Well, on that definition, I’d argue dogs are sentient. Actually, not sure what “subjectively” is doing in the definition. Sentience, fer me, is the ability of an organism to modify its behaviour depending on changes in its environment. By my definition, E coli are sentient.
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“Experience subjectively” links to this:
I don’t think a dog “possesses conscious experiences, such as perspectives, feelings, beliefs, and desires.”
If you can find a better word for ‘I think therefore I am’-ness, then tell me what it is. 
Indeed they do, but I do find it strangely fascinating nonetheless.
All of the business about what gods have the right to do or not do, based upon whether they made something, somehow are in the business of sustaining it, et cetera, is really just an argument to the effect that might makes right, and that is certainly illuminating in relation to the fundamentalist’s moral universe. Efforts to excuse it by the god having a different nature from man are pretty unhelpful: different natures are used to exempt some actions from moral scrutiny, but invariably on the basis of diminished capacity. A person who is severely mentally impaired or diseased might be excused for things we would blame others for, but quite obviously this sort of line is unavailable to a god which is said to have a superior, rather than a diminished, capacity. We are left with the fact that it is immoral to cause innocent people to suffer, and we are left without any plausible reason to depart from that basic level of moral judgment.
I always find it a bit funny that the obvious get-out-of-jail-free card is never deployed: that none of these genocides appear to have actually happened, and that the reports of them are of pure human authorship. When one understands that one is dealing with hero stories written by people we would regard as so gravely immoral that they’d probably spend their entire lives in prison if they were among us today, it’s obvious why the god of the stories is immoral. But, like comic book authors of all epochs, they needed an origin story, and this is what they wrote, reflecting their own horrid natures. If I believed in a morally good divine being, I would think that these tales were the basest sort of slander against the divine. I sure as hell wouldn’t go seeking after obscure philosophical/theological whizbang and gimcrackery to somehow square the circle and convert grave immorality into divine wisdom and goodness.
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Such is the Sisyphian burden of Biblical Inerrancy.
I cannot help but wonder if Marcion wasn’t on the right track – Christian Apologetics would be so much easier without the Old Testament. 
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It’s obvious that the Old Testament is all about the Demiurge, not the God of the New Testament.
Self-awareness perhaps. Franz der Waal’s experiments with elephants, black spots and extremely robust mirrors showed elephants have the ability to work out the black spot stuck to their head was there using a mirror. I think dolphins pass this test too.
ETA and Corvids.
It would be better all round. Jefferson can (almost) be forgiven for his other transgressions taking into account his trimming down of the bible to its essential elements/
But why bother? If God exists we can’t enforce judgement. if God doesn’t exist then whatgs the pount? Either way it’s a waste of time.
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Yeah, I always thought the gnostics had a fairly neat solution to the problem. God’s evil, ergo, he’s probably not the real god. And the notion that Jesus represented the intrusion of a higher god into the world, in that context, makes sense.
Now, the gnostic works mostly convince me that people in all ages of humanity have been capable of writing the most outrageous nonsense. But that’s what the OT convinces me of, too.
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The only point is to shed light upon the moral systems to which people claim to subscribe. And for that purpose, it doesn’t matter whether the gods exist or not, as the existence of a god or the truth of these accounts could have no possible bearing upon the rightness of the actions told in these stories.
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@Puck_Mendelssohn @Dan_Eastwood @Ashwin_s @AlanFox @John_Harshman @Tim @T_aquaticus @Patrick @Mark10.45
First time I heard of @swamidass was on Sean McDowell’s YouTube channel. This video “Is God a Genocidal Bully” just posted so I just started watching. Is the Christian God a Genocidal Bully? Interview with Charlie Trimm (OT Scholar) - YouTube I purposefully haven’t engaged this conversation yet and haven’t read through most of the thread. But if you want to watch as well and discuss, I’m willing to discuss with anyone who also watches it completely. I have no idea what they’ll say - so the challenge of a mystery is fun.
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I’m willing to bet that the answer to the title question turns out to be “no”. Any takers?
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My dog, what is it with YouTube? Always with the YouTube. What a horrible format for obtaining information. Instead of “here is a cogent statement of why I think I am right about this,” it’s always “go watch an hour-long blatherfest and see if you can guess what part of it I found particularly convincing.”
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Yeah, but I don’t know if I’ll find anything convincing yet. 
Watched about half at this point.
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Ah, I just can’t do it. I find that the information density of video is lousy. The written word is almost always preferable, unless, say, one has complex physical things to demonstrate (Mentos and Diet Coke are not complex, but they are amusing). If any one of the biology books I am fondest of were turned into a TV series, with no deletion of material, the series would be a hundred hours long at least.
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Ah, I’m an auditory learner. I really like to hear people talk. I like books too. But I like analyzing people. If I was out sick of a day of school, I’d feel like I was going to fail the test that covered the material. If I listened to a teacher talk about it, I rarely studied.
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Awww. I’m too nice. I said you had to watch the video to discuss. 
But I’ll still tell you what answer they gave. So…
They gave all the answers you can choose from including atheism (Answer #1) and didn’t say which one was right except that they’d choose from answers 3 & 4. 
They did discuss the flood in this context on the YouTube video. So give me your definition of genocide and we can see if it fits.
Actually, the guest mentioned the eschatological and theological ideas of judgment fit into discussions of genocide as well.
So you make a very good point.
I’ve just discovered that Leviticus also includes approval of chattel slavery in God’s own voice:
25 The Lord said to Moses at Mount Sinai ...44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
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That’s definitely an opinion you are entitled to. With God, it’s not just the act of creation, but also of sustenance. We continue to exist because of Him.
You can think of it as a sentience that is created and powered by us (but having free will). This will put a moral responsibility upon the creator to police the creation.