Posts by TheWonderofYou

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

cofty:These links shall show which scientifc areas are touched of the question at hand ….....about evil and animals at hand. As mere armchair biologist and armchair theologian I do my best to collect english info for you all.

I think that we have to accept joy and pain as a package, because obviously human and animal life would not be possible at all without that „life principles“: Fear – run away, suffering - improvement, whatever the professional names for these processes are, it seems to be right what was said: we live in the best possible world according to Leibnitz, but some evil accidents even a „perfect“ evolution could not be changed by evolution, like the hunters killing lovely deers, or terrorists killing nice babes on a beach.

The testimonals and stories of the bible are a guide even for this question.

The answers about life and suffering are not written in the bible, Job didnt get the answer for his suffering, but he had hope that his suffering cries to heaven, as we have. Our God is a loving kindness god and a suffering God too, as Jesus demonstrated on the cross. The redeem cant be without suffering, love cant be without suffering, love cant be without tears, thats a christian principle.

For the ancient antic world, judaism, too the fate of humankind and fate of cosmos was the same, and too the fate of animals.

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

Man's Search for Meaning …..Discovering the meaning of suffering in context with meaning of life

“The question was whether an ape which was being used to develop a poliomyelitis serum, and for this reason punctured again and again, would ever be able to grasp the meaning of its suffering. Unanimously, the group replied that of course it would not; with its limited intelligence, it could not enter into the world of man, i.e., the only world in which the meaning of its suffering would be understandable. Then I pushed forward with the following question: ‘And what about man? Are you sure that the the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?”

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Source: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/516361-the-question-was-whether-an-ape-which-was-being-used

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logotherapy#Discovering_meaning

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

Did God Make Animals Suffer in Evolution?

Video interview with biologist Jeff Schloss, Westmont College

Excerpt: Sentient suffering is a hard problem for theists to solve. The 'free will defense,' that privileges and blames human choice, claims to cover moral evil. But what about natural evil, such as animals being killed or eaten alive continuously during the process of evolution before humans? Shouldn't egregious and relentless animal suffering count against God?

http://www.closertotruth.com/series/did-god-make-animals-suffer-evolution

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

Human Suffering as a Challenge for the Meaning of Life

http://www.bu.edu/paideia/existenz/volumes/Vol.4-2Diehl.html

Suffering is essential or inherent to life

https://books.google.at/books?id=f34jOyYFbYcC&pg=PA152&lpg=PA152&dq=evolution+and+suffering+frankl&source=bl&ots=Bt4dsd76KX&sig=HeDNYleTYHxivbJiDNXQGZJtoMs&hl=de&sa=X&ei=h3eiVdb6BIutU4_up3g&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=evolution%20and%20suffering%20frankl&f=false

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

ANIMAL SUFFERING, EVOLUTION, AND THE ORIGINS

OF EVIL: TOWARD A “FREE CREATURES” DEFENSE

by Joshua M. Moritz

Abstract. Does an affirmation of theistic evolution make the task

of theodicy impossible? In this article, I will review a number of an-

cient and contemporary responses to the problem of evil as it concerns

animal suffering and s uggest a possible way forward which employs

the ancient Jewish insight that evil—as resistance to God’s will that

results in suffering and alienation from God’s purposes—precedes the

arrival of human beings and already has a firm foothold in the nonhu-

man animal world long before humans are ever tempted to go astray.

This theological intuition is conferred renewed relevance in light of

the empirical reality of evolutionary gradualism and continuity and

in view of the recent findings of cognitive ethology. Consequently, I

suggest that taking biological evolution seriously entails understand-

ing “moral evil” as a prehuman phenomenon that emerges gradually

through the actions and intentions of “free creatures” which—as evo-

lutionary history unfolded—increasingly possessed greater levels of

freedom and degrees of moral culpability.

Keywords: animal morality; animal suffering; cognitive ethology;

evil; evolution; the Fall; free will; theodicy

754

Theists, why does God allow suffering..

by The Quiet One in

..specifically, the suffering of animals.

you can talk about free will/sin/people choosing to not listen to god etc to explain human suffering being allowed.. but how can you love a god that allows animals, that haven't sinned or chosen to not have anything to do with god, to have their short lives ended in often long, drawn out, painful ways.

i could list stories i've read that would probably make you feel ill, but i'm not looking to shock anyone or start an emotional debate.

TheWonderofYou

Why So Much Pain And Suffering In The World?

„Einstein said, “Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of deeply felt needs and the assuagement of pain.” This is the pleasure/pain principle. It applies to virtually all life, albeit in very rudimentary form in single-celled creatures. It is fundamental. Humans and other creatures born without the functional pain apparatus of their peers, do not live long. Clearly, without the capacity for pain and suffering, the evolution of life would not and could not happen. Certainly all higher life forms including humans would not have had even a remote chance of coming into existence. Suppose there is a God, and s/he created the world pretty much as it is (as per the Christian fundamentalist view), except there was no pain and suffering, and all danger had been removed for all creatures. Wouldn’t it be a dull and boring place? Would there be any reason to strive for anything?

Fred Pauser, http://www.science20.com/what039s_true_reality/why_so_much_pain_and_suffering_world

49

What kind of errors in the Bible?

by TheWonderofYou in

the new testament specialist daniel wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the new testament, this number is very misleading.

most of the differences are completely inconsequential--spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like.

a side by side comparison between the two main text families (the majority text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.[18].

TheWonderofYou

The New Testament specialist Daniel Wallace notes that although there are about 300,000 individual variations of the text of the New Testament, this number is very misleading. Most of the differences are completely inconsequential--spelling errors, inverted phrases and the like. A side by side comparison between the two main text families (the Majority Text and the modern critical text) shows agreement a full 98% of the time.[18]

Of the remaining differences, virtually all yield to vigorous textual criticism. This means that our New Testament is 99.5% textually pure. In the entire text of 20,000 lines, only 40 lines are in doubt (about 400 words), and none affects any significant doctrine.[19]

Greek scholar D.A. Carson sums up this way: "The purity of text is of such a substantial nature that nothing we believe to be true, and nothing we are commanded to do, is in any way jeopardized by the variants."[20]

This issue is no longer contested by non-Christian scholars, and for good reason. Simply put, if we reject the authenticity of the New Testament on textual grounds we'd have to reject every ancient work of antiquity and declare null and void every piece of historical information from written sources prior to the beginning of the second millennium A.D.

Has the New Testament been altered? Critical, academic analysis says it has not.

[18] Wallace, Daniel, "The Majority Text and the Original Text: Are They Identical?," Bibliotheca Sacra, April-June, 1991, 157-8.

[19] Geisler and Nix, 475.

[20] Carson, D.A., The King James Version Debate (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1979), 56.

Source: http://www.str.org/articles/is-the-new-testament-text-reliable#ANCHOR19

30

What started me on the path to waking up about the lies the WT teaches?

by oppostate in

it was a simple question: isn't jesus my "mediator" if i put faith in him like the scriptures say?

the research to that answer, from the w79 4/1 p. 31, was mind blowing.

how dare they deny me a belief firmly stated in the scriptures?

TheWonderofYou

The Blood issue.

How happy i am today when I realised that really each single "dogma"/teaching of JW faith is not the truth.

JW truth looks true and sounds like the "truth", but it is not 100 % Truth, even if it was only 99,9 % true, that is not truth, although there are signs of truth.

Be aware of fake: The greatest lie is the lie that appears most similar to the truth.

43

My sister is being harassed by the elders

by opusdei1972 in

sometime ago i wrote here in this forum about the case of my sister, who decided to stop attending the meetings because she realised that the watchtower society is an evil organization.

this happened more than one year ago.

i am not living in the same country of my sister, so i learn about her case when she calls me or when she write me through whatsapp.

TheWonderofYou

I propose that it should be a possibilty to stay in a "little sheep -stealth modus" as "inactive little sheep" if you have problems with the herd or with the food supply and looked elsewhere to get fed e.g.

A sheep could have medical attested depression of a veterinarian because of some strange happenings in the field where some abusive wolves are regulary looking after little sheep to misuse silent sheeps.

Could a sheep then become "inactive" speak "non-proclaiming, non publishing sheep, non-screaming sheep, non functionalizable sheep, non productive sheep, how would the shepherd handle the non productive, non developing sheeps?

Upbuilding stroking units of the shepherd for the annual report are not always welcome as veterinarins know. There are other sheeps that can help more than sheperds e.g. assisant sheeps.

In that cirumstances a sheep wants silence more than constant "sheep-congregations with baa.

Should that sheep be expelled to the desert, left alone outside the sheepfold because it is a sheep lost in depression over the preaching baa baa work in the field?

What kind of sheepfold is that sheeplike org with sheperds-king that are running after the little sheeps that have depression because of baaing in the field and missing soul food.

Poor little sheep that are found in depression for doing baa, going to be jugded for things that all sheeps are doing since sheep exists.

21

Who were the Sadducees and the Pharisees?? Are there similarities between them and JW's??

by confuzzlediam in

last month, i had the privilege of traveling to jamaica with a study abroad group from my community college.

while there, we went to a place called my father's house in which severely disabled children lived when they had no one else to take care of them.

as part of their day, they hold worship in a small, outdoor meeting place.

TheWonderofYou

Thanks for the interesting historic backgrounds, which help waking up from a "literal" Bible understanding. Sad history of misunderstanding.