Theological conundrum

Λυκειος

if there is a god, why did they create a world in which animals and people have to kill and eat eachother to survive?

toiletduck

because it's funny

Excelsior

Ecclesiastes 3:1-3:

1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build.

There is nothing inherently wrong with death. We all have to die. There is only something wrong if the death is brought about unethically. God did not create a world where this had to happen- it is the free will of humans that creates such a situation.

bindybandy

Excelsior wrote:

God did not create a world where this had to happen- it is the free will of humans that creates such a situation.

Interesting answer but at the same time humans have free will to a certain extent but as regards the animals a vast majority of them are meat eaters so other animals must die nasty deaths to keep them alive. So some suffering is guaranteed unfortunately.

Excelsior

Yeah I think I wrote that bindybandy

me wrote:

There is nothing inherently wrong with death. We all have to die. There is only something wrong if the death is brought about unethically.

Myksyk

There is of course the obvious answer that 'He' didn't create the world or the animals etc which populate it. Evolution by natural selection is a far better explanation of some of the awful life/death relationships that exist within all of nature which is as you correctly point out 'red in tooth and claw'. As Darwin said "What a book a devil's chaplin might write on the clumsy wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature."

Excelsior

There is no contradiction whatsoever between me stating that God created the world and that evolution is an explanation of obsevrances about development of and within species in that world.

So I don't think you are proposing an "obvious" answer at all.

Myksyk

I would have thought there are a few obvious answers one could posit. One of these is that there is tremendous cruelty in nature because there is no directing benevolant hand. Seems obvious to me, maybe not to you. I'm not saying it's correct (although I happen to be convinced) I'm merely saying that it is an obvious answer to the conundrum stated (i.e. how could a loving creator include such awfulness as inherent to his creation? ....answer: there wasn't a loving creator and therefore no conundrum).