Discussion: Why does god allow animals to suffer?

  • fishie9977 asked Why does God allow animals to suffer? Below her exposition.

Another imbecile displaying his "prowess".

Another imbecile displaying his “prowess”.

I‘ll start off by saying that I love animals and always have. I would rather be in the company of my pets than with people in general. To me, my pets deserve to go to Heaven a lot more than I do. I’ve sinned a lot, like most people, and then I look at my dogs, who give me unconditional love and don’t judge me or care one bit about all the bad things I’ve done. I don’t understand how God can let innocent animals suffer. I was raised Catholic and was always told that animals don’t have souls and can’t suffer like people can. I don’t believe that at all. One of my dogs was rescued from an abusive owner. When I first got her, she trembled every time I touched her and would often wake up from her sleep yelping. So it seems to me that had suffered, and also remembered and was very affected by what had happened to her. It took her weeks to trust me and even now, 8 years later, she still does not fully trust people aside from my family and close friends.
I would rather see humans that have done something wrong suffer than watch a human torture an innocent animal. Animal testing, animal abuse, animal fighting, etc. are all things humans do. And for some reason those people are rarely “punished.”
People who murder other humans go to jail far more often than people who murder or abuse animals do. They’re usually just fined, maybe get 1 or 2 years in jail, because for some reason, people, and most likely God, don’t value the lives of animals as much as they value human lives. If God punishes people who kill and torture other people, why not also punish people who kill and torture animals?I understand the idea that people suffer because Adam and Eve sinned, but why should that mean animals have to? They didn’t do anything wrong. There is absolutely no reason for God to let innocent animals suffer.

Additional Details

if animals are here for our use, and there is no spiritual reason for their suffering (growth, eternal reward), why didn’t God create them without the capacity to suffer? Animals suffer physically, mentally and even emotionally at our hands, and even as we have grown somewhat as a species in how we relate to each other, our treatment of animals has gotten worse and worse.  No other animal on the planet will use another in the same way. So why can man?
FAVORITE ANSWER

You can go one better than that. You are giving examples of human on animal violence i.e. people abusing their pets which I suppose Christians may try to counter with an argument about free will. I don’t really buy that but it exists. But what about animals just out in the wild? Animals that have never seen a human. What about the zebra that is disembowelled while still alive by a hungry lion? Why would God allow that?
Now I’ll say right now I’m an atheist, so when I see the zebra get ripped to shreds by a lion, while I find that sad for the zebra, I accept it as a simple fact of nature. Its evolution. Its neither good nor evil, virtuous or selfish it just is. But if someone believes in God, they have to believe God wants that, and a being that wants unnecessary suffering cannot be a loving one its a contradiction.
The problem that you are getting at is called theodicy, basically why does a good God allow bad things, and in a thousand years (and probably a thousand wars) there has never been a solution to it that leaves God in one piece. You cannot have an all powerful, all loving being AND suffering in the world. Its impossible its a logical paradox. There are only 3 possible solutions and like I said, none of them bode well for Christians, they are:
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1. God is all powerful and can prevent suffering, but chooses not to. He is NOT loving.
2. God is all loving, and wishes to prevent suffering, but it is not within his power to do so. He is NOT all powerful.
3. God does NOT exist.

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That’s it, that’s your options logically it MUST be one of those 3, as there is no 4th option that doesn’t contradict itself. You could have a dick God, or a useless God, or no God at all, but you cannot have an omnipotent, omni benevolent God and suffering (especially by the most vulnerable and helpless). You can have any combination of 2, but not all 3 at the same time. The Christian God —or any other God which is supposedly benevolent AND omnipotent does not and cannot exist. It doesn’t make sense.

Asker’s rating & comment

5 out of 5
thank you.
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