Why does a loving God allow animals to suffer?

[Trailblazer]

Suffering of humans can be explained by the fact that we are sinful, we have free will and we cause a lot of our own suffering. Other suffering that we endure is at the hands of other humans. Humans learn lessons and grow spiritually by suffering and we have recompense in an afterlife, so one can still accommodate a loving God that allows suffering...

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering. Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

 

[pearl]

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

God allows what man allows, it is humans that allow animals to suffer. If your thinking of wild animals, they kill to eat, not for sport or money.

 

[William Milverton]

.
.
The British physicist, Julian Barbour, says that there is no such thing as time.
Barbour sees each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. He calls these moments "Nows."
"As we live, we seem to move through a succession of Nows," says Barbour, Each Now is an arrangement of everything in the universe. "We have the strong impression that things have definite positions relative to each other. There are simply the Nows, nothing more, nothing less."

"There Is No Such Thing As Time"
Julian Barbour - Wikipedia


God the Father creates past, present and future simultaneously
Once created, it remains, forever, or until the end of its universe
The character you are currently playing is not a living person in time.
It is a series of living pictures like a cartoon is a series of pictures
As you move through the pictures of the character’s life, it seems to you like he is living in time


He is not living in time. He is not in the book of life. He has no soul
He is a series of pictures that exist forever
At other times other players will play the same character you are now playing
and they will get different results with it, by taking different routes through its card-deck life
If past, present and future was not a series of fixed pictures then Time Travel would be impossible


Why are there no babies, infants or children in Heaven?
The answer is that all players are adults
Only characters in the video game that you call ‘life’ can be babies and children
When a baby dies, the adult who was playing it is out of the game


The astonishing thing is that they are queuing to play characters in the game
even when the character has a short, painful, miserable life
because it is the only way they can gain advancement (move up to the next spiritual level)
The video game that you call ‘life’ is an accelerated development system for those in the spirit realms


As the whole universe is templated, plant, insect and animal life works on the same basis
The only way they can move up to the next spiritual level is to suffer along with you
and in the same way, they can’t wait to do it
and are fighting and jostling to get in
.
.

 

[Twilight Hue]

God allows what man allows, it is humans that allow animals to suffer. If your thinking of wild animals, they kill to eat, not for sport or money.

That's simply not true. Except for the money part. Sport kills by animals are called surplus killing and there's a fair number of them.

If You Think Dolphins Are Anything But Vicious Killers, You're Dead Wrong

 

[shunyadragon]

Suffering of humans can be explained by the fact that we are sinful, we have free will and we cause a lot of our own suffering. Other suffering that we endure is at the hands of other humans. Humans learn lessons and grow spiritually by suffering and we have recompense in an afterlife, so one can still accommodate a loving God that allows suffering...

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering. Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

This problem arises with ancient anthropomorphic image of God Created by an ancient Biblical world view. The myth of Creation in Genesis makes a clumsy effort to explain the suffering, pain and violence of our natural world including humans by explaining that God created everything perfect, but the Original Sin and the Fall corrupted Creation, and humanity.

If God exists God Created the nature of our existence naturally as it is without the conjecture and human efforts to Create God in their own image.

What humans perceive as suffering is the natural course of life and nature of Creation. The ultimate nature of our physical existence is the evolving spiritual nature underlying everything.

I believe God exists, but the anthropomorphic God of the Bible only exists in vain egocentric human imagination.

 

[sun rise]

Athletes train to accomplish great things in sports. They endure all sorts of pain and suffering in pursuit of that goal.

All creation is striving for union with the Divine. To accomplish that goal they endure all sorts of pain and suffering.

 

[ThePainefulTruth]

Suffering of humans can be explained by the fact that we are sinful, we have free will and we cause a lot of our own suffering. Other suffering that we endure is at the hands of other humans. Humans learn lessons and grow spiritually by suffering and we have recompense in an afterlife, so one can still accommodate a loving God that allows suffering...

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering. Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

It's related to the reason God allows us to suffer, free will. It's absolutely necessary that we have an objectively natural, consistently rational universe in which to make our moral choices. One of the choices we make is the humane treatment of animals. In any case, their suffering, like ours, is but a blink.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering.

Upon what are you basing this premise? Scripture?

Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

Scripture is written by man, who at the time had a very limited knowledge of the animal psyche. It is now a well known fact that many animals, especially mammals, learn lessons.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

As I see it, animals suffer for the same reason humans do. They are subject to the same laws of causality that humans are. The very subject of your OP supports this. I'm unclear why people dismiss this in favor of unsubstantiated words in a book.

 

[Thief]

here you go....

Kevin Carter's Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a starving girl​

 

[Thief]

if I'm not mistaken.....the photographer committed suicide

 

[Twilight Hue]

Athletes train to accomplish great things in sports. They endure all sorts of pain and suffering in pursuit of that goal.

All creation is striving for union with the Divine. To accomplish that goal they endure all sorts of pain and suffering.

What's the significance of enduring pain and suffering in the first place? That reasoning always eludes me because pain and suffering is there because there is really no real choice in the matter outside of remedies to help ease it when it flares up.

 

[TheBannerofHomuraAkemi]

Suffering of humans can be explained by the fact that we are sinful, we have free will and we cause a lot of our own suffering. Other suffering that we endure is at the hands of other humans. Humans learn lessons and grow spiritually by suffering and we have recompense in an afterlife, so one can still accommodate a loving God that allows suffering...

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering. Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

Because that is the natural order of the world we live in. The strong survive and the weak die. You only have a problem with that because you have hormones that influence your emotional state.causing you to empathizes with these animals. Since it's impossible to change the natural order of the world why don't you distract yourself with something you enjoy so those feelings past.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Suffering of humans can be explained by the fact that we are sinful, we have free will and we cause a lot of our own suffering. Other suffering that we endure is at the hands of other humans. Humans learn lessons and grow spiritually by suffering and we have recompense in an afterlife, so one can still accommodate a loving God that allows suffering...

Animals are all innocent and do not learn lessons or grow spiritually from suffering. Also, as far as we know from scriptures, animals do not have an afterlife. Although it is possible they continue to exist in some form, that was not mentioned in any scriptures that I know of.

If God created animals out of love, why does a loving God allow animals to suffer? I cannot accommodate that in my logical mind or in my heart.

I love these. Explain to me what is wrong with suffering.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

.
.
The British physicist, Julian Barbour, says that there is no such thing as time.
Barbour sees each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. He calls these moments "Nows."

There is a continuum, and we call the extension, or playing-out of this continuum "time." To simply say it doesn't exist, and then to claim existence is nothing but a bunch of "nows" doesn't seem entirely cogent... more specious than anything.

Consider this: if you take what you consider the span of a "now" and divide it into two... what do you have? Two sub-nows? Two new "nows?" What if you further divide those in two? Can you do this? You most certainly can. At what point do you come to a final version of "now" that cannot be subdivided? The answer is, you cannot. You cannot reach that point. Any given span of the continuum is infinitely divisible.

We have merely given the definitive "forward" momentum of the continuum we experience the name "time." As abstract a concept as it may be, to claim it doesn't exist doesn't really get you anywhere.

 

[ADigitalArtist]

Because that is the natural order of the world we live in. The strong survive and the weak die. You only have a problem with that because you have hormones that influence your emotional state.causing you to empathizes with these animals. Since it's impossible to change the natural order of the world why don't you distract yourself with something you enjoy so those feelings past.

Empathy and desire to uplift the weakened is also part of the natural order, especially in social species. And since 'weakness' like 'fitness' is not one trait or series of traits, it doesn't mean there won't be a net benefit to the group to exercise that empathy. Instead of just distracting yourself from the pain of others, doing what you can to alleviate that pain is not unnatural or unworthy.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Because that is the natural order of the world we live in. The strong survive and the weak die. You only have a problem with that because you have hormones that influence your emotional state.causing you to empathizes with these animals. Since it's impossible to change the natural order of the world why don't you distract yourself with something you enjoy so those feelings past.

Damned hormones. Ban em. Or at least regulate em to death.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

That's simply not true. Except for the money part. Sport kills by animals are called surplus killing and there's a fair number of them.

If You Think Dolphins Are Anything But Vicious Killers, You're Dead Wrong

House cats do it all the time. Little presents on the bed.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

.
.
The British physicist, Julian Barbour, says that there is no such thing as time.
Barbour sees each individual moment as a whole, complete and existing in its own right. He calls these moments "Nows."
"As we live, we seem to move through a succession of Nows," says Barbour, Each Now is an arrangement of everything in the universe. "We have the strong impression that things have definite positions relative to each other. There are simply the Nows, nothing more, nothing less."

"There Is No Such Thing As Time"
Julian Barbour - Wikipedia


God the Father creates past, present and future simultaneously
Once created, it remains, forever, or until the end of its universe
The character you are currently playing is not a living person in time.
It is a series of living pictures like a cartoon is a series of pictures
As you move through the pictures of the character’s life, it seems to you like he is living in time


He is not living in time. He is not in the book of life. He has no soul
He is a series of pictures that exist forever
At other times other players will play the same character you are now playing
and they will get different results with it, by taking different routes through its card-deck life
If past, present and future was not a series of fixed pictures then Time Travel would be impossible


Why are there no babies, infants or children in Heaven?
The answer is that all players are adults
Only characters in the video game that you call ‘life’ can be babies and children
When a baby dies, the adult who was playing it is out of the game


The astonishing thing is that they are queuing to play characters in the game
even when the character has a short, painful, miserable life
because it is the only way they can gain advancement (move up to the next spiritual level)
The video game that you call ‘life’ is an accelerated development system for those in the spirit realms


As the whole universe is templated, plant, insect and animal life works on the same basis
The only way they can move up to the next spiritual level is to suffer along with you
and in the same way, they can’t wait to do it
and are fighting and jostling to get in.

Who thinks up this nonsense?

 

[Quintessence]

There are many premises in the opening post that are not part of my worldview, so I can't say I never get to the question that the opening poster asks. I don't agree with any of these things:

• human suffering is explained by human sin
• humans have free will
• non-human animals are innocent
• non-human animals do not learn
• animals, human or otherwise, have an afterlife
• there is only one god, and that god is loving

For this animist and polytheist, there's no conundrum that arises with respect to "suffering," human or otherwise. The need to explain these sorts of things confuses me most of the time. "Suffering" looks to be an an inevitable outcome of intersections amongst diverse aspects of reality. Sometimes, intersects are benign, sometimes they complement, and sometimes they conflict. Where conflict happens, humans often label the looser in that conflict as "suffering." It just happens, and it's inevitable. No need to invoke sin, free will, innocence, afterlives, or gods.

 

[Trailblazer]

God allows what man allows, it is humans that allow animals to suffer. If your thinking of wild animals, they kill to eat, not for sport or money.

If what you say is true, no animals would ever suffer in the wild. But animals do suffer in the wild from sickness and disease and that is through no fault of humans. I learned this on another forum from an atheist who is also a scientist. He said it was too graphic to describe or post.

But it is true that much of animal suffering could potentially be prevented by humans. Maybe some of the animal suffering in the wild could also be alleviated by humans, I don't know that much about science.