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: The answer of the catolic church is according to pope john paul II., Yes, God is in a certain wise powerless and he stands on the side of the suffering ones like the biblical "man of sorrows". I ask for patience because english is not my motherlangue.

Furthter its seems to be that the whole creation - and men are part of creation expecially if we think of the natural laws that lead to human life, and the natural laws that regulate our life and our pain - has the same fate as the other creation living and non living, and as animals.

Sparrows: Jesus said that God knows about the fate of the sparrows not because he was anaware of their actual lifesituation, but to show that God stands on our side, that God is our only hope for salvation, and in the jewish-christian thinking context, that fate of mankind is always the fate of the whole cosmos.

Jesus'suffering was not a necessary quanititive asset to be paid to a God or the Devil as ransom, but is the merely the conclusion of a devoted life, thus his suffering is the same suffering that we face , it is a suffering "with us together", a kind of solidarity. like a brother gives his life for his sister or similar.

I looked up more infos about that matter and will write later beginning what the hebrew sprictures tell about suffering.

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 asked me

So Jesus' god is powerless in the face of a tsumani is he? I thought he made the universe.

If you are positing that the god of Jesus is as powerless do anything in the world as a crying baby then that is an interesting theology. It is one way of getting god off the hook. Christians tend to resort to some form of deism when faced with reality but I have never seen it done so thoroughly. It suggests an obvious question of why bother worshipping such a useless deity?

Another comment was : Jesus suffering has no worth

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

omnipotent, almighty does not mean only the most powerfull, the biggest, the greates, the allknowing-in advance, in christian belief but the most little too, the poorest, the little baby in the crib, the man on the cross, the spitted messiah,
tortured anointed, the submitted king, the surrendered, ....a .loving god of submittance, surrender, relinquising himself like a baby in the crib, discharded to his trial, fully dependent of men and as baby of his mother.

„Almightyness“ does refer to the biblical notion of god in israel, Not so much meaning " The one that has the most might and knows everything" but „the lord of all“, hebrew „Zebaoth“, greek pano-krator - literally "god of hosts"," god of powers", in opostion to the babylonian religion of the stars!!! As the lord to whom the stars belong, stars are not gods but his tools, so Jahweh zebaoth does not mean as JW think the lord of a big powerful and very strong myriad angelarmy that is lead by jesus, no, but simple lord of all stars in the heaven.

So this „almightness“ comes orginally from thinking of the jewish god as REAL lord over all stars in contrast to babylon star worship and does not mean that he knows everything in advance or plans everything like an architect or clockmaker-creator.

The evolution of the strong and the meek is thus in no contrary with that "almighty" "full-love"-God, a love in the sense of mercy, loving kindness- the motherly love - but not a almightyness as biological perfection of a special imagined kind. The biblical god is the God of mother love and not the god of perfect bios, thus he gifts us with gifts of love and zoe (eternal life) not perfect biological life.

read page 148

https://books.google.at/books?id=LJlkwvExekkC&pg=PA137&hl=de&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&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

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