The Horrors of Evolution (Evolution)

by Carl, Friday, August 08, 2008, 03:46 (5750 days ago) @ George Jelliss

George says about cruelty in nature: "If I, as an atheist, have difficulty with facing the reality, how much more difficult is it for religious believers?" For the traditional J/C/M, it doesn't present much difficulty. They 1) ignore it, 2) blame it on Satan or 3) blame it on Adam and Eve . I have never observed the Abrahamic religions worry much about the rest of creation. For them it's all about humans. For the thinking theist, it must present a problem. If you look at the creation to get a sense of the creator, it certainly isn't a warm and loving picture. Some possibilities are: 1) that's the only way he could do it, 2) it isn't really as bad as it looks for reasons we can't understand or 3) it will be compensated for in the afterlife. All of these are theoretically possible. Of course we agnostics take our standard response. "Gee! I don't know." But there is no doubt that evolution has brought hundreds of million of years of suffering to sentient animals. In support for theist option 1) above is that evolution would not work without pain, fear of death and will to survive. I'm sure it's selected for. For option 2) would be shock and endorphin release during trauma. This probably accounts for some of the NDE experiences discussed earlier. The cruelest acts of nature are suffering from hunger, thirst and disease because of the duration. I don't visualize endorphins helping much there except maybe at the very end. Certainly, the existence of so much suffering is an argument for an impersonal God at best.