Please read the Glossary of My Terms to be able to follow this post.
Having awoken to the foundational, inalienable, unspeakable cruelty of earthscheme, I was curious about what the major religions had to say – specifically – with regard to this feature of the planet.
Zarathustraism speaks of beneficent and evil animals. ‘Evil’ here has no connection with cruelty; locusts are evil, as are elephants. Impact on human wellbeing is the determinant. Evil animals are those that are harmful or inconvenient to humans, or repulsive (for example the lizard). The massive suffering of prey animals appears not to have been worthy of attention.
The Hebrew bible : the vision of Isaiah (11:6-9) reflects a super-adequate recognition of eating related cruelty; prophecy of a world in which “The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat … and the lion will eat straw like the ox …” ie eating related cruelty will or can one day cease. The concept of a cud-chewing lion is however difficult to digest. To think of this vision as symbolic is a bit of a stretch, given the exclusive reference to predation.
“ The traditional Christian view : When early theologians looked at ‘nature red in tooth and claw’ they concluded that it was a natural law of the universe that animals should be preyed on and eaten by others. This was reflected in their theology.” https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/animals_1.shtml So, on the one hand God, who had created everything, was the font of love and compassion. On the other hand, it was a “natural law” that animals should suffer dreadfully before – and in many cases while – they were eaten. Breathtakingly schizoid.
“Many Christians argue that natural evils, like moral evils, are ultimately to be blamed on human sin. They claim God didn’t make the world with … predators. Instead, these natural evils only came to exist after the first humans began sinning.” https://biologos.org/common-questions/is-animal-suffering-part-of-gods-good-creation The evidence says T Rex was trotting around well before humans appeared. But, conceivably, prior to human sinning it was meek and supped on fallen acorns (would explain the impressive biting kit).
Islam : In 2014 Dr Shabir Ally, President of the Islamic Information Centre was asked why God made prey animals suffer. He responded, “This is a difficult question for believers to answer … but at the same time we have in the Islamic tradition the understanding that on the day of judgement all the justice will be done, so if one animal hurt another one then the justice would be done between the animals. But I think it’s more than this …”; for an animal that has suffered, there will be some reward in the afterlife; “at least that is my hope.” So we have a recognition of predation related cruelty, which is not however to be considered a defect in earthscheme. Along with Judgement Day redress and after-life compensation, it is an integral part of a perfect scheme. It’s that some pieces of the jigsaw are beyond the wit of mortals … they must desist from futile reaching for answers.
Hinduism : from ‘The alchemy of suffering in the laboratory of the world: Vedāntic Hindu engagements with the affliction of animals’ by Akshay Gupta and Ankur Barua, Faculty of Divinity, University of Cambridge https://philpapers.org/archive/GUPTAO-4.pdf : (a) “The reason that some selves are presently embodied as animals, and not as humans, is because of their prior karmic merits and demerits they had acquired in a human embodiment.” Presumably then, earthworms will have been the most vile, despotic humans. Unanswered question : is every animal a fallen human ? If not, then either gratuitous suffering is par for the course, or wicked animals too receive karmic tuition … scheming hippos, thieving giraffes, subversive cows … ? (b) “ … karmic mechanisms serve a soul-making function and enable selves to learn soteriologically beneficial lessons.” So the Almighty first makes entities who are prone to badness, even great badness, then sets about inducing goodness in them. Furthermore, the only correctional instrument at his disposal is suffering.
Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism : I couldn’t find material on the suffering of wild animals, but a G R E A T deal of material on why and how humans should be kind to animals. Perhaps in these religions not much is said on wild animal suffering.
In sum, with regard to the endemic Nastiness of earthscheme the great prophets and teachers say either little or nothing, or, availing of the human susceptibility to lobotomy, create ‘explanations’ … the notion that earthscheme could be the work of something other than God, is t a b o o … how could entrapment/control be fashioned on that idea ?!