*reads through indeciperable posts several times* Ah, here is a point that relates to the topic..
Whenindoubt:
"To a theist, why would God allow suffering... God Didn’t, it was inherited by sin, and animals adapted to that sin. Before man, Animals while not inheriting sin, developed its own..."
You are suggesting here that animals developed their own way of sinning? Without any moral code or holy book to define 'sin', how could animals have 'sinned'?
Let's assume that when you say 'sin', you are referring to animals attacking each other, rather than the traditional meaning of such things as heavy drinking, gambling and adultery.
With the various natural tools and predatory instincts that your God gave them, how would they have had any choice except to fight and kill each other in the first place?Absolute nonsense.
Do you believe that:
1) Completely independent of God's design or interference in any way, animals *decided* to begin 'sinning' [attacking each other], perhaps by forming their own predatory instincts from the point at which they were born, as well as selecting their own natural weapons and defenses?
Or
2) Do you believe God made them in that way, to be predators and prey, when he first created them?
Or
3) Do you believe that all animals evolved from the vegetarians that God intended them to be originally, to the point where some became carnivorous predators, millions of years before mankind had sinned?
Assuming you choose option 3, that would still be injust.
Imagine a parent teaching their children to be peaceful and eat a good diet of herbs and vegetables, that the parent had designed to be fully nutritious and sustaining (as God would be able to do in theory).Then this loving parent sits back and watches as the children (their creation) gradually learn to fight with each other, to attack and kill each other, and to feast on each others flesh.
What kind of parent would ever allow such a situation to develop? What kind of God would allow a predator/prey life or death struggle to develop among its own creation?
We know that even children (who are far more intelligent than animals) need both guidance and protection.
One cannot excuse themselves of all responsibility for a life/lives they have created,merely by declaring that they 'were just letting their children develop and find their own way to survive'. Any decent parent guides and protects their children.. not leaving them to starve, or worse still, to fight and even kill each other.
So, the 'creation of vegetarian animals in the beginning, followed by unguided evolution until there were predators' option still wouldn't excuse God for allowing animal suffering and extinction. That is besides the fact that there exists zero evidence of any 'Golden Age' where all creatures were vegetarian. Whereas evidence of predation is abundant.
So, Whenindoubt, what do you believe?
And, if you care to share it, what evidence do you have to support that belief with?
(And if anyone can clarify the points I'm trying to make, please feel free. I have tried not to ramble too much.)
