Animal Kingdom is a proof that God is cruel.

[Darkover]

I've seen many posts and asked myself "why would God let horrible things happen in this world if he can stop it". The answer is usually "free will", we can't have free will if we don't have evil in this world. This is debatable but I can understand the logic there.

But then it raises a question, what about animals ? They don't have free will, right ? They won't be judged and go to heaven/hell, will they ? Animal kingdom is a system made by God without the intent of judging its members, yet it does have its part of horrible things. Animals slowly eaten alive, babies rapes, unnecessary kills and sufferings, and so on. It's all God's plan, conceived and made by him.

Just to be clear, I obviously don't blame animals, the problem is that if we assume that a god created this system, it reflects his cruelty since he is the one who instilled this behavior to animals and there is no point to create something with this level of suffering and brutality.

 

[Pluto]

 

[AbusedInnocent]

If god can't create free-will without evil then he is not all powerful, I see no reason why free-will necessitates evil.

Also why does he need to give us free-will? Angels supposedly don't have free-will and you don't see them complaining.

 

[Darkover]

Animals don't have souls, and God created them for us.

nor do we and there is no god

 

[Forever Sleep]

If god can't create free-will without evil then he is not all powerful, I see no reason why free-will necessitates evil.

Also why does he need to give us free-will? Angels supposedly don't have free-will and you don't see them complaining.

This is the crux of the problem I have with many religions- especially Christianity I suppose. To me- it has to be an either/or. Either God created evil or allows it to exist because it is a part of their plan or, it suites their plan. The way I see it is- it's there to allow God to sort the chaff from the wheat (in God's eyes anyway.) It gives them a free pass to punish and discard those who don't live up to their expectations.

I suppose the argument will be that God doesn't attribute good and evil to things the way we do. But- surely, they do because we've been given a rule book to tell us what is good and evil. So then, it's a 'do as I say, not as I do' setup.

Or- evil exists separate to God and God has no way of overpowering it. So- like you say- God can't be omnipotent in that case.

I feel like God can only be a sadist according to what we know and see. I reckon they gave us free will knowing that we would disobey meaning they could punish us forever. If you already know the outcome of giving a being free will- an outcome that you'll want to hate and punish them for- why would you do it, unless you wanted to be able to punish them?