luvluv

Well, firstly I would argue that the basic rules are known and are communicated to us through our moral compass, our innate sense of guilt. A moral "sixth sense" is built into all humans.

Secondly, I think that avoiding suffering is a very bad purpose. Nearly everything worth having in this life is not possible unless one allows oneself to suffer to some degree. If a person wanted to avoid suffering he would never become potty trained, go to school, fall in love, get married, go to work everyday. All of these things entail suffering or the risk of suffering in some form, but all of us consider the suffering involved in these acts to pale in comparison to the rewards for these actions. It is possible that all earthly suffering has a culmaltive end in mind that will make all this suffering more than worthwhile. To paraphrase Paul, I reckon that our present sufferings are not worthy to be compared with what God has prepared for us.

In the end, I think having as ones goal the desire not to suffer is ultimately cowardly. The higher the desire not to suffer was on your list of priorities, the greater the coward you would be. The ultimate end of that moral imperative is suicide, since that is the only moderately sure way not to suffer.

MrDarwin

Well! Thanks for getting this discussion back on track. I'll have to think about some of these things and post a more thoughtful reply tonight, but in the meantime I'd like to respond to this:

But I'm not talking about us. Please note that I was referring to the suffering of animals other than humans. For these creatures, there are no possible rewards; whatever suffering may or may not mean for man and man's salvation, the suffering of animals can never benefit them: they suffer, they die, they cease to exist. You may believe that God is benevolent with regard to humans, since God supposedly offers us the possibility of salvation, but all of God's other creations, suffering seems to be its own end. What could possibly be worth the suffering of being dismembered and eaten alive?

luvluv

As I said before there is benefit to the ecosystem as a whole. There is nothing good about the particular creature experiencing the pain of being eaten alive. But his pain was not given to him in order for him to experience being eaten alive, it was given to him to help him avoid being eaten alive or being destroyed in some other way. The creature probably only survived as long as it did because of its ability to feel pain. Again, it is important to remember that nothing was given the ability to feel pain for the sake of feeling pain, the pain was designed to avoid death.

The presence of all these animals, and their life cycles (including predation) are beneficial to the planets ecosystem as a whole. If you take a look at any one animal on this planet, the design scenario looks somewhat debatable. Nothing on this planet looks like it was designed by a perfect creator since all animals have some design drawbacks. However, if you look at the entirety of creation, how all the ecosystems work together and how even things that look terrible to us (like predation) have a specific purpose, it looks a lot more impressive. (To me, at least)

So, if God were to get rid of these animals it would have a cascading effect on the rest of the ecosystem. If the animals had no ability to percieve pain, they would not be able to survive (as they would be destroyed very easily). The capacity for pain gives the animal the best shot it's got at living until it is able to reproduce.

Hobbs

Irrelevant. It does not matter that in this life as it happens to be that good things can come out of suffering. The point is that suffering itself, abstracted from whatever results come of it, is bad. You are not claiming here, that I see, that suffering in itself is good, but that there are some goods that cannot be achieved without suffering. Do you think that suffering in itself is good, or at least not bad? If none of these good things you point to resulted from suffering, would suffering be a good end in and of itself? Would you want to suffer if nothing other than suffering resulted from it?

If not, then it doesn't matter that in this world suffering can lead to good results. What matters is that there are conceivable worlds in which those good results could be achieved without suffering. Wouldn't a world in which becoming potty trained, going to school, falling in love, etc, without having to suffer to accomplish these things be a better world? If so, then why didn't God create that world instead?

If you think there is something inherently good about suffering, that it is good on its own, independently of the good things that in this world can only be attained at the cost of some suffering, then I disagree with you on your values. I do not value suffering for its own sake. I do value some of the things I have to suffer to achieve, and I agree that in this world it is cowardly to avoid suffering if that suffering would lead to consequences good enough to outweigh the suffering. But I do not think it is cowardly to seek to avoid suffering that is not necessary for some greater good; in fact I think it is very wise to do so, and stupid not to do so. And if God could have created a world in which these goods could be acheived without suffering, he was stupid to create this one.

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: Hobbs ]</p>

MrDarwin

Luvluv, if you're saying that right from the start God fully intended us (and all of his/her/its creations) to suffer, I would have to agree that that is the message I get from the Bible.

But... the suffering that an animal feels while another animal eats it alive demonstrates God's benevolence? I'm not sure I follow. Or are you simply saying that it was impossible for God to come up with any alternative?

This is an interesting argument, since most of the Christians I encounter claim that all suffering is the result of man's rebellion against God--a claim that I never found very satisfying, because why do all of God's other creations have to suffer because of it? (Just out of curiosity, do you believe that there was no death in God's original creation, and no predators? Or do you believe this common Christian belief is a misinterpretation of the Bible?)

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: MrDarwin ]</p>

luvluv

Hobbes I am not saying that suffering is it's own good, but I am not sure that God's goals could have been achieved without suffering. That is what we are discussing when we start talking about "better worlds". Better for who? Better for what purpose?

Again, obviously less suffering would have made things more pleasant for us while we were here, but I don't think there can be morally free beings in a world where suffering is not possible. Again, to choose means to choose between meaningful options such that one choice can be superior to another choice for how can the ability to choose be meaningful if all choices have neutral consequences? Also, if it is possible to choose incorrectly, the person who does so will alway suffer as opposed to the person who chose correctly. This is just one example of how moral freedom will always entail the POSSIBILITY of suffering. There are others that are better explained in C.S.'s book Problem of Pain that I have neither the ability nor the inclination to type out at this point (as I don't have my copy with me and I have been typing all day today, finishing up a script).

So in whatever world you consider to be better than this one it would have to be better vis a vis God's goals in order to create a compelling argument that God allowed pain in this world unnecessarily.

McDarwin, I'm arguing that the capacity to experience pain is a survival mechanism. Predation is a natural necessity. So it works out better for us that the animal has the capacity to experience pain (since without it it would probably meet it's demise prematurely) and it works out better for us that their is natural predation (to avoid overpopulation, famine, etc.). Now none of us have a problem with those two facts on their own, it's only when we make the connection and realize that an animal that is being preyed upon will suffer pain do we suddenly have objections. Well, the ability to percieve pain and the fact of predation are both good things in and of themselves. And in a real worls with a stable environment where laws of nature are not bent around subjective suffering, these kind of collisions (pain sensors with predation) are going to result in some happenstances that make us squeamish. But would we really consider the world to be a better place if organisms had not pain sensors? or if they were allowed to overpopulate and starve to death? or if they could not reproduce? Not in my opinion.

Devilnaut

Luvluv, would you say that recent advances in technology which have reduced the overall suffering of the human race have made the world a better place? I don't see how you can reconcile your argument with the fact that the overall suffering in the world has changed drastically over our history. Exactly how much suffering was in God's plan? The current level, or the level it was at five hundred years ago?

Hobbs

Fine, I can go along with that: those who choose well avoid suffering, and those who are immoral suffer for their choices. That sounds OK to me. The problem is, that doesn't describe this world. Why are children raped and killed, and why do children suffer from horrible natural diseases? Couldn't God have created a world where people suffer as a result of their own bad choices, rather than from others' bad choices, or due to no one's bad choices at all?

Why didn't God create the world you just described (in which "the person who [chooses incorrectly] will alway suffer as opposed to the person who chose correctly") as opposed to the one we find ourselves in? Are you admitting that he could have done better?

Hobbs

Yes, in this world predation is a natural necessity. But God could have created a world in which all animals were vegetarians, they lived to ripe old ages and died peacefully, and did not reproduce at a rate that would outstrip natural resources.

You keep pointing out how suffering is useful in this world. I don't think any of us disagrees with you. Our points (my points, anyway) are that:
- this is fully understandable and explicable in a purely natural, godless world.
- it is not understandable in a world created by a God of the type you describe: if there were such a God, he could have (and thus should have) created a world with at least less suffering than we find in this one.

[ August 21, 2002: Message edited by: Hobbs ]</p>

MrDarwin

Just a couple of quick examples: there are predators that kill their prey quickly and relatively painlessly (e.g., quick bite to the neck) before eating them, and others that simply immobilize their prey and eat it while it is still alive and conscious. There are some that actually play with their prey prior to killing it. So we know that quick death with less suffering is possible. But slow, painful death is also possible, and we find both in the natural world.