Why would a loving God make nature so brutal?

[Treasure Hunter]

We experience it that way, but so what? We're just one species. What we see as a brutal killing, a lion sees as lunch.

We should privilege our experience over our speculations about what a lion experiences. If you disagree, then we can’t productively communicate about morality.

 

[Rival]

Which means nothing at all. You could switch around the word 'nature' for any other.

Except this thread is about nature.

 

[MonkeyFire]

You cant create nature unless it ended and began in single fiery moment like a phoenix, but the world has always been. Catylyzation is a omnipresent super fire.

 

[Rival]

We should privilege our experience over our speculations about what a lion experiences.

Why?

If you disagree, then we can’t productively communicate about morality.

We can barely productively talk about morality anyway.

 

[Agnostisch]

The belief among the Greeks and Babylonians was that good was the work of the Great God, and that evil was the work of the condemned gods. That is the myth that we read in The Book of Timaus plato: that the total god of Justice wanted all that in the universe to be good for him, he himself formed the eternal gods, removed all evil from it, gave it immortality, and entrusted it with the task of making all creatures, brought to it a mixture of spirit and body, of immortality and death, of goodness and evil; This myth, as the Great God walks away from the creation of evil and blames the condemned gods, finds a solution to the dilemma of evil!

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Considering that that bird is actually not singing but sending threats and warning to its neighbours, maybe it does think life is a bit brutal but who knows. Birds don't have the cerebral capacity for deep introspection so it's doubtful they can reflect upon the status the world and the universe, they are too busy scrapping by.

One of the main functions of bird songs, at least from what we can ascertain, is to find a mate. Or rather, female birds use the song of the males to decide their fitness for mating. We have no clue what the males are thinking when they're singing, as far as I know. I wouldn't try to guess the intellectual capacies of other beings based on brain size (or even the presence of a brain, as in the case of plants) as that has misled us many times before and tends to come from human arrogance.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I don't understand how death relates to what I have said. Let me elaborate on what I was talking about: Any relationship where the only benefit from being on it is to stand together with someone else is an abusive relationship. If you are in a relationship where your friend/spouse/deity is doing nothing for you while you are doing a lot for them you should get away as quickly as possible.

I have no idea where you get the idea that God does nothing for us from what I said.

 

[Rival]

One of the main functions of bird songs, at least from what we can ascertain, is to find a mate. Or rather, female birds use the song of the males to decide their fitness for mating. We have no clue what the males are thinking when they're singing, as far as I know. I wouldn't try to guess the intellectual capacies of other beings based on brain size (or even the presence of a brain, as in the case of plants) as that has misled us many times before and tends to come from human arrogance.

Or it doesn't matter because our enjoyment of the birds' chirping is obviously more important than why they chirp.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Or it doesn't matter because our enjoyment of the birds' chirping is obviously more important than why they chirp.

I doubt that birds sing at the dawn every day because they're warning their fellows about a predator, anyway.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Why?

Because it is more true. The onus is on each human individual to recognize that truth. If not, then they will eventually be excluded from the larger moral discussion.

 

[Rival]

Because it is more true. The onus is on each human individual to recognize that truth. If not, then they will eventually be excluded from the larger moral discussion.

Our experience of life is more true than another animal's?

How?

 

[epronovost]

One of the main functions of bird songs, at least from what we can ascertain, is to find a mate.

Actually no, that's a secondary purpose and seasonnal. Bird songs are more often used to detemine territory, threaten rival or even scare off predators.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Actually no, that's a secondary purpose and seasonnal. Bird songs are more often used to detemine territory, threaten rival or even scare off predators.

It says that both are the main functions:
Bird vocalization - Wikipedia

Anyway, bickering about this is besides the point.

 

[Treasure Hunter]

Our experience of life is more true than another animal's?

How?

You can keep asking “why” or “how”, but it is a truth that is beyond rationality. It is self evident unless you have been captured by rationality.

 

[MNoBody]

apparently, it's all a matter of perspective. [simple stated]

 

[Rival]

You can keep asking “why” or “how”, but it is a truth that is beyond rationality. It is self evident unless you have been captured by rationality.

If being rational means not putting myself at the centre of the universe then...yes?

 

[Treasure Hunter]

If being rational means not putting myself at the centre of the universe then...yes?

We are not capable of escaping our consciousness, even temporarily. To deny an inescapable filter only leads to deception and delusion.

 

[Rival]

We are not capable of escaping our consciousness, even temporarily. To deny an inescapable filter only leads to deception and delusion.

How does taking into account what other animals think and how they see the world result in me trying to escape my consciousness? How does that even make sense?

 

[Treasure Hunter]

How does taking into account what other animals think and how they see the world result in me trying to escape my consciousness? How does that even make sense?

You don’t have access to how they see the world!!! Are you trolling?

 

[Left Coast]

@Rival @Treasure Hunter you're both right, in a different way. Yes, to a lion, eating a gazelle is just...lunch. And we can't fault the lion for that; it's how they're wired and they'd die if they didn't eat meat. That said, we're talking about a situation in which a presumably all-loving, omnipotent God created a universe where lions eat gazelles. Where organisms killing each other is literally necessary for the survival of the killer (and to maintain the balance of entire ecosystems). From the perspective of a moral agent (which the God in question presumably is) this is a brutally violent, bloody, cruel way to design a world. And that's the inherent conflict with imagining that such a deity would create it.