Hi @John_Harshman @sfmatheson @Rumraket @Roy @Rope @misterme987 and @Dan_Eastwood,
Quick question. I take it you’re all familiar with the term “horrendous evils”, and in particular, “horrendous suffering”. I wonder if anyone would care to estimate the percentage of sentient animals which experience this form of suffering? The reason why I ask is that it seems to me that even if most animals’ lives contain more suffering than pleasure, that’s not a particularly pressing problem for theism if the suffering is not horrendous. But if a significant percentage of sentient animals experience horrendous suffering, then I think any fair-minded person would call that a problem for theism (here defined as belief in an all-knowing, all-loving and all-powerful Creator of the cosmos) - not necessarily a defeater, but a severe problem nonetheless.
I haven’t defined the term “significant,” but let’s just say it means “more than vanishingly small.” I’d be inclined to say that 1% is certainly a significant percentage, but I personally wouldn’t say that 1 in a million is, although if I were one of the unlucky individuals in that tiny group, I might well feel differently! Of course, some readers might feel that the existence of even one sentient animal experiencing horrendous suffering is enough to call into question belief in an omnibenevolent Creator. Cheers.