else, Lord?

“If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit.” - Jesus Christ

Let’s see:

“Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.” - Richard Dawkins

“Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.” - William Provine

Lord?

“A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.” - Jesus Christ

What a great amount of quote mining… :clapping:

So how’s 1864 related to evolution? I mean the “Origin of Species” was published in 1859… are you saying our Lady was off by 5 years??

One important thing that happened in 1864 is the historical “birth” of marxism
Remember that communism is atheistic by philosophy!
most associate this prophesy with that…

 

[liquidpele]

So what? Why are you in such a hurry? Do you expect instant Creation?! Does all life have to be ambitious?

“apparently” is the significant word.
How do you **know **that? Perhaps you’re deluded that we’re all deluded! Why is it that we are so inclined? “endowed” is another significant word. Gifts generally imply a giver. How did it acquire that impulse?
So would we all. Where do you get the will to go on? Trying to prove that life is pointless?
“wants” is another significant word. Inanimate objects don’t have wants. How did life obtain the urge to stay alive? By magic? By accident? By chance? Or was it endowed? Does everything have to have the same wants and desires? Please don’t despise the humble lichen. At least it minds its own business - unlike Hitler and Stalin…

Haha… I can’t believe you picked apart my excerpt. It was not my words, I just found them appropriate here. Take from it what you want.

 

[tonyrey]

Haha… I can’t believe you picked apart my excerpt. It was not my words, I just found them appropriate here. Take from it what you want.

Why did you find it so appropriate when it contains so much nonsense?!

 

[Luke65]

Oh come on friend,

What the Catholic Church “actually” teaches??
Why don’t you read the Catechism of the Catholic Church first to see what the Church “actually” teaches.

Because the Catechism doesn’t contain all 2000 years of Church doctrines in it. Read the article and you’ll see many doctrines related to Creation that are not mentioned in the Catechism. On second thought, you probably don’t want to know.

There was a time when the Church taught the earth was the center of the universe and the sun spun around the Earth… That’s why she condemned Galileo…

She still does. The papal decree is “immutable” - unchangeable. Deal with it.

Of course it wasn’t dogma and its changed it teaching for obvious reasons. The six day creation is NOT dogma.
it’s a traditional (lower case ‘t’) belief from some of the Church Fathers. Its fallible…

Show us where the Church changed Her doctrine on Geocentrism. She didn’t. She can’t. Its immutable. And I didn’t say that the six day Creation is dogma, however, Special Creation is dogma:

First Vatican Council: “If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, were produced, according to their whole substance, out of nothing by God; or holds that God did not create by his will free from all necessity, but as necessarily as he necessarily loves himself; or denies that the world was created for the glory of God: let him be anathema.” (Canon 1.5)

Oh well, now you know.

Nice signature… you and I both know Jesus was referring to the prophecies but you twisted it to fit your agenda.

You sound convicted. That’s okay - that’s the idea! Our Lord asked a very simple question: If you don’t believe what Moses wrote, how can you believe what He says? Its all the Word of God. And, in case you haven’t noticed, millions of Christians have stopped believing what Jesus said, because they first stopped believing what Moses wrote - “Evolution is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented.” But please, keep pretending you don’t know that Jesus was being prophetic, you’ll sleep better. But I love how Prof. Provine said, perhaps unwittingly, definitely prophetically p), that the theory of evolution was “invented”…

“They invent ways of doing evil.” (Romans 1:30)

How about this…

There they go again, using the words of the Fathers and Doctors against them. The Angelic Doctor taught both Special Creation and Geocentrism, because that has been the constant teaching of the Catholic Church.

The only one distorting is you…
St. Augustine believed in an instant creation.

And how did I “distort” that fact? If St. Augustine taught that God is the Author of animal death and suffering then I would have distorted what he said. But he didn’t, nor did any other Father or Doctor, or even any Saint that I know of. But I love the way you said that I am “the only one” distorting what St. Augustine taught on Creation. Would you like to buy a clue?

Since Augustine believed in an instant creation, he followed the same time line as a modern creationist
(give or take 6 days )

Exactly.

What a great amount of quote mining… :clapping:

You really sound convicted. Please don’t project that onto me. Everything I quoted is consistent with what St. Augustine, and all the other Fathers and Doctors taught.

 

[Luke65]

Cont.

“For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years. We have perceived, moreover, that the expression, ‘The day of the Lord is as a thousand years,’ is connected with this subject.”
Justin Martyr - Dialogue with Trypho

Exactly - it is “connected”. So too:

The Epistle of Barnabas (74AD): “Attend, my children, to the meaning of this expression, “He finished in six days.” This implies that the Lord will finish all things in six thousand years, for a day is with Him a thousand years… Therefore, my children, in six days, that is, in six thousand years, all things will be finished. “And He rested on the seventh day.” This means: when His Son, coming [again], shall destroy the time of the wicked man, and judge the ungodly, and change the sun, and the moon, and the stars, then shall He truly rest on the seventh day.” (Ch. 15)

Blessed Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich: “I saw these false computations of the pagan priests at the same time that I beheld Jesus teaching on the Sabbath at Aruma. Jesus, speaking before the Pharisees of the Call of Abraham and his sojourn in Egypt, exposed the errors of the Egyptian calendar. He told them that the world had now existed 4028 years. When I heard Jesus say this, He was Himself thirty one years old.” (1.1.9 - Rev. Schmoger)

…]
Origen - De Principiis

Origen is not technically one of the Fathers of the Church, because of his heretical views, but an “ecclesiastical writer”. So he has no authority in the Church, like the actual Fathers do. Even still:

Origen: “After these statements, Celsus, from a secret desire to cast discredit upon the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that…” (Contra Celsus, I, 19)

According to the widely accepted scientific account…]

Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) - International Theological Commission July 2004

Talk about quote mining. Sorry, but I have some bad news for you. First of all, just so everyone understands, Pope Benedict was not the author of that document (“Communion and Stewardship”), he merely gave “permission” for it to be published. Secondly, it was published in 2002, not 2004; and that’s an important distinction…

nationalcatholicreporter.org/word/word090106.htm
(2) As a scientific matter, the evidence for “micro-evolution” seems beyond doubt; the case for “macro-evolution” is less persuasive.

While Benedict does not believe it is the church’s role to settle scientific debates, that doesn’t mean he lacks his own views. Most notably, Benedict has doubts about what he calls “macro-evolution.” (“Micro-evolution” refers to developmental changes within a species, “macro-evolution” is the transition from one species to another on the basis of mutation and selection.)

Ratzinger outlines his thinking in a November 27, 1999, lecture delivered at the Sorbonne entitled “The Truth of Christianity,” which is published in his 2003 book Truth and Tolerance.

“No one will be able to cast serious doubt upon the scientific evidence for micro-evolutionary processes… [T]he problem emerges at the point of transition from micro- to macro-evolution, on which point Szathmáry and Maynard Smith, both convinced supporters of an all-embracing theory of evolution, nonetheless declare that: ‘There is no theoretical basis for believing that evolutionary lines become more complex with time; and there is also no empirical evidence that this happens.’”

This distinction between “micro” and “macro-evolution” is apparently one Ratzinger began to make in the 1980s, after hearing a series of lectures at the Gustav Siewarth Academy, a small Catholic academy in Germany’s Black Forest. Tassot told NCR that a German Catholic intellectual named Alma von Stockhausen, the founder of the Gustav Siewarth Academy, has said that Ratzinger concluded macro-evolution is “impossible” after this experience.

So how’s 1864 related to evolution? I mean the “Origin of Species” was published in 1859… are you saying our Lady was off by 5 years??

Oh ye of little understanding. First they refused to love the truth, then God unleashed the Deceiver so that they would believe the lie (2 Th. 2:10-11).

One important thing that happened in 1864 is the historical “birth” of marxism
Remember that communism is atheistic by philosophy!
most associate this prophesy with that…

And what is the greatest engine of atheism ever invented? 2 + 2 = ?

Love the truth - its much more beautiful than the lie. God is not the Author of death and suffering - we are…

“How long, O men, will you turn my glory into shame? How long will you love delusions and seek false gods? Selah” (Psalm 4:2)

 

[liquidpele]

Why did you find it so appropriate when it contains so much nonsense?!

I found it very relative, and not nonsense at all.

I guess I just don’t feel like debating something that I feel like is common sense: namely that suffering, for both animals and people, is the nature of a chaotic world and competition for resources. I don’t think it has a purpose, it’s just part of reality and we have to deal with it.

 

[tonyrey]

I found it very relative, and not nonsense at all.

I guess I just don’t feel like debating something that I feel like is common sense: namely that suffering, for both animals and people, is the nature of a chaotic world and competition for resources. I don’t think it has a purpose, it’s just part of reality and we have to deal with it.

And there we are in total agreement…

 

[Omyo12]

Luke65, since we seem to be getting off the OP topic, I’ve started a new thread on the Apologetics forum.

I’m most interested in this geocentric theory

 

[budgie2]

I personally don’t understand why animals are brutal. If God is good, why do some animals eat their own young and fight? Did more evil also enter animal nature when mankind committed sin? I suppose that would be a heresy but I wonder if the whole of the natural world suffered because of the fall of mankind. I’m not sure if we were allowed to kill animals prior to the fall of Adam and Eve but I presume so.

 

[liquidpele]

I personally don’t understand why animals are brutal. If God is good, why do some animals eat their own young and fight? Did more evil also enter animal nature when mankind committed sin? I suppose that would be a heresy but I wonder if the whole of the natural world suffered because of the fall of mankind. I’m not sure if we were allowed to kill animals prior to the fall of Adam and Eve but I presume so.

Well… I would explain what I think, but it involves no God interference and evolution, so judging by your comment I figure you won’t want it.

 

[tonyrey]

I personally don’t understand why animals are brutal. If God is good, why do some animals eat their own young and fight?

Have you tried to design a world in which there is no brutality, conflict or predation? When you can do so you will be justified in regarding this world as unnecessarily harsh.

Did more evil also enter animal nature when mankind committed sin?

No.

I suppose that would be a heresy but I wonder if the whole of the natural world suffered because of the fall of mankind.

Why should it?

I’m not sure if we were allowed to kill animals prior to the fall of Adam and Eve but I presume so.

It is possible - and healthier - to live on a vegetarian diet.

 

[severus68]

I am a Catholic so I can only give my opinion on that basis.I am surprised some of you are still asking basic questions though Christian. I am not however here to criticise but to say this:-

1. Please read Genesis. When God made man He said the non humans were to eat grass and humans were to eat the fruit of the trees except for the one. Adam and Eve did not wear clothes then, they did not know shame until they sinned. “the lion lay down with the lamb’”.There was no killing of any kind.
2. Humans suffer because of a world gone wrong from sin. I cannot understand why animals and innocents like young children must suffer. I know they suffer the consequences of Man’s fall but I do not understand why God allows that. As I have said in another thread, I believe the answer will only given to me in the next world.
3. Animals do suffer suffer pain,anxiety, etc. Please do not dismiss this as being of no importance. Cows on the slaughter line in an abbatoir shed tears. There are many more examples.If we are the superior moral beings, then should we know it is wrong to delibrately cause suffering to them too.

 

[liquidpele]

I am a Catholic so I can only give my opinion on that basis.I am surprised some of you are still asking basic questions though Christian. I am not however here to criticise but to say this:-

1. Please read Genesis. When God made man He said the non humans were to eat grass and humans were to eat the fruit of the trees except for the one. Adam and Eve did not wear clothes then, they did not know shame until they sinned. “the lion lay down with the lamb’”.There was no killing of any kind.
2. Humans suffer because of a world gone wrong from sin. I cannot understand why animals and innocents like young children must suffer. I know they suffer the consequences of Man’s fall but I do not understand why God allows that. As I have said in another thread, I believe the answer will only given to me in the next world.
3. Animals do suffer suffer pain,anxiety, etc. Please do not dismiss this as being of no importance. Cows on the slaughter line in an abbatoir shed tears. There are many more examples.If we are the superior moral beings, then should we know it is wrong to delibrately cause suffering to them too.

Ha… next time you eat Kosher remember this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosher_foods#Slaughter

 

[Detales]

It is pretty commonly understood tht the “Garden” story is allegorical. My understanding, in fact, is quite the opposite of the usual negative take. In my book, the “fall” is an allegory of the ascent of Man to the point of being able to destinguish between inside and outside himself. Of course this brought with it a whole raft of down side things as well as the glories of civilzation (!) and learning. But it means that animals were always in the state they were now in. The linon and lamb thig is a bit enigmatic, but I don’t have time to get inot that now. I will only add that the “fall” of Lucifer is a similar allegory. There is a reason Satan is depicted with horns.

 

[wanstronian]

It is possible - and healthier - to live on a vegetarian diet.

Tony.

I don’t know how to say this. It’s very difficult for me, as I’m sure you will realise.

It’s just that…

We agree on something!

 

[Detales]

Holy Cow!!! That makes almost three of us. In practice, I stilll eat chicken and fish, and red if I;m a guest or desperate for my carnivore past.

Wanstronian, I really like your signature. Have you read the handbook for religious sanity? I know it is an oxymoron, but it is also a worhty read.

Bindar Doondat, FZPC

 

[tonyrey]

Tony.

I don’t know how to say this. It’s very difficult for me, as I’m sure you will realise.

It’s just that…

We agree on something!

Then we have something in common… Although, come to think of it, it would be extremely odd if we disagreed on absolutely everything… It goes to show that logical possibilities can usually be safely ignored.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

animals dont suffer, thats anthropomorphism. they are nothing more than little meat bots, deterministically driven, a collection of organic nanomachines called cells.

thats like asking why my roomba suffers.

 

[liquidpele]

animals dont suffer, thats anthropomorphism. they are nothing more than little meat bots, deterministically driven, a collection of organic nanomachines called cells.

thats like asking why my roomba suffers.

Wow… have you really never had a dog? I mean… that’s just kind of heartless.

As for your “meat bot” comment: baetzler.de/humor/meat_beings.html

 

[Detales]

“animals dont suffer, thats anthropomorphism. they are nothing more than little meat bots, deterministically driven, a collection of organic nanomachines called cells.”

Really? Why don’t you go to a farm and ask to do the honeors when it comes to slaughtering a pig? Have you never watched an injured animal die? How insulated, emotionally, mentally and socially are you???