Thread: God of Savagery

Animals aren't humans, God gave them for us, they were given to us as food.
Animals don't have consciousness. If they kill their own children, that means it was done by reaction in their neural network.
If you were to kill your own children, it would be done by YOU, because you have consciousness and you're aware of the fact what are you doing.

God gave us mosquitoes as food?

How about the tendency for human females to die in childbirth without modern medical intervention, due to human physiology?


Parasites and diseases would be another good start.

^ I think you didn't read the Genesis in Bible.
We aren't living in a paradise.

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

Animals aren't humans, God gave them for us, they were given to us as food.
Animals don't have consciousness. If they kill their own children, that means it was done by reaction in their neural network.
If you were to kill your own children, it would be done by YOU, because you have consciousness and you're aware of the fact what are you doing.

Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings | Psychology Today

You don't seem like someone who lets science sway your religiously-informed intuitions, but I thought I'd post this anyway. Personally I find anyone to whom this isn't overwhelmingly obvious to be blind and insensitive to nature, and capable of doing horrendous things to our dear relatives.

Originally Posted by IndieAnthias

Scientists Finally Conclude Nonhuman Animals Are Conscious Beings | Psychology Today

You don't seem like someone who lets science sway your religiously-informed intuitions, but I thought I'd post this anyway. Personally I find anyone to whom this isn't overwhelmingly obvious to be appealingly blind and insensitive to nature, and capable of doing horrendous things to our dear relatives.

Yeah, and it explains nothing. How can we say that animals are self aware, if we don't even know how does consciousness work?

I can't say an animal is self-aware anymore than I can say another human (besides myself) is self-aware. My evidence for both is equally dubious.

It's not necessary to fully understand the mechanism behind consciousness in order to observe its effects.

Humans are just as responsible (or not responsible) for their actions as animals. Simply because humans have linguistic thoughts and an illusion of separateness doesn't mean they're more aware and therefore aren't allowed to kill babies even though animals can. Abortion is for the same reason as infanticide, you can't support a child so you remove it. This is purely for survival.

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

Animals aren't humans, God gave them for us, they were given to us as food.
Animals don't have consciousness. If they kill their own children, that means it was done by reaction in their neural network.
If you were to kill your own children, it would be done by YOU, because you have consciousness and you're aware of the fact what are you doing.

Where did you get that non-human animals don't have consciousness?

Did you know that humans are great apes? We are in that category with chimpanzees, gorillas, bonobos, and orangutans. There is a 99% genetic overlap between humans and chimpanzees. We are animals just like they are.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

With your help, I feel like creating a list of aspects of nature which are not beautiful or seemingly perfect but are, in fact, really fucked up.

But you misunderstand. Everything that happens is part of God's plan. If it seems bad, it's just to help us learn and grow. For example, pain teaches us that some things will hurt you. It's all part of a greater perfection.

This sounds like it's what you're looking for:

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

How can we say that animals are self aware, if we don't even know how does consciousness work?

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

Animals don't have consciousness.

Wait! Did you really just say those two things in the same thread?
You just firmly stated that animals aren't conscious AS IF IT IS FACT, and ALSO made the challenge that we don't even know how consciousness works.
Aren't you versatile?..

So, which is it? Do YOU understand how animal consciousness (or lack of) works, or is it possible that animals are self-aware? You can't have both.

Originally Posted by MrOMGWTF

If they kill their own children, that means it was done by reaction in their neural network.
If you were to kill your own children, it would be done by YOU, because you have consciousness and you're aware of the fact what are you doing.

I'll stomp all over this later.

Originally Posted by ♥Mark

But you misunderstand. Everything that happens is part of God's plan. If it seems bad, it's just to help us learn and grow. For example, pain teaches us that some things will hurt you. It's all part of a greater perfection.

What about the women that get raped and the children that get killed? It's all part of a greater perfection? Yes, rape teaches me valuable things, and death...oh man death teaches the person who dies loads of stuff!

Please tell me you aren't being serious

Originally Posted by zoth00

What about the women that get raped and the children that get killed? It's all part of a greater perfection? Yes, rape teaches me valuable things, and death...oh man death teaches the person who dies loads of stuff!

Please tell me you aren't being serious

My posts may seem poorly thought out, but you must understand that they are part of a greater perfection.

Originally Posted by ♥Mark

My posts may seem poorly thought out, but you must understand that they are part of a greater perfection.

It's not the way you express the idea, it's the idea itself. Makes me wonder if god came down to earth and told you to kill a child because it was for "the greater perfection" you would actually do it. This is actually insulting and you still believe we're the ones misunderstanding.

I think it is all part of a greater "perfection", to be honest. Spiritually, metaphysically, or scientifically. It doesn't matter (and is possibly all the same anyway).

There appears to be one set of laws of physics that govern the universe. Yes, bad things happen to good people. Why? Because of the laws of physics. If a good person walked off a cliff and didn't fall, we'd all go insane trying to figure out why not. Not to mention the fact that this would require unreliable gravity laws. The earth would fly away from the sun. Basketball games would have to be redesigned.
So yes, people get murdered. People get sick. People get raped. But the universe functions perfectly.

Is the universe not perfect? I mean, it's still here, functioning as normal. Just maybe a world made out of cake, where we all ride magical unicorns to the store really isn't possible. Just maybe the cake would catch fire and the magical unicorns would explode. Just maybe the universe is behaving perfectly (just not necessarily how we want it to.)
I pose the related question: Can an imperfect universe even exist? If a universe isn't perfectly formed, wouldn't it instantly fall apart, or cease to exist in some way?

Just because our playground doesn't have every toy that we want it to doesn't mean it isn't the best one around.

I would say bad things happen to good people because there's no real, absolute judge of good and evil. In your opinion someone might be a good person but existence itself does not know. Nature wouldn't be such a perfect system if it did have the capacity for judgment. Because it cannot judge, it has perfect anticipation and this enables the most interesting and creative adaptations.

This is entirely possible, and if the universe or nature does have a capacity for judgement I don't think we would easily understand it. What if the universe is really concerned with thinking for yourself, among a world of those who promise you a way to paradise, or maybe the Hail Bop Comet guys had it right. Maybe nature judges you to be evil only if you eat yams.
One thing is for sure. There doesn't seem to be a lot of twisting of the laws of physics on behalf of any possible deity. Perhaps, if there is one, we are no more sentient to him than our blood cells, or our knee.

Originally Posted by zoth00

What about the women that get raped and the children that get killed? It's all part of a greater perfection? Yes, rape teaches me valuable things, and death...oh man death teaches the person who dies loads of stuff!

Please tell me you aren't being serious

Another case in point: would a loving God allow sarcasm blindness to run rampant?

Originally Posted by Taosaur

Another case in point: would a loving God allow sarcasm blindness to run rampant?

I actually don't see any evidence AGAINST the existence of a loving god. But again, this is something that we can possibly NEVER find. How would one possibly prove such a thing?

One could only prove that there IS a loving god, but surely we'd have seen some sort of evidence by now. All I have seen are people praising God when they make a field goal, or survive surgery. I never see them mention His name when they fumble the ball, or when the surgery goes terribly wrong. A beautiful sunset is only evidence that the sun sets.

It is still certainly possible, and cannot be disproven. That will never change.

Yeah but nothing can be disproven, that's not really relevant.

Originally Posted by Original Poster

Yeah but nothing can be disproven, that's not really relevant.

Relevant to what, at this point?
I don't even know what the subject matter is supposed to be now that the thread was derailed right at the root.
Nobody has even touched on the original point of the thread, which was your attempt to portray the world as a not-so-pretty place.
No helpful feedback on that yet. Just responses from a lot of people who fell for it.
LOL!

Interesting thought spurred by this thread - the first spiritualism as far as I know was animism, in which not only every animal but every rock tree blade of grass and stream had consciousness and you had to ask their permission before doing anything with them. Later came animal worship cults - not sure if they conceded consciousness in all animals or only in the featured animal-gods. I'm not knowledgeable enough about religions in general to know when they started to depict animals as bereft of consciousness and therfore just mindless things we can freely abuse and kill, or were even required to sacrifice to the gods. Then of course it became cool to kill anyone who doesn't worship the right god or who worships him the wrong way. It's as if the lineage of religions has required increasing cruelty toward animals and people under the guise of loving kindness.

Sorry, I know I'm off topic - it's about religions, not god.