by The Quiet One 754 Replies latest watchtower bible
Like the president of the USA or any other ruler for that matter, God has his good reasons for what he does and what he allows including animal suffering. Is that bad? You are not running the USA or the world for that matter.
Thank you Fisherman, for making me laugh out loudly in a very quiet lounge in Basel Airport....
What ruler should (vs can) measure good and bad?
None of them. Next question.
Another interesting example is the 3 million year old Australopithecus fossil known as the Taung Child.
It has always been a puzzle why no more similar fossils have been found in the same location. Then a close examination of the skull revealed tell-tale marks caused by the talons and beak of an eagle as it carried off the infant and later gouged out it's eyes.
Can you imagine the agony of the child and the distress of it's mother? The screams piercing the sky above the Pliocene forests.
And your god observed with indifference.
predation and suffering predated 'sin'. DT
I am not ignoring this point, assuming that it is a fact. I need to think about this some more.
assuming that it is a fact
It is a fact beyond all sensible debate.
The earth is groaning under the weight of millions of years of fossils of dead things complete with evidence of their violent demise.
Over 99% of all the species that ever lived went extinct. They didn't pass away peacefully in their sleep.
evidence of their violent demise. cofty
I hear you. I feel it. I don't know what to say. I have to think about this.
The one sided argument suggest that all creation was made to fail. The heavenly god depicted in the bible does not reflect that. The creator in genesis formed its creation in a good sense. The book of genesis speaks of two animal kingdoms being formed at a different span of time. The proposition is, when god created the first cycle of life, the book stipulated it was good. So then, there is no arbitrary sinful inheritance. However just as the choice given to man of good or bad, all creation has been given that same choice. The evidence is in the Garden of Eden where genesis speaks of all vegetation was there for nourishment not only to man but beast, so the animal kingdom didn’t start with sinful traits.
So if the first set of creation reverted to sinful ways before man was introduced, then that cycle of life would have been recycled. That first set while not inherited in sin therefore would have been acquired by its own destructive merits. After time, that first creation converted to carnivore to poison to adapt to its environment. By the time the second set of creation was formed, then god would have made adjustments to make all creation more suitable for each other, So then he introduced man but with the same stipulation or the same construct to have all vegetation there for nourishment. So the animal kingdom was not harmful nether was the vegetation again until what, this time man sinned and all of its environment adapted for existence. This is what we see today, the aftermath of a parallel phenomenon of sin.
Why wouldn’t that cycle met the same fate as the first, because of the introduction of man. What’s so special about man, that it was formed in god’s likeness and man was to keep the animal kingdom under subjection? The inference there would be to counter the destructive nature the animal kingdom had generated. Science while having the ability to pass judgement of things it perceives happened has not found evidence on the foundation to show let’s say a carnivore with a belly full of fruit. Would that mean it never happened, no it just proves science is more interested in the destructive aspect of evolution more than to prove its creation. Just as humans are today, they’re more interested in the destructive nature they see in television, than to air the good qualities man has. The same principle can be said from a parent to a child.
While the child is born imperfect through sin, the child’s early cycle of life is sinless. As the progression continues that child starts to learn good and bad, however those parents don’t have a preconceived notion on the outcome of that child. Science cannot tell those parents how their child is going to turn out until that time is there.
So to say the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is heartless and evil is disingenuous. If that were the case, then all the gods in history therefore would have the same effect, but that’s because man cannot see or refuses to understand things that are beyond their comfort.
Many people today say, well if I were god and man sinned against me? I would wipe that creation out and start new, or just maybe not create it again. Remove all the pain and suffering, all the evil or just remove the sinful people so that the good people can live in peace. It all sounds good, however to God that assertion would have far more reaching implications than the creation of this world. The question before man has been after God recycled that first creation, and removed all sinful man by the flood, God also needed to have god’s celestial creation in mind. Some of heavens sons also rebelled against him.
A creation that was there, however time frame you wish to adapt before the creation of the heavens and earth. So instead of simply saying, I will eliminate that creation, it would mean having to remove all its creation. From Jesus to us. So God of the bible is allowing man to figure out how to live in harmony with all aspects of this world, whether it’s to the animal kingdom, the environment, air, sea, or earth. But since man continues its sinful ways, then all those aliments have become destructive to man, so what’s left, to have creation recycled again but with a twist, to leave those that had faith and trust to bring this world back into shape as in the Garden of Eden, and that very question that has been in everyone’s mind can finally be answered, not by words, but by deeds.
So in a stand point of atheist or evolution without explanation to the consequences to the plight of man, it will take millenniums to kill of human existence, and whoever inherits the earth will have the same affect since no god is introduced. Then, that would mean this entire sphere and the universe is defective as it has generated only destructive things. The building block would therefore be meaningless as the cycle will go on, and on, and on. Which would be a sadder proposition than creation. What would be he point if every civilization will meet the same sad conclusion? If all animal or living organisms cycle the same way as evolution puts it by known facts. Where does that leave atheist, in the belief, billion years from now, perhaps some molecules will generate to be infallible, billions of calculated theories of evolution, thus far hasn’t proven that.
The bible account is what you'd get if you asked some ignorant tent dweller to explain all the species of the world. They tried the best they could based on what few facts they had so it inevitable ends up little more than a tall tale of superstition - like a badly written Disney explanation.
Heck, they thought all the animals could fit on a boat. It's laughable.
Evolution is an explanation based on the scientific process of examining the evidence and looking beyond preconceived notions, tradition and belief and discerning what it's actually telling us.
Nature is "cruel" to us in that nature has no master plan - it's just "who wins" each fight and gets to pass their genes on.
There is no way to reconcile what actually happens in the natural world with a loving peaceful creator. Even Disney couldn't spin that trick.
Look at real natural history programmes, not the sanitized feel-good nonsense.
