The Problem of Evil - Common Sense Atheism

172 Notes
20. One might, however, wonder how much pain is felt by the victims of
predators. Here is a famous passage from the first chapter of David
Livingstone’s Missionary Travels:
When in the act of ramming down the bullets, I heard a shout. Starting,
and looking half round, I saw the lion just in the act of springing upon
me. I was upon a little height; he caught my shoulder as he sprang, and we
both came to the ground below together. Growling horribly close to my
ear, he shook me as a terrier dog does a rat. The shock produced a stupor
similar to that which seems to be felt by a mouse after the first shake of the
cat. It caused a sort of dreaminess, in which there was no sense of pain nor
feeling of terror, though I was quite conscious of all that was happening. It
was like what patients partially under the influence of chloroform describe,
who see all the operation, but feel not the knife. This singular condition
was not the result of any mental process. The shake annihilated fear, and
allowed no sense of horror in looking round at the beast. This peculiar
state is probably produced in all animals killed by the carnivora; and if so,
is a merciful provision by our benevolent Creator for lessening the pain of
death.
Commenting on this incident in his 2003 Reith Lectures, the eminent
neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran says:
Remember the story of Livingstone being mauled by a lion. He saw his arm
being ripped off [Livingstones’s injury was not quite that bad, but the bone
of his upper arm was crushed and he suffered deep and serious wounds
from the lion’s teeth.—PvI] but felt no pain or even fear. He felt like he
was detached from it all, watching it all happen. The same thing happens,
by the way, to soldiers in battle or sometimes even to women being raped.
During such dire emergencies, the anterior cingular in the brain, part of the
frontal lobes, becomes extremely active. This inhibits or temporarily shuts
down your amygdala and other limbic emotional centers, so you suppress
potentially disabling emotions like anxiety and fear—temporarily. But at
the same time, the anterior cingular makes you extremely alert and vigilant
so you can take the appropriate action.
The Reith Lectures are delivered on BBC Radio 4. This passage is from
Lecture 5, ‘‘Neuroscience—the New Philosophy’’. The text of the lecture
can be found at .
21. C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, 121–4.
22. See Geach, Providence and Evil, 79–80.
23. In 1973, I heard Geach deliver a series of lectures that contained much of
the material that later appeared in Providence and Evil.Ifmymemorydoes
not play me false, in those lectures he presented an argument that does not