The Problem of Animal Suffering.

. . . ::My case clarified:: It's clear at this point that the debate has been muddied some-what. It's probably my fault for not being clearer in the last round. I shall endeavour to be as clear as possible in this round. There is a reason why not a single professional philosopher seriously uses this argument as a response the the problem of evil - it is COMPLETELY irrelevant. It is a red-herring to avoid dealing with the actual argument. To illustrate this, imagine I was a Christian intent on testing my faith, and come up with the same argument. KRF could no longer use this objection because I would, in his view, have a solid basis for morality. Yet the argument would not have changed at all! It's almost an ad-hominem attack against myself, to avoid dealing with the problem. It doesn't matter who makes the argument, moral nihilist, moral subjectivist, Muslim, Hindu, whatever. BECAUSE THE PROBLEM LIES WITHIN CHRISTIANITY, not any other world view. To repeat - it is an internal consistency problem within Christianity itself. Whether or not morality is objective on a completely different world view does not matter. Even slightly. What may count as evil on my world view, and what may count as evil on Christianity are two distinctly different issues. Only the LATTER is relevant in this argument, because we talking about Christianity. If morality is subjective on atheism, and so animal suffering is not a problem for KRF - well done! But God does not exist in this scenario, so the argument is irrelevant anyway! The simple fallacious nature of KRF's response can be pointed out by reminding him that he would still have to deal with the problem himself even if I hadn't brought up the argument. Theism must deal with its own internal consistency problems, as must any other world view. This red-herring attack on MY world view, while ignoring the point that we are talking about HIS, is just a fallacious attempt to evade the argument, not a serious attempt to address it. ::KRF's round:: 'He attempts to do this by showing that animal suffering violates his all-good, all-powerful nature. If needless animal suffering is not evil, how can it contradict either quality? If it's not evil, then what exactly does animal suffering have to do with the existence of God?' --> If animal suffering is not evil, then God does not exist! You are talking about ATHEISM as a world view. KRF is arguing that on ATHEISM, the argument has no force - obviously! Who cares? Then the argument would be redundant then anyway! - We. aren't. talking. about. atheism - 'Before I offer my defense, I must cite Kinesis for an appeal to authority fallacy' --> I'm sick and tired of people misusing logical fallacies like this. I did NOT commit the appeal to authority fallacy. If I had argued that I was right BECAUSE Christian philosophers do not use this argument, then I would be. I didn't. ' However, no contradiction can be found exclusively within the Christian framework. In Christianity, God is by definition good' --> You are still missing the point. The argument is that God, with his given attributes, would choose to minimise animal suffering to the best of his capabilities. It is clear from the terrible amount of animal suffering in the world that this is not the case, so it counts as strong evidence against Christianity. To argue that vast amounts of animal suffering would be a GOOD thing because God commands it doesn't matter. With his given attributes of 'most loving, gracious, merciful', he would choose to minimise the amount of suffering in the world to the greatest possible amount. He clearly has not done this.