Well this is another consistent response to the problem of evil, imo - natural evil is also the result of our sinful nature and is, in some sense, a necessary consequence of free will. To me it's unjust to punish sentient creatures for our sins (so I doubt God did it that way). I also don't see why animals have to eat each other in order for humans to make moral decisions.

That's not an attempt to persuade, it just doesnt accord with what I think 'benevolent' means.

I counter by claiming its been optimized by evolution.

Oh sure - your position is defensible. I was objecting to "If starving to death was fun..." and so forth. Perhaps IT frustration has dulled my sense of humor. I'm stuck in an infinite regress - I need patch A before I can download patch B, patch A is inconsistent with my software, so I ring the helpline who direct me to a website where I can download patch B (which they assure me will then allow me to download patch A)...

Yes this does seem kind of odd. I think i will leave this as my "why" question for tomorrow.

But my first thought would be, that is why God didn't give animals the same mind He gave us. They don't feel suffering like we do.

Definitely a way out of the conundrum, but not one supported by science as far as I can see (without claiming any real expertise in the area).

I am pretty sure that it is scientifically shown that animals do not suffer like we do. I have heard that there are a couple levels of suffering and that there are no animals that suffer and are aware of their suffering on the level that we are. I cannot remember where I heard that though.

If one accepts the "no greatest possible world" hypothesis, then one should expect to live in a world that could be slightly improved upon even given an omnipotent omnibenevolent God.

In other words, if there is no "greatest possible world", that would mean that whatever world God chose there would necessarily be a world that could be slightly better. So if God was to look at the the world and say "this world could be a little better" then choose the new world, he would still be looking at a world that could be just a little bit better, ad infinitum. Therefore it is logically impossible for God (even an omnibenevolent one) to choose a world which could not be improved upon just a little.

So one should expect that the actual world is a world that could be improved upon just a little even given that an omnibenevolent God chose it.

Now, that only follows if you accept that there cannot be a "greatest of all possible worlds", which I am not sure that I accept.

I don't see that this is appealing to God's mystery, only that with our limited capacity for knowledge and given chaos theory we should not expect to know whether or not something could have been different or that ultimate cause of X that one believes didn't have to exist necessarily was in fact that ultimate cause of X.

Again, given the butterfly effect, if this was in actuality the greatest of all possible worlds, would we know it? How different would if actually look from a world that is not the best of all possible worlds?

There is no way science has show that. I doubt science could even prove we have the highest level of consciousness and self awareness which would be the most important factor. And when you include all other animals dont forget your talking about the suffering of other hominid species. Some of which where pretty advanced and just about imposable to do an suffering test levels.. Though if the did mourn their dead (which is a possibility) i would say their suffering level is probably pretty close to ours.

*throws out the b.s. flag*
Suffering is easily quantifiable. You can look at the cells(nociceptors) and count them up.

Could you show me the test results on Neanderthal and maybe a sperm whale?

More is not that important, close would do it.

I also wanted to add suffering isn't all about actual pain and pain cells. Its also about mental anguish. You could take someone who is dieing or might die and give them pain meds to take away the physical aspect of suffering but it would do noting to take away the mental aspect of it. You could have someone who has a broken arm and give them pain meds but they would still be suffering the mental anguish of knowing their arm is busted up.

Now for you to show me no other animals go through that type of suffering you will have to show that no animals have or ever have had knowledge of their possible impending death. And that know other animals are mentally self aware about their injuries.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IG4kceZBWA

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It doesnt mean that - another way for there to be "no greatest possible world" is if there are a whole class of unimprovable worlds, but each is equally good. You are thinking in terms of there's no point in the origin-excluded cartesian plane closest to zero - wherever you are you can always get closer. Nonetheless, this is not the only way in which there can be no best possible world - there is no integer closest to 0.5, nonetheless 0 and 1 can't get any closer.
I agree, but I think this can be reworded "It's a mystery to us, but not to God." Not very important as we're saying the same thing, just labelling it differently. I find it intellectually unsatisfying because it's essentially saying "The problem of evil isnt a problem. There is actually an answer it's just that we'll never know it, because only God can."
It would have less suffering for one.

But you are just saying that there is a greatest of all possible worlds. In your scenario there is a world in which there cannot be a world better. Hence, greatest of all possible worlds.

Well, I disagree. But I really don't think that it matters at this point.

Again, if there is no greatest of all possible worlds (with regards to suffering) then you must expect that the actual world could be just a little bit better.

There can be several worlds all equally good, none of which can be improved - I think this is more plausible than some kind of asymptotic 'all worlds can be improved' approach. (EDIT: I mean more plausible if indeed there is no such thing as a best possible world - as I mentioned a while back, I find this approach something of a dodge. Akin to getting off on a legal technicality).

The way of rejecting a best possible world which you're suggesting leads to a couple of theological problems imo:

Can heaven be improved?
Can God be said to be as good as possible if there are an infinite number of worlds he could have created which are better than this one?

From the sound of things in the OT, Yahweh seems like he's more the bad guy than Satan. How do we know that the Bible isn't just one big propaganda smear campaign by Yahweh?

- Yahweh liked having animals sacrificed to him to make up for people displeasing him. Sounds kinda demon-like, no?
- He wiped out cities, killed loads of people.
- He ****ed up Job's life just to win a prop bet with Satan.
- Seems to be pretty jealous and wants people to worship him.

etc.

Satan looks like quite the good guy considering he tried to rebel against this seemingly evil tyrant.

Given the facts, I'd be more willing to risk the unknown of the afterlife than to give up my soul to the control of Yahweh. I'll probably get to hell and find out Satan is actually a swell dude who's just a victim of blatant badmouthing from Yahweh.

GL with that SixT4. If you think Satan cares about you after what you have seen and heard in and out of Scripture, then all i can really do is feel sorry for you.

Every one of those issues have been discussed in RGT. If you don't raise a problem with those discussions then we can't help you.

I don't really care about the rationalizations you conjured up to defend some sicko jealous deity who imposes pointless rules that are hard to follow, and wants you to slaughter things when you mess them up.

Oh, but I see! That's just the way things are! As Yahweh himself will tell you, all these things are for your own benefit, and not at all for his own sick amusement.

This is a bit off topic, but reading through this thread just really hammered home for me how utterly preposterous the whole idea of religion is. All of this bickering over the minutia of the after life is so pointless. I mean it's like debating whether or not unicorns prefer to eat cotton candy or marshmallow treats. It's just a colossal load of bull sh*t. It's actually quite hysterical that we even think it's worth talking about. It's 2010 for crying out loud! People are still having serious debates as to whether or not an omnipotent, invisible man lives in the sky critiquing our every thought and action and deciding our eternal fate based on those thoughts and actions. Really? I mean really? Come the f*ck on. Total nonsense!!! Can't we just all get over it already. You can debate the minutia, and there is plenty of it (red herring?), until you are blue in the face, but the bottom line is most non believers don't believe in god for the same reason theists don't believe in unicorns. There simply is no good reason to.

It is easy to claim one of His rules are pointless, much harder to explain why. I guess that is why you haven't done so.

But this is just semantics. To say that there are 1,000 worlds in which no would could be better, is the same thing as saying that there is a 'greatest possible world'.

Your scenario you are rejecting the idea that there is no 'greatest possible world', not accepting.

I do agree about the technicality comment. I think that is one of the reasons that I have trouble accepting this hypothesis. But I have been thinking about it and I cannot figure out a way to show it false.

I have thought about this. First, I do believe that there will be no suffering in heaven. I believe that is accomplished by God solidify us in his character. This world is not a world in which our character will be solidified, therefore there is no reason to believe that this world can exist without suffering.

As far as in other regards, I believe that at any point heaven can be improved upon. I believe that we will be in a constant state of learning and growing towards God.

Which of them is the greatest?
I'm not accepting it - there are at least two ways to reject it. One is to claim that every world can be better (like claiming there's no biggest number - wherever you are you can just add 1). Another is to claim that some worlds are unimprovable yet distinct (this is a claim that there's more than one way to maximise goodness). This second interpretation dodges the problem I am alluding to as it would mean any change to the current world, even if such a change improved it somehow, would result in a reduction in goodness of at least as much - the net effect being the new world is no better (and possibly worse). I think this is Stu Pidasso's position.

I think it's impossible to disprove partly because we can't uncontroversially measure or even loosely quantify 'goodness' of a world.
If you don't think heaven is as good as it can be, you are certainly avoiding one problem with the 'no best world' hypothesis. It seems theologically difficult to justify to me, but theology is not my strong suit by any means.

I also think, given God's supposed maximal benevolence, that it's theologically difficult to justify the position that God could have made a better world than this one, but chose not to, which your interpretation logically requires. That amounts to a limit on his benevolence as far as I can see (wherever he stops on the ever-increasing scale is a proxy for how benevolent he is). I think if this interpretation is true, you are forced to conclude that unlimited benevolence is a logical impossibility.