Evolution And The Traditional Notion Of An All-Loving God Are Incompatible

I challenged Con to describe how evolution could unfold without suffering & he has failed to do so. Con maintains that I have not proved that evolution requires suffering & yet I have. He even agrees that it does, but then says I have not proved that it “requires” suffering. If Con says that evolution doesn’t require suffering, the burden of proof is on him to demonstrate that. When one makes a counter argument, they now bear the burden of proof to back up that counter argument with facts. I.E. If I’m debating a creationist & I counter that we don’t need God to explain the diversity of life because of evolution, then the burden of proof is on me to back up the truth of evolution. Thus, all of Con’s attempts to complain about who shares what burden, is just an attempt to deny the arguments put forward. P1A Con is saying that evolution doesn’t require suffering. For the last time, he must demonstrate how this is logically possible instead of just making the bold assertion that it doesn’t. The burden is on him because it contradicts all that we know about evolution. Evolution works by genetic mutations that can either harm an organism, do nothing, or help an organism. The effect of a mutation is naturally selected by the environment to either give the organism an advantage, do nothing, or harm it. Because evolution occurs from genetic mutations, mutations will always occur that will cause harm & that requires that the very mechanism which drives evolution – mutation – requires suffering. It doesn’t mean every mutation causes harm, but it means that the powerforce behind how evolution works requires suffering to be experienced. Harmful mutations actually outnumber beneficial ones much more frequently[i]. Any God who designed it this way must be capable of cruelty & indifference. Con admitted evolution requires death & extinction but somehow can’t seem to see why that would cause suffering. I think even a child can see that mass extinction would require suffering. Why? Because species evolved pain receptors & consciousness. P1B God cannot let nature takes it course, because God is the author of nature. Consider the following: (1) God (an omnipotent, omniscience, omni-benevolent being) exists. (2) Natural evil exists. (3) God is the creator & designer of the physical universe, including the laws that govern it. (4) Natural disasters, & the evil they cause, are a direct byproduct of the laws that govern our universe. Therefore anything that happens naturally is designed & instigated by God. There is no way to blame nature for natural evils in a world created & designed by God. P3.1A If Con wants to assert it’s possible that Neanderthals had souls & that non humans go to heaven, he needs to provide either a scriptural foundation for it in some religious text, or some evidence that they do have souls. Otherwise, anyone can make the mere assertion of something. I can say it’s possible that earthquakes are caused by a giant living inside the earth who gets angry & kicks it from the inside. But then I bear the burden of proof of demonstrating how such a hypothesis is logical & evidential. Con consistently fails to do so. P3.1B Now Con tries to backtrack on his earlier assertions that non-humans “possibly” had souls & went to heaven. (1) in order for him to be correct, it has to be actual, not just possible. (2) he seems to know the mind of God who’d “allow beautiful” things like Neanderthals into heaven & not roaches & bugs. How he knows this is anyone’s guess. My guess is that he’s making this ad-hoc theology up on the spot. The absurdity of the “actuality” of roaches going to heaven, indicates that its “possibility” is equally absurd. Con even agrees with how absurd this is. Then he makes a revealing point. If in heaven animals don’t need to struggle to survive against each other, God could have made that the same situation here. Instead, he designed them to brutally kill one another & suffer from other natural evils. It proves my point – evolution is incompatible with a loving God. P3.2A If suffering is cause by nature, & if you believe God is the creator of all things, then God created nature & designed nature. If nature is cruel, then God is cruel for designing it that way. Con has just proved my point – God must be capable of cruelty and/or indifference that are not logically necessary. P4A Now Con agrees that only humans have souls. He has again conceded my argument that soul-less non humans suffer for no logically necessary reason exacerbated by the evolutionary process – which God must have designed since it’s part of nature & God is the author of nature. Whether Neanderthals were human is incidental, there are many other hominid species that were clearly not human that this same principle applies to. P5.1A If one entertains a wildly speculative notion that animals are ends to God, which contradicts all known theologies that I’ve ever heard of, then yes Con is inventing his own theology to avoid the conclusion of my argument. It’s that simple. P5.2A The definition of omniscience is “the property of having complete or maximal knowledge.” Almost all theologies include a God who knows the future. Con is saying that it might be logically impossible for God to now the future. How does God know beforehand how to create nature itself, the universe & all the “key things” that will allow it to have humans, yet be totally ignorant of the fact that evolution will require genetic mutations that guarantees suffering? And if God did not know that evolution would lead to suffering, since it took place over 3.7 billion years, why didn’t he stop it once he realized that it did involve suffering? Why let it all draw out for billions of years & do nothing while millions of animal species were suffering? Con’s argument makes no sense when critically examined. I’m not at all confusing actual with necessary. Again I challenge Con to explain how species can evolve & adapt without suffering. God could’ve simply created the world as Genesis said he did & that would have eliminated millions of years of conscious animal suffering. Or he could have made all animals photosynthetic so that they could get their energy from the sun & not have to eat one another. All are logically possible alternatives if God exists. Conclusion If Con cannot demonstrate how evolution could work that does not involve suffering, he has no basis to make the bold assertion that evolution does not require it. Everyone who studies evolution learns that it requires suffering because the strongest survive & the least well adapted die. Furthermore, the whole mechanism driving evolution is genetic mutation & environmental selection. There’s no way these things can avoid suffering. Also, we know our world involves suffering today. So even if one completely denied evolution altogether, my argument still stands. We know primates suffer consciously[ii], & the mere fact of that alone shows that the traditional notion of God is impossible. And since evolution is not something that stops – it keeps going – it means animals are still all evolving today & we can observe their suffering as the evolutionary process unfolds. Another important point Con is forgetting is that the mere possibility of a world without animal suffering is not enough for him to win the argument. We know for a fact that evolution did involve suffering, & the mere existence of this fact, disproves the traditional notion of God. Possible world scenarios dreamed up by Con have no effect. The actual world we see & learn about is the world that matters for my argument to work. So since Con is conceding that the “actual” process of evolution that we have observed contained conscious suffering that was not logically necessary, it shows that the traditional all-loving God is not compatible with our world, & therefore doesn’t exist. Sources in comments