Do you believe in God and why

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/9/2021 at 2:52 AM, VincentRJ said:

I think the system was 10 times more rotten centuries ago before the development of modern science and medicine. It might appear to be more rotten today, but only because the Media is 100 times more efficient at reporting the bad news which grabs your attention.

 

During the time of the Spanish Flu, from around 1918 to 1920, the total deaths amounted to approximately 30 million, although estimates vary from a low of 17.4 million to as high as 100 million. However the global population during those times was less than 1/4th of today's population. Even if you use the lowest estimate of 17.4 million, that would be equivalent to around 70 million deaths from the current Covid-19 pandemic. How does that compare with the current, actual, world-wide, total Covid-19 deaths of just 2.6 million?

 

Would you rather be living during the 1919 period?

IMO the best period for a white middle class male was in the 1950s ( post Korean war ) and early 1960s. The Vietnam war ended the good life, IMO.

I say white middle class males as it wasn't much fun for other ethnicities or women ( apparently ).

However, as it's way off topic I'll leave it at that.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/7/2021 at 2:57 AM, Neeranam said:

I haven't eaten beef for 30 years. I was vegan for 4 years. 

 

I'm not sure if I believe ignorance is an excuse for killing things. 

 

Nature doesn't agree with you, IMO. Carnivores eat vegetarians in nature.

[Fat is a type of crazy]

4 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Nature doesn't agree with you, IMO. Carnivores eat vegetarians in nature.

I suppose the idea is that we have been blessed with intelligence and insight to the nature of things and we can choose to live and let live. Buddhism might say a tiger is less evolved on the kharmic road. Maybe we should know better. 

By posting on this topic we are likely to have considered the moral issues of eating meat, or of buying products from companies that  run sweatshops, or limiting our effect in creating green house gasses, or of not helping our fellow man.

You can go one way and just say ''I am looking out for No 1'' or you can give yourself fully to helping the world and others.

Most of us struggle along in the middle - justifying our meat eating, or our purchases, or how we treat others. Feeling guilt from time to time. Trying to believe we are good people.  

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/11/2021 at 11:19 AM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

I suppose the idea is that we have been blessed with intelligence and insight to the nature of things and we can choose to live and let live. Buddhism might say a tiger is less evolved on the kharmic road. Maybe we should know better. 

By posting on this topic we are likely to have considered the moral issues of eating meat, or of buying products from companies that  run sweatshops, or limiting our effect in creating green house gasses, or of not helping our fellow man.

You can go one way and just say ''I am looking out for No 1'' or you can give yourself fully to helping the world and others.

Most of us struggle along in the middle - justifying our meat eating, or our purchases, or how we treat others. Feeling guilt from time to time. Trying to believe we are good people.  

 

Anyone can choose to not eat meat if they decide to do so, but we all contribute to extinction of species simply by overpopulating the planet and building cities, roads etc on habitats.

Just not eating meat does not mean that one is a better person than one that does, IMO.

We live in an animal body, and we are still governed by animal genes, so we can act as nature dictates if we choose to do so.

Jesus never declared that killing animals for food was wrong, and he was friends with fishermen.

[mauGR1]

55 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Anyone can choose to not eat meat if they decide to do so, but we all contribute to extinction of species simply by overpopulating the planet and building cities, roads etc on habitats.

Just not eating meat does not mean that one is a better person than one that does, IMO.

We live in an animal body, and we are still governed by animal genes, so we can act as nature dictates if we choose to do so.

Jesus never declared that killing animals for food was wrong, and he was friends with fishermen.

Fair enough,  being a vegetarian is not the solution for all evils of the world. In fact I've being often branded "asocial " for not eating meat and fish.

Yet, you'd have to concede that there's something ugly about the meat industry. 

 

[thaibeachlovers]

1 minute ago, mauGR1 said:

Fair enough,  being a vegetarian is not the solution for all evils of the world. In fact I've being often branded "asocial " for not eating meat and fish.

Yet, you'd have to concede that there's something ugly about the meat industry. 

 

The world is ugly if one looks for it. Every insect is killing other insects to eat, many animals kill to eat ( not an easy death getting ripped apart ).

The meat industry is just something ugly as well, in a long list of ugly things.

I take comfort in that western meat industry is as humane as possible.

[mauGR1]

1 hour ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The world is ugly if one looks for it. Every insect is killing other insects to eat, many animals kill to eat ( not an easy death getting ripped apart ).

The meat industry is just something ugly as well, in a long list of ugly things.

I take comfort in that western meat industry is as humane as possible.

Well, when I became a strict vegetarian i was a kid, and for quite a while i was trying to convince anyone to consider becoming a vegetarian.. later I learned to respect the choices of people. 

 

[Orinoco]

39 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, when I became a strict vegetarian i was a kid, and for quite a while i was trying to convince anyone to consider becoming a vegetarian.. later I learned to respect the choices of people. 

 

Does the pig, cow, or the chicken,  get a choice.

[bannork]

2 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

The world is ugly if one looks for it. Every insect is killing other insects to eat, many animals kill to eat ( not an easy death getting ripped apart ).

The meat industry is just something ugly as well, in a long list of ugly things.

I take comfort in that western meat industry is as humane as possible.

Have to disagree with your last sentence. Battery hens have no space to move around, imprisoned in cages. Anyone who has kept chickens knows how they're constantly on the move. Calves are torn from their mother dairy cows almost immediately after birth. Heartbreaking for both the calf and its mother.  Sows are kept in cages/ pens, barely able to turn around.

And all this cruelty is kept out of sight behind enclosed structures.

 

 

 

 

[mauGR1]

16 minutes ago, bannork said:

Have to disagree with your last sentence. Battery hens have no space to move around, imprisoned in cages. Anyone who has kept chickens knows how they're constantly on the move. Calves are torn from their mother dairy cows almost immediately after birth. Heartbreaking for both the calf and its mother.  Sows are kept in cages/ pens, barely able to turn around.

And all this cruelty is kept out of sight behind enclosed structures.

 

 

 

 

I'm going to bet that a lot of carnivores would stop eating meat if they had a look at how intelligent animals are treated. 

Perhaps it's me, but i  can see some "human " traits in the in the behaviour of the most evolved mammals. 

[mauGR1]

56 minutes ago, Orinoco said:

Does the pig, cow, or the chicken,  get a choice.

Not much, i think ????

[Tagged]

54 minutes ago, bannork said:

Have to disagree with your last sentence. Battery hens have no space to move around, imprisoned in cages. Anyone who has kept chickens knows how they're constantly on the move. Calves are torn from their mother dairy cows almost immediately after birth. Heartbreaking for both the calf and its mother.  Sows are kept in cages/ pens, barely able to turn around.

And all this cruelty is kept out of sight behind enclosed structures.

 

 

 

 

I have been reminded often, if not every time Im on the road travelling somewhere, and seen the poor transport of animals. Horrible and thinking to myself, Im lucky to buy local where we live, and those animals, do not need to be transported to be slaughtered. Poor comforth, but still

Edited March 12, 2021 by Tagged

[yodsak]

On 2/25/2021 at 8:49 AM, mauGR1 said:

It's kind of funny that to promote some scientific righteousness, you are quoting a science-fiction novelist. 

Yet i wonder if you can get the irony ????

Asimov also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction. He penned myriad stories, articles and essays. They spanned the rich microscopic worlds of cytoplasm, cells and subatomic particles, and ventured into the boundless wilds of space. In 1958, he switched to mainly writing science books. 

35 books on general science. 7  on mathematics. 74 on astronomy. 12 on earth science. 16  on chemistry and biochemistry . 22 on physics. 24 on biology.  39 science essay collections. 21 on history.  7 books on the bible. 10  on literature..  8  on humour and satire. 4 autobiographies.  Et al .    asimov_catalogue.html

Asimov worked as a scientist for the US Navy during the Second World War; completed a doctorate in chemistry at Columbia; and, in 1949, took a post teaching biochemistry at Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts. 

Asimov was an atheist, a humanist, and a rationalist.  He did not oppose religious conviction in others, but he frequently railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science. He spent a good part of his final years championing secular reason in an age when, he believed, the candle of critical thinking had dimmed.  d41586-020-00176-4

''Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time’

[yodsak]

Asimov was president of the American Humanist Association.  ‘’Good without a god’’ a non-profit organisation that advances secular humanism , a philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms the ability and responsibility of human beings to lead personal lives of ethical fulfilment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

 Thanks to the inspiration of our friends in Britain, we've started our own atheist bus ad campaign in Washington DC     religion-advertising-atheism-bus    

[rcuthbert]

The late Joseph Campbell explains Mans relationship with God:

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (PBS 1988 Bill Moyers) x264

https://tpb.party/torrent/7479965/Joseph_Campbell_and_the_Power_of_Myth_(PBS_1988_Bill_Moyers)_x26

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=joseph+campbell+and+the+power+of+myth+1988&t=h_&ia=web

[MikeyIdea]

No, and even less after my daughter chose a Seventh Adventist International school in Bangkok. 2 things in particular:

1) The ends justify the means thinking regardless of its morality when it suits them

2) They really do think they have monopoly on moral in every single way, regardless of if it's common sense that every single religion of course also have. Hypocrisy.

Good of catholicism to invent capitalism though ????

Edited March 13, 2021 by MikeyIdea

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/12/2021 at 2:29 PM, Orinoco said:

Does the pig, cow, or the chicken,  get a choice.

If we didn't eat them, there would be a lot less of them.

Cows give milk, leather and chickens give eggs so there would be some of them still, but no where near as many.

Personally, I won't buy cage eggs though as that's cruel, IMO.

 

The natural order in nature ( that's God's nature ) is kill to eat or be eaten, so I have no problem with eating meat on a religious, ethical or moral basis, though I despise killing for sport or cruelty in the way animals are killed. There is nothing, to my knowledge, in the bible against killing animals and eating them.

Edited March 14, 2021 by thaibeachlovers

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/14/2021 at 10:33 AM, yodsak said:

Asimov was president of the American Humanist Association.  ‘’Good without a god’’ a non-profit organisation that advances secular humanism , a philosophy of life that, without theism or other supernatural beliefs, affirms the ability and responsibility of human beings to lead personal lives of ethical fulfilment that aspire to the greater good of humanity.

 Thanks to the inspiration of our friends in Britain, we've started our own atheist bus ad campaign in Washington DC     religion-advertising-atheism-bus    

Being a good person doesn't depend on believing in God anyway.

Plenty of people claim to believe in God and are bad people, plenty of non believers that are good people.

Being good is not a requirement to believe or not in God.

IMO a waste of money for the advertising.

[thaibeachlovers]

23 hours ago, rcuthbert said:

The late Joseph Campbell explains Mans relationship with God:

Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth (PBS 1988 Bill Moyers) x264

https://tpb.party/torrent/7479965/Joseph_Campbell_and_the_Power_of_Myth_(PBS_1988_Bill_Moyers)_x26

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=joseph+campbell+and+the+power+of+myth+1988&t=h_&ia=web

Given ( IMO ) that God is unknowable by living humans, I disregard anyone that claims to know what God is.

Such is IMO usually used to gain some benefit eg power or fame, or to make money eg by selling books about it.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/14/2021 at 9:30 AM, yodsak said:

Asimov was an atheist, a humanist, and a rationalist.  He did not oppose religious conviction in others, but he frequently railed against superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs that tried to pass themselves off as genuine science. He spent a good part of his final years championing secular reason in an age when, he believed, the candle of critical thinking had dimmed.  d41586-020-00176-4

''Emotionally I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time’

One can be a humanist, and a rationalist and believe that God exists.

but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time’

LOL. He just did waste his time by talking about something he doesn't believe in.

 

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/12/2021 at 2:57 PM, bannork said:

Have to disagree with your last sentence. Battery hens have no space to move around, imprisoned in cages. Anyone who has kept chickens knows how they're constantly on the move. Calves are torn from their mother dairy cows almost immediately after birth. Heartbreaking for both the calf and its mother.  Sows are kept in cages/ pens, barely able to turn around.

And all this cruelty is kept out of sight behind enclosed structures.

 

 

 

 

No argument from me, and I don't like cruelty. Up to me farmers that have battery hens would be prosecuted for cruelty. I never buy cage eggs.

However, I wish people didn't give animals human qualities such as "heartbreak".

If calves were not taken to make veal, the unwanted calves would be killed and buried as can't be getting milk from a cow that is feeding a calf. Female calves kept for future replacement purposes are fed seperately in calf sheds.

Farm animals that don't make money are killed. Farming is a business, not a charity for animals. The day they make artificial meat commercially viable any farm animal not needed for milk, wool, leather, eggs etc will probably be terminated.

I have worked on farms, so I do know what goes on.

In the wild, wolves and lions etc always pick the weakest to catch eg new born. That's the natural order.

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/11/2021 at 11:19 AM, Fat is a type of crazy said:

I suppose the idea is that we have been blessed with intelligence and insight to the nature of things and we can choose to live and let live. Buddhism might say a tiger is less evolved on the kharmic road. Maybe we should know better. 

By posting on this topic we are likely to have considered the moral issues of eating meat, or of buying products from companies that  run sweatshops, or limiting our effect in creating green house gasses, or of not helping our fellow man.

You can go one way and just say ''I am looking out for No 1'' or you can give yourself fully to helping the world and others.

Most of us struggle along in the middle - justifying our meat eating, or our purchases, or how we treat others. Feeling guilt from time to time. Trying to believe we are good people.  

 

Feeling guilt from time to time.

 

Not I- I enjoy my meat immensely, and I've killed plenty of animals in my time because they were pests ( rabbits ) or for food. If it was against God's law, it would say so in the Bible. It doesn't.

[bannork]

9 hours ago, thaibeachlovers said:

No argument from me, and I don't like cruelty. Up to me farmers that have battery hens would be prosecuted for cruelty. I never buy cage eggs.

However, I wish people didn't give animals human qualities such as "heartbreak".

If calves were not taken to make veal, the unwanted calves would be killed and buried as can't be getting milk from a cow that is feeding a calf. Female calves kept for future replacement purposes are fed seperately in calf sheds.

Farm animals that don't make money are killed. Farming is a business, not a charity for animals. The day they make artificial meat commercially viable any farm animal not needed for milk, wool, leather, eggs etc will probably be terminated.

I have worked on farms, so I do know what goes on.

In the wild, wolves and lions etc always pick the weakest to catch eg new born. That's the natural order.

No one is saying animals gave human qualities but they undoubtedly have emotions like us and taking their young away from them is an unforgivable sin in my book. Close down factory farming and if that means we all have less and more expensive meat so be it.

[yodsak]

On 2/25/2021 at 10:03 AM, Sunmaster said:

I never heard of the majority of them, but putting acupuncture (a form of alternative medicine, nowadays practiced by conventional doctors) or biodynamic agriculture (holistic, ecological, and ethical approach to farming)

Biodynamics, derived from anthroposophy, is a kind of occultism.

  Ernst Haeckel coined the word “biodynamics” in 1866 as a synonym for “general physiology.” In contrast, Rudolf Steiner's “biodynamic agriculture,” which originated in 1924, and was promoted via Ehrenfried Pfeiffer's book of 1938 with the same title, is an occult pseudoscience still popular today. The misuse of Haeckel's term to legitimize disproven homeopathic principles and esoteric rules within the context of applied plant research is unacceptable   .PMC4991331 

The founder of this theory, known as biodynamics since the 1930s, was Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian occult philosopher, social reformer, architect, esotericist, and claimed clairvoyant who, in 1924, shortly before his death, invented it out of thin air in his study, without ever having contact with the business of agriculture and with no training in the field.

 The idea of herbal preparations that could influence terrestrial and cosmic “forces” were born out of R. Steiner’s pure intuition, without any factual justification ever being claimed or produced by him or anyone else. They are supposed to be activated by “dynamisation”, which means rotating them in a certain direction once they are diluted in water to convey on them the powers attributed to them. This so-called methodology is reminiscent of Benveniste’s famous “Memory of Water” which caused a sensation in scientific circles many years ago, before its pseudo-scientific trickery was exposed.

[yodsak]

There are eight of these herbal preparations (six to add to spread compost, two to spray on the crops, the latter two prepared in a cow’s horn, one of which has to be buried over the winter – and which is supposed to improve the “vital force” – the other buried over the summer, which is supposed to add “light”) Their base ingredients have to be derived from fermentation in animal organs (intestines, bladder, skull) They are diluted in a similar way to homeopathy, up to 1 mg / 10 kg (= 1 / 0.0000001), another theory which has failed to produce proof of efficacy.

Naturally these preparations have been and continue to be controversial, due to their lack of scientific rigour, which can clearly be illustrated by this quote from R. Steiner “The deer’s bladder is connected to cosmic forces. Even better than that, it’s almost a replica of the cosmos. So, we can significantly enhance the inherent ability of yarrow (one of the substances -ed.) to combine sulphur with other substances”  Furthermore, according to Steiner, these preparations can be imbued with “feelings” and “cosmic forces”                                     — European Scientist    biodynamics-a-very-strange-concept

[thaibeachlovers]

On 3/15/2021 at 9:12 PM, bannork said:

No one is saying animals gave human qualities but they undoubtedly have emotions like us and taking their young away from them is an unforgivable sin in my book. Close down factory farming and if that means we all have less and more expensive meat so be it.

Factory farming is because ordinary farming won't provide enough for all the people. If one wants more natural farm practice ( which is a nonsense anyway, IMO ) reduce world population to where it can provide enough.

BTW are you OK with letting fish die a horrible death? Being left to die after being caught must be the equivalent of us drowning, IMO.

Also, why is stunning a cow and giving it a quick death worse than lions tearing a zebra to pieces? Should we not remove lions and other predators from the scene so herbivores are not killed?

[Fat is a type of crazy]

20 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Factory farming is because ordinary farming won't provide enough for all the people. If one wants more natural farm practice ( which is a nonsense anyway, IMO ) reduce world population to where it can provide enough.

BTW are you OK with letting fish die a horrible death? Being left to die after being caught must be the equivalent of us drowning, IMO.

Also, why is stunning a cow and giving it a quick death worse than lions tearing a zebra to pieces? Should we not remove lions and other predators from the scene so herbivores are not killed?

You believe in God. You appear to recognise the life of an animal on a factory farm has a degree of cruelty to it. You probably recognise that animals have feelings, awareness, pleasure and pain. You justify it by saying you have to eat. I do something similar though I don't justify it and just try to eat animals treated a bit less cruelly at the margins. In that sense we are both without an ethical leg to stand on if you accept that animals don't want to be treated this way.  

What do you think god has to say? 'I made them tasty so get in for your chop' or  ' I created a world where animals roamed free and were eaten from time to time - you have used your free will to create an abomination of overeating and factory farms and cruelty'.  

If god doesn't care I wonder if it is a god worth following. 

[VincentRJ]

52 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Also, why is stunning a cow and giving it a quick death worse than lions tearing a zebra to pieces? Should we not remove lions and other predators from the scene so herbivores are not killed?

You do occasionally make a valid point, Thaibeachlovers. ????

When I go for walks in the countryside, I often see groups of cows peacefully wandering around, munching grass, or lying down under the shade of a tree, looking perfectly calm as though meditating. I get the impression they probably feel very secure because they are well-looked-after and even receive a visit from a doctor (vet) if they get ill.

If they were given a choice, and had the mental capacity to make a choice, would they prefer a protected life in a well-managed farm, or a life in an uncontrolled 'natural' environment where they were often subjected to attacks from predators, shortages of food and water during droughts, unavoidable diseases, frequent loss of their young calves being trampled on as the herd flees a scene for whatever reason, and so on.

Whilst it's true that there are sometimes cruel practices employed during the management of these cows, such as overcrowding during shipping and transportation, and unacceptable methods of slaughtering the cows, this is a general problem of humanity's inhumanity and bad behaviour, which can be solved (hopefully) if we give priority to it. Ceasing to eat meat as a solution would be like 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'.

Here's an interesting article which gives a different perspective, although it's probably biased to some extent. However, to avoid excessive bias, one should always search for both sides of the story.

"There are two main reasons why newborn dairy calves don’t stay with their mothers: for their safety and their health.
When a cow has a baby, her herd instinct doesn’t just disappear so that she can fulfill the joys of motherhood. For the first hour or two after the calf is born, there is a clear connection between mom and baby.
However, after this initial period, the cow becomes increasingly anxious. She wants to be with her herd mates. Cows are not big fans of change, and I think that we can all agree that giving birth is a pretty big change.
This anxiety puts the calf in severe danger. The cow often forgets about her calf. She walks or runs around, searching for her herd-mates and becomes extremely stressed. This can lead to the calf getting stepped, sat on, or injured in a variety of ways."
https://animalagalliance.org/separating-cows-and-calves-the-real-story/
 

[thaibeachlovers]

15 minutes ago, VincentRJ said:

You do occasionally make a valid point, Thaibeachlovers. ????

When I go for walks in the countryside, I often see groups of cows peacefully wandering around, munching grass, or lying down under the shade of a tree, looking perfectly calm as though meditating. I get the impression they probably feel very secure because they are well-looked-after and even receive a visit from a doctor (vet) if they get ill.

If they were given a choice, and had the mental capacity to make a choice, would they prefer a protected life in a well-managed farm, or a life in an uncontrolled 'natural' environment where they were often subjected to attacks from predators, shortages of food and water during droughts, unavoidable diseases, frequent loss of their young calves being trampled on as the herd flees a scene for whatever reason, and so on.

Whilst it's true that there are sometimes cruel practices employed during the management of these cows, such as overcrowding during shipping and transportation, and unacceptable methods of slaughtering the cows, this is a general problem of humanity's inhumanity and bad behaviour, which can be solved (hopefully) if we give priority to it. Ceasing to eat meat as a solution would be like 'throwing the baby out with the bath water'.

Here's an interesting article which gives a different perspective, although it's probably biased to some extent. However, to avoid excessive bias, one should always search for both sides of the story.

"There are two main reasons why newborn dairy calves don’t stay with their mothers: for their safety and their health.
When a cow has a baby, her herd instinct doesn’t just disappear so that she can fulfill the joys of motherhood. For the first hour or two after the calf is born, there is a clear connection between mom and baby.
However, after this initial period, the cow becomes increasingly anxious. She wants to be with her herd mates. Cows are not big fans of change, and I think that we can all agree that giving birth is a pretty big change.
This anxiety puts the calf in severe danger. The cow often forgets about her calf. She walks or runs around, searching for her herd-mates and becomes extremely stressed. This can lead to the calf getting stepped, sat on, or injured in a variety of ways."
https://animalagalliance.org/separating-cows-and-calves-the-real-story/
 

I don't know who wrote that, but ..............................................

Dairy cows are mated for 2 reasons, to make them produce milk and to provide replacements for older cows.

No dairy farmer is going to allow calves to suckle when they need to sell the milk to make money to survive. Calves being kept are not allowed to stay with their mothers, so I can't speak from experience as to whether the mothers abandon them or not.

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, Fat is a type of crazy said:

You believe in God. You appear to recognise the life of an animal on a factory farm has a degree of cruelty to it. You probably recognise that animals have feelings, awareness, pleasure and pain. You justify it by saying you have to eat. I do something similar though I don't justify it and just try to eat animals treated a bit less cruelly at the margins. In that sense we are both without an ethical leg to stand on if you accept that animals don't want to be treated this way.  

What do you think god has to say? 'I made them tasty so get in for your chop' or  ' I created a world where animals roamed free and were eaten from time to time - you have used your free will to create an abomination of overeating and factory farms and cruelty'.  

If god doesn't care I wonder if it is a god worth following. 

You obviously haven't been reading my posts for long. I do believe in God, but I also believe that God created life the universe and everything and then left the universe to get on with it without interfering. Did God save all the children that died yesterday because they didn't have enough to eat?

Caring is a human quality- are you saying God is human?

Black holes consume everything they can attract- assuming a black hole opened up in our galaxy, would you expect God to close the hole before it consumed planet earth and all life on it?

BTW, no zebra ever wanted to be ripped apart by lions, but we allow it to happen instead of killing all the lions.