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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 1/9/2003 11:59 AM (GMT -6) |   | Does anyone have any thoughts about the "evil" that occurs naturally in the animal kingdom? I don't think anyone would argue that animals have free will. Even if there were no humans on this planet, the natural way of life for much of the animal kingdom would still be kill or be killed.
If anyone says that this evil is a result of the fall, does that mean that animals that are pure carnivores were once herbivores, or that carnivores evolved after the fall? This is confusing to me.
I watched a "Nature" show about lions. They were following a mother lion with her young cubs. The mother was stabbed and killed by a wildebeest-type animal while it was trying to kill it for food for the cubs. The cubs, too young to be able to forage for food on their own, were left to starve to death or else be eaten by other animals. To me this is "evil" as much as man's inhumanity to man.
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Empiress
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2002
Total Posts : 363
| Posted 1/11/2003 1:35 AM (GMT -6) | | A few thoughts... The Scriptures refer to "all creation" s awaiting redemption and that does seem to indicate that the -entire- creation, animals included, is fallen. Additionally, the fact that there is a promise of peace under God's future kingdom on earth whereby the "lion will lie down with the lamb" seems to indicate again that there is something amiss in the current violence in nature which will be altered in the future. As you asked, perhaps prior to the Fall animals were not carniverous. It has been shown, for instance, that dogs, which are natural carnivores, can subsist healthily on a vegetarian diet too.
I think animal violence/evil is on the same level as natural disasters. Floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, etc., do not have free will, but the effects of their current natural course can be evil. Currently the "natural course" and instinct of most animals is doing whatever they have to survive.
Peace,
~E
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