Why would God include carnivory, parasitism, and disease in creation?

[Sair]

If you disagree the onus is on you to explain:

1. How the fundamental teaching of Christianity has changed.
2. Why it doesn’t apply to all rational beings.:

This just looks like an attempt to pass the buck, frankly, since you did not offer justification in your original post. Christian teaching does not apply to those rational beings who have rationally seen through and rejected it. How could it possibly do so?

Neither of your examples are doctrines or precepts of the Church.

So the Church is scripturally selective? How, then, do Christians condemn those who formulate their own beliefs and moral precepts from culturally inherited ideas?

No teaching in the world can expunge beliefs.

Actually, part of the purpose of education in general is to expunge erroneous and potentially destructive beliefs. One would have thought, that with no less an authority than God to back it up, the teaching of Jesus would be more effective than others in this objective, no?

Jesus challenged the authority of the scribes and Pharisees. His mission was not political but moral and spiritual.

Yet politics is not devoid of moral significance - how do you justify the Christian admonition to slaves to “obey” their masters? Was Jesus just an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who believed it was best to leave the status quo in place until the end times were initiated?

There was no point in challenging the authority of Rome because He would have been crucified forthwith like many other rebels. His mission wouldn’t have lasted three months, let alone three years. He also knew His moral teaching would have a far more enduring effect on humanity than a futile attempt to agitate for Jewish independence

So moral teaching and its resulting impetus (if it goes well, that is) can be deferred until the time is ripe for effect? What about all those who suffer injustice in the meantime? Oh, that’s right - they can be compensated in the afterlife.

No teaching in the world can expunge errors forcibly but Christ’s example and message have inspired countless people to dedicate their lives to others by establishing schools, hospitals, dispensaries, orphanages, mental asylums and hospices for the dying.

Teaching cannot forcibly do anything without some physical imposition (which Christianity, as the dominant socio-political paradigm of its day, certainly did not lack), but its influence can and will be misinterpreted unless it is infallible. It is doubtful that those who felt motivated to help others would have ignored this motivation without the extra nudge from Christian doctrines. It was very late in the day, in terms of the history of Christendom, that people actually realised there was practical value in allowing all people in a given society to attain the means of basic sustenance. It’s hard to argue that Christianity was more influential than, say, feudalism, secular philosophy or science, during the overlapping history of all these cultural phenomena. Like any set of ideas, Christianity can be used to justify anything the ruling classes want to implement - it is far from infallible, and is only as useful, only as moral, only as socially aware as the people who wield its collection of ideas.

 

[tonyrey]

This just looks like an attempt to pass the buck, frankly, since you did not offer justification in your original post.

I have pointed out more than once that the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are based on the teaching of Jesus that we are all children of the same Father and not merely strange freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose.

Christian teaching does not apply to those rational beings who have rationally seen through and rejected it.

Explain why you reject the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity based on the teaching of Jesus?

So the Church is scripturally selective?

Scripture was selected by the Church in the first place!

How, then, do Christians condemn those who formulate their own beliefs and moral precepts from culturally inherited ideas?

Christians condemn no one whose beliefs are sincere but they condemn teaching opposed to the teaching of Jesus

Actually, part of the purpose of education in general is to expunge erroneous and potentially destructive beliefs.

They can be corrected only when people are willing.

One would have thought, that with no less an authority than God to back it up, the teaching of Jesus would be more effective than others in this objective, no?

It has been extremely effective but many like yourself reject the precepts they find onerous.

Yet politics is not devoid of moral significance - how do you justify the Christian admonition to slaves to “obey” their masters?

Jesus knew very well that if He advocated revolt He would have been executed forthwith.

Was Jesus just an apocalyptic Jewish preacher who believed it was best to leave the status quo in place until the end times were initiated?

He knew His moral teaching would have far more lasting effects than political agitation for freedom and equality.

So moral teaching and its resulting impetus (if it goes well, that is) can be deferred until the time is ripe for effect?

His moral teaching was not deferred but promulgated by the Apostles and their successors.

What about all those who suffer injustice in the meantime? Oh, that’s right - they can be compensated in the afterlife.

It is absurd to think all injustice can be overcome in this life. There will always be some who reject Christ’s teaching.

Teaching cannot forcibly do anything without some physical imposition (which Christianity, as the dominant socio-political paradigm of its day, certainly did not lack), but its influence can and will be misinterpreted unless it is infallible.

Physical imposition cannot chain minds. Nor does infallibility entail acceptance. There are many who did not, do not and will not regard the teaching of Jesus as infallible or even worthy of respect.

It is doubtful that those who felt motivated to help others would have ignored this motivation without the extra nudge from Christian doctrines.

Motivation to help others beyond one’s immediate circle didn’t exist then and very often it doesn’t even exist now.
I

t was very late in the day, in terms of the history of Christendom, that people actually realised there was practical value in allowing all people in a given society to attain the means of basic sustenance.

The first Christians practised communism in which everyone was cared for but that ideal couldn’t be upheld as the Church developed.

It’s hard to argue that Christianity was more influential than, say, feudalism, secular philosophy or science, during the overlapping history of all these cultural phenomena. Like any set of ideas, Christianity can be used to justify anything the ruling classes want to implement - it is far from infallible, and is only as useful, only as moral, only as socially aware as the people who wield its collection of ideas.

What evidence is there that feudalism, secular philosophy or science has progressed beyond the moral teaching of Jesus?

 

[tonyrey]

Did human beings come to the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity before the advent of Christ? Well, yes. That’s a given. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard anyone argue that the concept of morality started just 2,000 years ago and prior to that no-one gave any thought to their fellow man. I think the Greeks, to use them as just one example, had a pretty good handle on things well before the Christian era.

Can you cite an example of anyone who stated the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity - or even implied that all criminals and all law-abiding men, women and children have an equal right to life? A child was not regarded as a person by the Greeks until it was five days old.

As I said earlier, just because Christians espouse a particular morality, they cannot claim it as exclusively theirs. There are many parts of the world where different religions have come to the same conclusions as do many people who follow no religion at all. Religion isn’t a necessary condition for the development of morality.

Can you cite an example of anyone who stated the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity - or even implied that all criminals and all law-abiding men, women and children have an equal right to life?

It’s not a feeling but a fact. If we have no Father in heaven we are not members of a family but individuals linked solely by an accident of birth.

If you want to grant people liberty and equality and treat them fraternally because you believe in God, then go for it. I’ll do the same but I have no need to believe in God to do so.

That is because you live in a post-Christian society. If you had been born more than two thousand years ago you would have a different outlook.

                                             Are you only treating people this way because you are a Christian?  You surely cannot tell me that if you didn’t believe in God then you  would treat people differently?

If I hadn’t lived in a post-Christian society I certainly wouldn’t have discovered the universal principles of liberty, equality and fraternity by myself!

                                       I hear this all the time: without God there is no right or wrong – you could do whatever you liked.

In a Godless universe there is no rational basis for objective moral values. The posts of non-believers on this forum are irrefutable evidence that morality becomes a matter of personal opinion. They state explicitly that morality is subjective.

                                              The undeniable implication is that the person using the argument  does not believe that they could differentiate between right or wrong  without God.

They differentiate between right or wrong but their concept of right and wrong is mainly based on expediency. It is in our own interest to consider to some extent the wishes and feelings of others - which is true but it is not the whole truth.

                                             If they could, then so could I, so their argument would fail. They  are saying that they need God to be able to make moral decisions. That  without God, they themselves would not know the difference.

Without divine revelation everyone is necessarily in the dark where the highest form of morality is concerned. I can’t imagine anyone deliberately choosing to die for their enemies, can you?

 

[tonyrey]

Why would God design animals to live inside and on other animals and leech their nutrients until they die slowly and painfully? Why would he create killer viruses and bacteria that cause so much death and pain?

1. Those questions are based on the false assumption that God designs every single event in nature - which is absurd.
2. Even the sceptic David Hume realised the Creator would work through the laws of nature and would not be the direct cause of everything.
3. The amount of enjoyment far exceeds the amount of pain in most lives.
4. Only a hedonist believes the drawbacks of life outweigh its advantages.
5. Only a Utopian believes it is possible to have everything for nothing.

 

[tonyrey]

Your lack of comprehenshion did not change. Looks like you missed the point of “sentient beings”. Since there is no LOGICAL problem of creating sentient beings out of … hmmm… dust? A world without pain is possible. Only an unimaginative person thinks inside his own small box and is unable to imagine anything outside it. Not to mention that your post did not contain any information pertaining to the question … as usual it was just an inane assumption about my preferences.

Your post is merely a set of argumenta ad hominem.

1. A physical world is composed not of logical possibilities but of consistent facts.
2. The fantasy of a painless Utopia needs to be substantiated by **a feasible blueprint **before it is credible.
3. The hubristic assumption that one can design a better universe than the existing universe amounts to a presumption of insight and experience in creating universes.
4. Precise knowledge of the scope of omnipotence when creating a universe presupposes omniscience.
5. Omnipotence does not entail inconsistency.

 

[Gaber]

…

1. Omnipotence does not entail inconsistency.

Then why did you say

To expect everything to be designed in an extremely complex universe is absurd.

?

 

[tonyrey]

Then why did you say?

It is not inconsistent to permit purposeless events when they are inevitable.

 

[Sair]

I have pointed out more than once that the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity are based on the teaching of Jesus that we are all children of the same Father and not merely strange freaks of nature which exist for no reason or purpose.
Explain why you reject the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity based on the teaching of Jesus?

Do you appreciate the difference between rejecting the principles and rejecting the idea that they were invented by Jesus?

Scripture was selected by the Church in the first place!

That would be a yes, then - the church is scripturally selective, presumably for its own purposes.

Christians condemn no one whose beliefs are sincere but they condemn teaching opposed to the teaching of Jesus

Including teachings against accepting slavery? Including teachings against taking up swords and rejecting your family? Did Jesus actually teach that it was correct to kill people for heresy?

It has been extremely effective but many like yourself reject the precepts they find onerous.

Onerous, or ridiculous and unsubstantiated? Wasn’t Jesus’ first teaching to love “the Lord your God”? Where’s the evidence that such a being even exists to be loved, let alone inspires feelings of love?

Jesus knew very well that if He advocated revolt He would have been executed forthwith.

Considering that’s what he supposedly came into the world to do, why the delay?

Physical imposition cannot chain minds.

Rubbish. Haven’t you ever heard of learned helplessness or the victim mentality?

Motivation to help others beyond one’s immediate circle didn’t exist then…

And you know this how?

The first Christians practised communism in which everyone was cared for but that ideal couldn’t be upheld as the Church developed.

Why not? Isn’t that what the church was for? Upholding ideals? Practising what it preached?

What evidence is there that feudalism, secular philosophy or science has progressed beyond the moral teaching of Jesus?

I didn’t say feudalism was progressive, merely influential - and in fact, a lot of the ideas promulgated by Christian doctrine, like those of rulership and unquestioning obedience to authority, have their origins in feudal societies. Secular philosophy, though you would have it otherwise, went beyond many of the ideas that held sway for much of the history of Christendom - ideas that kept people in their place, even if that place was in abject misery. In the Renaissance, and later during the Enlightenment, Christianity was influenced by secular ideas of equality, liberty and free thought - remember that these ideas took a long time to overcome the notions of hierarchy and servitude, ideas that Christianity did nothing to dismantle until it was infused by secular ideas. As for science going beyond the teaching of Jesus…well, Jesus was a creationist, wasn’t he? If anything, it would appear that the Church and its teachings, rather than driving advancement of society and reform of injustice, have been influenced, historically, by the spirit of the age, whatever that might be. It was, after all, just one human organisation amongst many.

 

[tonyrey]

Do you appreciate the difference between rejecting the principles and rejecting the idea that they were invented by Jesus?

Including teachings against accepting slavery? Including teachings against taking up swords and rejecting your family? Did Jesus actually teach that it was correct to kill people for heresy?There is no Church doctrine that advocates these policies.

Onerous, or ridiculous and unsubstantiated?

Onerous for many (as in your case), true and substantiated.

Wasn’t Jesus’ first teaching to love “the Lord your God”?

He taught that you cannot love God unless you love His children.

Where’s the evidence that such a being even exists to be loved, let alone inspires feelings of love?

The evidence is in the perfect love revealed to us by Jesus.

Where’s the evidence that love has originated by chance?

Jesus knew very well that if He advocated revolt He would have been executed forthwith.

Considering that’s what he supposedly came into the world to do, why the delay?His first mission was to liberate us from our ignorance, weakness and selfishness by His example, teaching and denunciation of evil which He knew would inevitably result in His death - like the prophets before Him the martyrs after Him.

Rubbish. Haven’t you ever heard of learned helplessness or the victim mentality?

Haven’t you heard of those who have resisted brainwashing?

Motivation to help others beyond one’s immediate circle didn’t exist then…

And you know this how?There is not one jot of evidence that anyone before Jesus told us we are all children of the same Father and should love our enemies.

Why not? Isn’t that what the church was for? Upholding ideals? Practising what it preached?

The expansion of the Church made it impossible for Christians to live as a community where everything is shared. The Church has upheld the ideals of Jesus for two thousand years but it cannot compel anyone to respect them.

I didn’t say feudalism was progressive, merely influential - and in fact, a lot of the ideas promulgated by Christian doctrine, like those of rulership and unquestioning obedience to authority, have their origins in feudal societies.

The only authorities promulgated by the Church are the teaching of Jesus and the successors of St Peter but our ultimate authority is our conscience.

Secular philosophy, though you would have it otherwise, went beyond many of the ideas that held sway for much of the history of Christendom - ideas that kept people in their place, even if that place was in abject misery. In the Renaissance, and later during the Enlightenment, Christianity was influenced by secular ideas of equality, liberty and free thought - remember that these ideas took a long time to overcome the notions of hierarchy and servitude, ideas that Christianity did nothing to dismantle until it was infused by secular ideas.

The principles of liberty, equality and **fraternity **(which you have omitted) are based on the teaching of Jesus that we are all children of the same Father. The notions of hierarchy and servitude existed from time immemorial in the patriarchal societies dominating mankind.

As for science going beyond the teaching of Jesus…well, Jesus was a creationist, wasn’t he? If anything, it would appear that the Church and its teachings, rather than driving advancement of society and reform of injustice, have been influenced, historically, by the spirit of the age, whatever that might be. It was, after all, just one human organisation amongst many.

"The key and unique features of that worldview required for science to be born and mature include conviction of the world’s rationality, intelligibility and contingency, summarized by the Thomistic proofs for the existence of God. These convictions serve among science’s permanent and unchangeable metaphysical foundations, and the necessary minimum for its continued success…

Previous historiographies of science, indebted to variations of Enlightenment rationalism and deistic anti-supernaturalism, have failed to understand that ‘from Copernicus to Newton it was not deism but Christian theism that served as a principal factor helping the scientific enterprise reach self-sustaining maturity’. Despite long periods of economic and political stability, science failed to rise in any other culture for religious and metaphysical reasons: a ubiquitous belief in the divinity of the heavens and the eternal recurrence of all. These produced an epistemology filled with inconsistency that destroyed belief in humanity’s power to discover the laws of the cosmos. In contrast, medieval theism offered the only successful venue for the birth and rise of science, providing foundational themes necessary to that success: an intelligible cosmos, created, not divine; therefore contingent; and time as linear. These themes are entirely indebted to distinct theological tenets."
Stanley Jaki - Gifford Lectures

There is an excellent summary online for anyone who wishes to know the facts:

giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPRSWG&Volume=0&Issue=0&Summary=True

[/QUOTE]

 

[Gaber]

It is not inconsistent to permit purposeless events when they are inevitable.

How does purposeful design work with inevitable purposeless events??? Where’s the boundary? Or is it a continuum?

 

[tonyrey]

How does purposeful design work with inevitable purposeless events??? Where’s the boundary? Or is it a continuum?

I have pointed out several times that in an immensely complex system there are bound to be coincidences which are dysteleological, i.e. opposed to the purposes of the system. Earthquakes and hurricanes occur in populated areas causing indiscriminate death and destruction. Sooner or later it is inevitable that persons and animals will be in the wrong place at the wrong time but these events are very rare compared with the vast majority of lives which are not affected by natural disasters. Even the archsceptic David Hume realised that the blind laws of nature do not take into account the welfare and survival of individuals.

 

[tonyrey]

I have pointed out several times that in an immensely complex system there are bound to be coincidences which are dysteleological, i.e. opposed to the purposes of the system. Earthquakes and hurricanes occur in populated areas causing indiscriminate death and destruction. Sooner or later it is inevitable that persons and animals will be in the wrong place at the wrong time but these events are very rare compared with the vast majority of lives which are not affected by natural disasters. Even the archsceptic David Hume realised that the blind laws of nature do not take into account the welfare and survival of individuals.

Leibniz sagely remarked that houses are far more common than hospitals! Success is more fundamental than failure even though nature is blind. Otherwise all life would have become extinct almost as soon as it emerged - and the very fact that it emerged at all is a miracle…

 

[Sair]

Leibniz sagely remarked that houses are far more common than hospitals! Success is more fundamental than failure even though nature is blind. Otherwise all life would have become extinct almost as soon as it emerged - and the very fact that it emerged at all is a miracle…

The thing is, naturalists have no trouble accepting the fact that nature is blind and indifferent to the suffering of subjective beings, even as it produces objects of great beauty and wonder and the possibility of solace. That is all quite unproblematic, until you posit the existence of a benevolent deity. You can’t claim credit for your omnipotent creator god for the good things, whilst at the same time absolving him of all responsibility for the bad things. That is why the problem of evil is a philosophical problem for theistic belief.

 

[tonyrey]

The thing is, naturalists have no trouble accepting the fact that nature is blind and indifferent to the suffering of subjective beings, even as it produces objects of great beauty and wonder and the possibility of solace. That is all quite unproblematic, until you posit the existence of a benevolent deity. You can’t claim credit for your omnipotent creator god for the good things, whilst at the same time absolving him of all responsibility for the bad things. That is why the problem of evil is a philosophical problem for theistic belief.

1. It is absurd to expect to have everything for nothing.
2. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage.
3. Omnipotence <> Absurdity.

 

[Gaber]

I have pointed out several times that in an immensely complex system there are bound to be coincidences which are dysteleological, i.e. opposed to the purposes of the system. Earthquakes and hurricanes occur in populated areas causing indiscriminate death and destruction. Sooner or later it is inevitable that persons and animals will be in the wrong place at the wrong time but these events are very rare compared with the vast majority of lives which are not affected by natural disasters. Even the archsceptic David Hume realised that the blind laws of nature do not take into account the welfare and survival of individuals.

Yes, unfortunately he never got into what that individuaity is based in. Had hdoe that, the pictue he portrayed would have been rather different. He wasn’t sceptical enough. He believed his mind.

 

[tonyrey]

Yes, unfortunately he never got into what that individuaity is based in. Had hdoe that, the pictue he portrayed would have been rather different. He wasn’t sceptical enough. He believed his mind.

What else can one believe?

Actually he didn’t believe he or anyone else has a mind - we’re just “bundles of perceptions”! Hume was influenced by Bishop Berkeley who concluded that “esse est percipi” (to exist is to be perceived) and he took it a stage further: there are perceptions but no perceivers!

 

[Sair]

1. It is absurd to expect to have everything for nothing.
2. Every advantage has a corresponding disadvantage.

Naturalists have no trouble accepting these premises, but they are not what one would expect from an all-powerful, benevolent god who takes an interest in humans, if not all sentient beings.

1. Omnipotence <> Absurdity.

I’m going to suppose that what you mean to say here is that omnipotence is materially equivalent to absurdity - in which case, I agree, which is one of the reasons the God of Classical Theism is logically incoherent.

 

[Gaber]

What else can one believe?

Actually he didn’t believe he or anyone else has a mind - we’re just “bundles of perceptions”! Hume was influenced by Bishop Berkeley who concluded that “esse est percipi” (to exist is to be perceived) and he took it a stage further: there are perceptions but no perceivers!

"…aut percipere."That is actually well said. The mind is a belief. Show me yours! But our encounter with World is fourfold, it all being subjectively expereinced, lit by the “I” which is conseqently misidentified as “me.” Therein lies/lies the problem. We decline to account for the witness to our thoughts, and not persuing that, we miss the actual intent of religion. So we believe, which can’t be helped, as we are mental creatures, but we don’t penetrate that which allows us to see that we have beliefs. So we think that there is a 1/1 correspondence of our thoughts to Reality,never minding that everyone looking at that reality is only expressing their thoughts about it as reports of the senses. But until the sense mechanisms are bypassed and seen for what they are, those perceptions are built on sand. The mind has got to be gone past to the Rock it is founded on. Then what you are as Self can be destinguished from the thoughts about the world as mind. Then you can have a good laugh and go about your business. Ask Hotei.

 

[tonyrey]

"…aut percipere."That is actually well said. The mind is a belief. Show me yours! But our encounter with World is fourfold, it all being subjectively expereinced, lit by the “I” which is conseqently misidentified as “me.” Therein lies/lies the problem. We decline to account for the witness to our thoughts, and not persuing that, we miss the actual intent of religion. So we believe, which can’t be helped, as we are mental creatures, but we don’t penetrate that which allows us to see that we have beliefs. So we think that there is a 1/1 correspondence of our thoughts to Reality,never minding that everyone looking at that reality is only expressing their thoughts about it as reports of the senses. But until the sense mechanisms are bypassed and seen for what they are, those perceptions are built on sand. The mind has got to be gone past to the Rock it is founded on. Then what you are as Self can be destinguished from the thoughts about the world as mind. Then you can have a good laugh and go about your business. Ask Hotei.

Once again we are back to privileged insight! At all events we have drifted from the topic of why God permits carnivory, parasitism, and disease in creation.

 

[Gaber]

Once again we are back to privileged insight! At all events we have drifted from the topic of why God permits carnivory, parasitism, and disease in creation.

I have no privileged insight. Privileged means you think you can’t have something someone else has. I have stated repeatedly that what I see is something you can expereince for yourself. In fact, without it you could not see your persitence in claiming that you believe I have a privileged insight! Pure awareness as such has not privilege, it is a condition of seeing what supports the discursive mind you use to make your asseritions I have an alleged privelege that you don’t wish to share. Your not wanting to doesn’t constitute a privelege on my part. It constitutes lack of interest on your part. That makes my persistence inconvenient for your insitence on limiting anything “useful” or “philosophical” to a low order logic.

And we have not drifted off topic, because the basic question still comes down to “What is God and can God ‘permit’ in the sense we think of such things.” I’m simply contending that if anyone asking such a question understood the nature of their own mind, such a question would be semantically impossible. You simply refuse that my premise is admissable. I say that until it is understood, the question as stated is anthropomorphizing God. So if you don’t have a handle on your discursive mind from beyond it, where is your argument? Too limited in scope to be other than an anthropomorphizarion. Go back and read my posts and tell me if there is an inconsistency in my line of contention about this.