ten to the eleventh

Well, it does take some mental struggle to concoct a rational, non-authoritarian basis for morality. It's a lot more difficult than just "feeling" something is right or wrong, or following rules given by authority.

I definitely believe that evil should include types of person to animal interaction. Neglect (aha!) or abuse of animals is bad, and the more intelligent the animal, the worse is the evil. Animal to animal? I doubt it. It's similar to how we view the acts of very young children. We train them against acts we would later call evil, but we don't judge them, because we need to see conscious intent or a degree of responsibility. When reading about the Orca's on WinAce's site, and their treatment of the grey whale and calf, it's tempting, though. I felt sick when reading about how the calf will climb on top of its mother while she allows herself to be slowly torn apart by the Orca's.

So, I am suggesting that judgement can move laterally or upwards, but not downwards, so to speak.

ten to the eleventh

It's easy to feel like God is good and that the nature He created is a beautiful reflection of that good, if you are feeling healthy and walking down a groomed "nature trail." But when you look at how so much of life operates, you might feel as though God (if you believe He intentionally designed each species) was a pretty sadistic fellow. There was a thread around here somewhere with lots of details and pictures about various parasites. Oh man, it was gross. I couldn't find it, though.

I give theistic evolutionists an "out" when it comes to explaining why their "good" god would create such incredible nastiness. If He just set up the rules, and maybe got the ball rolling, and then let things happen evolutionarily, then I'll let it be said that He was not intending for such horrible creatures to be. However, when creationists claim that God made some of the creatures as He has and still claim that they can rationally support their spiritual knowledge of God's perfect goodness, I have to demand an explanation.


Well, with the YEC assumptions, how do we explain such nastiness? That's my point.

But, as is explained on WinAce's site, most of the nastiest bugs represent what you would call "irreducible complexity" or could only have "mutated" (I call it evolved) to their current state of nastiness through an "increase of genetic information," which creationists claim is impossible. I want to keep this on topic, so I'm not willing to go into a big argument about evolution, but it seems that we have again here willful selection on the part of people who must believe that God has never done evil.

Normally we think of creationists denying the possibility of development of highly complex systems (irreducible or not) through evolution. But when evolution offers a path to maintain a dogmatically held assumption (that of God being perfectly good), it is accepted wholeheartedly (if labelled "mutation"), and without any of the usual demands for explanation. Yes, I am suggesting motives, but I think the suggestion is right on topic, which is the possibility that believers would admit that God has done wrong.

I'm sure that if you started a thread on the topic of how god-awful parasites evolved from benign grass-munching bugs over in the science section, you'd get quite a few responses from some very well-educated folks. I'd just watch, though, because I'm no biologist.

I suppose there really is room for a little "Creation Science" to be done if someone can trace the "micro-evolutionary" history of the world's nastiest creatures back to some benign vegetarian state a few thousand years ago.

ten to the eleventh

and a very Platonic idea, as well.

ten to the eleventh

But the "fall" was all man's doing. Why would the animals be punished as well? Why couldn't they go on living blissful lives? Why should they suffer so agonizingly under the effects of parasites, especially when they have no Heaven to look forward to? Why must God punish the animals for the sins of man? Is that good?

By the way, did the female Hyena "mutate" to give birth the way she does? Did a good God design them that way?

ten to the eleventh

Somehow I'm not tempted to read the long version...
jdlongmire, if you'd like to explain any relevant points in that article, I'd read them here.

jdlongmire

hmmm, I was concerned that it started out somewhat insulting. Not really my style. Apologies for the tone if not the thesis.

LP675

I don’t know if that has to be done. I am not an E/C er. It’s an interesting point you make, that evolution is questioned and criticized, whereas mutation if it is seen as necessary is probably going to be less prone to such criticism.

I don’t know if there are such cases of irreducible complexity of a ‘nasty’ system. At least half of those on the winace page definitely are not (or there was no explanation as to why they were irreducibly complex).

Of course any such punches thrown (in terms of God's morality) lose their sting in light of the fact an evolutionist flatly denies the reality of ‘irreducible complexity’.

I also have no interest in debating E/C topics.

LP675

I should elaborate on what I meant to say here. Regarding any such ‘irreducible complexity’, the YEC has a different type of irreducible complexity problem. The Evolutionist has to explain how such systems could come into existence from no information at all. That is the real ‘irreducible complexity’ problem. i.e. if we get any simpler the system doesn’t work.

A YEC has to explain how such systems came into existence via losing information (AFAIK). So their problem I suppose is explaining how a more complex system involving the same elements could function or work. (And then how it mutated into this simpler one).

It may well be an interesting or perplexing question. But as I understand the matter it’s not the real ‘irreducible complexity’ problem.