If God is love then why do animals kill each other?

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by cloudyday

 

By universe I'm saying all of space and time, everything that exists, I'm speaking of existence itself. Are you saying that God is out of existence? Because if so you are saying he doesn't exist.

edit on 18-1-2012 by arpgme because: (no reason given)

I think God is outside everything - before the Big Bang created space and time. He doesn't exist within our universe, but he gives purpose to the otherwise meaningless entropy. If a modern scientist had been on the scene when Moses parted the Red Sea (assuming that happened) the scientist would have been unable to discern the existence of God. These miracles, intuitions, inspirations are simply extremely fortunate random outcomes from where we exist inside the universe. Einstein didn't like that randomness in quantum mechanics, but maybe it is what allows God's will to shape the universe. (Incidentally, I don't think humans actually have free will or spirits or life after death. The only metaphysical being is God. Humans are just physical material like everything else in the universe.)

Originally posted by arpgme
Now, the ones saying "He did, but then the fall happened"... Well, did this fall change the anatomy of every living being or was it just spiritual? Because some are actually designed to kill.

Hmmm, well that's a very interesting question! I don't think I've heard it before. First, it was not God's intent that animals kill each other according to the Bible, and the Bible states that at some point the world will return to a pre-fall Eden-like state. That's evident in this quote that is describing the post-Armageddon world:

Isaiah 11:6

The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.

This is a picture of (formerly) wild animals interacting with innocent farm animals, and children managing them as they would a flock of sheep. Clearly there's no room in this description for animals eating animals, because if that were still the case then the above would be a potentially violent circumstance! So we can conclude that in the perfect world we're destined for, animals don't eat each other and in fact are not the least bit violent.

Now to your question about them being "designed" to kill, personally I believe in much of the Bible but I also believe in science. I believe that life does evolve to some extent, and it is quite possible that formerly peaceful animals evolved into wild meat eaters over time. Unfortunately the Bible is not the encyclopedia many make it out to be, it is more of a set of spiritual guidelines and it is largely silent on many issues, like exactly how people and animals evolved/ developed over time and what exactly happens to us all after Armageddon. It gives us little glimpses, but that's about it and we're left to imagine the rest.

reply to post by Enlightenme1111

In order to analyze this question properly you need to know what happens after death. What if death is a release into paradise? What if death brings nothing? We simply don't know . . .

It is not a natural thing to have anything other than to cease to exist, as the consequence of death, so it is a mistake to think of killing as being anything other than taking a life. For someone to have something other than that happen would be in the realm of the supernatural, which is not something we have control of and so the urging that goes on for appealing to that supernatural entity we would associate with the god concept, while we are alive.

Originally posted by arpgme
Animals do not have the intelligence of human so they can not fully understand the abstract concept of "God". God is love and there are loving animals but why do the animals have moments of being unloving if they are so connected with God and don't have complex thinking for ego?

Maybe God is Joy since all beings are seeking that...

What do you think about all of this?

I think theyre just hungry, or it could be because they're just animals? We can't really say if they understand God or not.

reply to post by arpgme


Perhaps the confusion is being created by how you define (aka limit) love, not how animals behave.

Namaste

reply to post by HeFrippedMeOff

Apart from the Infinite creator, physical life is certainly an impossibility but that doesn't mean our souls are bound by the laws of a physically binding universe. And again, while with the infinite, He would be our infinite source of life.

Who or what are you calling the Infinite creator?
Do you mean the creator of the infinite?
Is the universe infinite and it was created to be that way?
Or are you thinking of a person who is somehow infinite?
To me, the infinite would not be a creation such as the universe, nor would it be a person.
The infinite would be the unknowable void that exists outside of and independent of, the universe and no person can exist in the void so there is no infinite person, but we can personify a hypothetical person in our imagination, people of the void who caused the universe to come into existence but the reality is that the void contained principles that are beyond even thought and those were incorporated into the universe and became integral with, and indistinguishable from, the universe. Persons exist in the universe who are the product of its creation and it is up to these persons to survive within it the best they can, meaning the primordial persons who to us are eternal while we are more a different sort of person which is not eternal. We do rely on those seemingly eternal beings to lend their assistance, to us, to have a form of immortality, which then is dependent on those higher beings.

Who the hell said killing animals is wrong? Everything dies. Everything eats. If you don't kill animals you kill plants. There are studies, albeit shaky ones, that demonstrate they're just as sentient as animals, but in other ways.

You are putting a complete fallacy forth and, in essence trolling. Good day sir.

reply to post by arpgme

If God is love, then the system of his creation should reflect that...

There is a system created by Jesus and the God who is love,
but, it is not the universe, it is the system of salvation that they set up.
(which is my opinion but I am open to contradictory arguments)

Originally posted by arpgme
Animals do not have the intelligence of human so they can not fully understand the abstract concept of "God". God is love and there are loving animals but why do the animals have moments of being unloving if they are so connected with God and don't have complex thinking for ego?

Maybe God is Joy since all beings are seeking that...

What do you think about all of this?

Animals have to survive. If god was fully expressed in them they'd die out, never pushing life forward to a complex enough brain to fully express god

If God is love then why do animals kill each other?

Animals kill each other for food, so, God is not love!

God sends down bio weapons and WMD, kills babies, commits genocide.

God is not love

Maybe Jesus is love but not Daddy

P

reply to post by Hydroman


No Idea, although its possible.

reply to post by Hydroman


When Eve sinned and Adam got the blame they became mortal.

Death is a part of life. We kill many things, both animal and vegetable to sustain ourselves... That is the way that nature is.

Originally posted by xxsomexpersonxx
We've got carnivorous animals that, if they were designed, were designed specifically to kill. For an example.

There are 2 problems with "The Fall" argument.


~
Possible answers:

The God described in the old testament seemed to have very little value in the lives of animals. Maybe all that suffering they go through means nothing to him.

You just can't question God's design, you're not as smart as him. He's smart enough to know that it's perfectly ok to create a system where animals strive on suffering, you're a lesser minded human.

Natural Selection created them instead of any god. Natural Selection being neither loving or malevolent, ultimately creating creatures based off how well they survive instead of creating "what's good".

A different God who isn't love created them, and a different religion is right.

1.God only cares about the soul of man and animals. It does not matter to him if you die on earth so much as your soul is not corrupted or lost.

2.Yeah sure.

3.Keep dreaming and when he is standing in-front of you, what are you going to say?

4. There is only one true God Yahweh and Jesus. There are lesser gods and if you read the bible with very accurate Hebrew translation you will find out we are all gods as we are Divine in nature. Just do not worship any other God but Yahweh or Jesus and he may save your soul.

Originally posted by pheonix358
If God is love then why do animals kill each other?

Animals kill each other for food, so, God is not love!

God sends down bio weapons and WMD, kills babies, commits genocide.

God is not love

Maybe Jesus is love but not Daddy

P

Think of it all as one Giant history lesson to make man better and have him learn what to never do again. That is why he gave us free will. We chose the wrong path so he is now teaching us a lesson we will never forget while letting us evolve in a certain way that is useful to him and us.

Animals are creatures of God, but they are not the ones created in the image of God, neither was prehistoric man. God created man in His image for a reason, the man not made in His image...wasn't working out. Without God it is animal vs animal, including pre-historic man. With "man made in the image of God", there is hope to conquer all, physically and spiritually.

reply to post by SavedOne


I think Yeshua himself would have told you this,
you are not far from Kingdom of Heaven

Praise Yah

I see many of you are going back and forth on topics like these like i have until recently,the FACT of the matter is:

Animals are inferior to us so we have to take care of them like good shepherds do.
We are the kings of this planet and we can be good,caring and giving,trough wisdom in our Lord God.
Since we choose to follow our ways of "natural selection" ,a lot of us will be purged with sin when he comes to take His throne,take heed if you understand what i am saying.

Halleluyah

Originally posted by ErgoTheConfusion
reply to post by arpgme

 

Perhaps the confusion is being created by how you define (aka limit) love, not how animals behave.

Namaste

Well, how would you define love in a way that would make killing and putting other beings in pain, "loving"?

For the people saying "they gotta survive" or "it's a part of nature", you do not understand the question. We all KNOW this. This is not what we are discussing. We are discussing why a loving God would create such a system where killing and putting other beings in pain was necessary.

For people saying "animals are inferior" or "they don't got souls", I seriously believe that those people got an ego problems. Why would humans be any better than animals? They are all creatures with different abilities... Just because "WE" value intelligence, and we happen to have the most of it, that does not make us better from an objective view...

Originally posted by arpgme
reply to post by Kutthroat

 

Yah, we know. That was the whole point of the question...

Why would a all loving God create a world were killing would have to be done for survival. Couldn't this all loving God create a system where we would never have to kill and cause harm to another being if we didn't want to..

Yes, it's called Paradise.