Christian creationists generally hold the position that diseases didn't always exist: before the Original Sin, they state, illness didn't plague mankind. This was a somewhat tenable position before we knew that living organisms directly cause disease. Now, however, it presents a contradiction with another common creationist belief: that living things are not generated spontaneously, but require divine interference to form.
Stated more clearly, the contradiction is this: did god deliberately create pathogens to infect humans after they left the Garden of Eden? Or did pathogens "arise" later, on their own? The former option is unpalatable to those who wish to maintain god's omnibenevolence, but the latter means conceding the very thing that creationists must deny.
Thoughts on this argument?
Quote from: "Graceless"did god deliberately create pathogens to infect humans after they left the Garden of Eden?
Of course he did. He hates your furry pink atheist ass.
Quote from: "Graceless"Christian creationists generally hold the position that diseases didn't always exist: before the Original Sin, they state, illness didn't plague mankind. This was a somewhat tenable position before we knew that living organisms directly cause disease. Now, however, it presents a contradiction with another common creationist belief: that living things are not generated spontaneously, but require divine interference to form.
Stated more clearly, the contradiction is this: did god deliberately create pathogens to infect humans after they left the Garden of Eden? Or did pathogens "arise" later, on their own? The former option is unpalatable to those who wish to maintain god's omnibenevolence, but the latter means conceding the very thing that creationists must deny.
Thoughts on this argument?
Since we know that even dinosaurs were prone to disease, the matter would seem to be moot, wouldn't it? Or was one of the animals Adam named, "the dinosaur"? Then it wouldn't be moot, it would just be a hoot.
Quote from: "PopeyesPappy"He hates your furry pink atheist ass.
[spoil:28nyvjuw](//http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/134/620/130441009012.png?1308103147)[/spoil:28nyvjuw]
This explains
so much. :x
Quote from: "Colanth"Since we know that even dinosaurs were prone to disease, the matter would seem to be moot, wouldn't it?
Ehh. The YEC would probably claim that dinosaurs went extinct in the Flood, and hence had plenty of time to get sick.
Quote from: "Graceless"Christian creationists generally hold the position that diseases didn't always exist: before the Original Sin, they state, illness didn't plague mankind. This was a somewhat tenable position before we knew that living organisms directly cause disease. Now, however, it presents a contradiction with another common creationist belief: that living things are not generated spontaneously, but require divine interference to form.
Stated more clearly, the contradiction is this: did god deliberately create pathogens to infect humans after they left the Garden of Eden? Or did pathogens "arise" later, on their own? The former option is unpalatable to those who wish to maintain god's omnibenevolence, but the latter means conceding the very thing that creationists must deny.
Thoughts on this argument?
The FALL. It's creationists' catch-all answer for everything.
Still, it's curious how close a relationship species have with other species (endosymbionts in particular) given that they're all designed separately.
Quote from: "Hydra009"Still, it's curious how close a relationship species have with other species (endosymbionts in particular) given that they're all designed separately.
Close relationship? Close? Animals and most plants wouldn't survive without our organelles.
You'd think an omniscient god would know to create evolution, rather than to create all these trillions of separate creatures, but ensure that they'd fit together as well as if they had co-evolved.
Talk about make-work.
Quote from: "Colanth"You'd think an omniscient god would know to create evolution, rather than to create all these trillions of separate creatures, but ensure that they'd fit together as well as if they had co-evolved.
For some reason this reminded me of a session of SimLife I played where I populated the world with nothing but Tyrannosaurs, which then proceeded to fill every possible niche. This included a variety that came to be called Tyrannosaurus Cetus. You read that right: some of my Tyrannosaurs turned into fucking whales.
Anyway, knowing Cretinists... I mean Creationists, they probably don't see anything wrong with God inventing pathogens just to punish us. Everything he does is pretty much A-OK with them.
As Hydra pointed out, all bad things are blamed on Satan and the Fall of Man. In some way that Christians can never explain, sin somehow caused all manner of nastiness to exist that had not existed before, including diseases. They can never tell us the physical mechanism involved in this process. HOW does sin result in a viral infection or cancer or a birth defect? They don't know, and they don't care. They heard a pastor give a sermon about it once, and their mommies and daddies believed it, and that's good enough for them.
This creationist canard is just one (of many) apologies offered to justify their beliefs. They offer no evidence to support it, they ignore actual evidence which contradict this mere assertion and they pretend, as only a holier-than-thou creationist can pretend, it is true.
The claim is only worthy of disdain and derision.
Quote from: "Graceless"Thoughts on this argument?
I would hardly call not believing nonsense like this an argument. :lol:
You can't argue with someone who flips what they are saying like that. People like that always think they win the argument because they make shit up as they go and it doesn't matter if it goes against what they already said.
Quote from: "Graceless"Stated more clearly, the contradiction is this: did god deliberately create pathogens to infect humans after they left the Garden of Eden? Or did pathogens "arise" later, on their own? The former option is unpalatable to those who wish to maintain god's omnibenevolence, but the latter means conceding the very thing that creationists must deny.
Thoughts on this argument?
Yeah well... this is in the bible too:
QuoteLeviticus 14
New International Version (NIV)
Cleansing From Defiling Skin Diseases
14 The Lord said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for any diseased person at the time of their ceremonial cleansing, when they are brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease,[a] 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields.
((Sited Here) (//http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+14&version=NIV)
Quote from: "sdelsolray"This creationist canard is just one (of many) apologies offered to justify their beliefs. They offer no evidence to support it, they ignore actual evidence which contradict this mere assertion and they pretend, as only a holier-than-thou creationist can pretend, it is true.
The mind of any fundamentalist goes, "God said it, I believe it and that settles it". There can't be any evidence that contradicts that.
Quote from: "PickelledEggs"Yeah well... this is in the bible too:
QuoteLeviticus 14
New International Version (NIV)
Cleansing From Defiling Skin Diseases
14 The Lord said to Moses, 2 "These are the regulations for any diseased person at the time of their ceremonial cleansing, when they are brought to the priest: 3 The priest is to go outside the camp and examine them. If they have been healed of their defiling skin disease,[a] 4 the priest shall order that two live clean birds and some cedar wood, scarlet yarn and hyssop be brought for the person to be cleansed. 5 Then the priest shall order that one of the birds be killed over fresh water in a clay pot. 6 He is then to take the live bird and dip it, together with the cedar wood, the scarlet yarn and the hyssop, into the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water. 7 Seven times he shall sprinkle the one to be cleansed of the defiling disease, and then pronounce them clean. After that, he is to release the live bird in the open fields.
((Sited Here) (//http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Leviticus+14&version=NIV)
Presumably, the idea was that the live bird would carry away the disease when released, in much the same way that the scapegoat would carry away the nation's sins into the wilderness. This superstitious behavior naturally would do nothing at all to alleviate a sick person's misery, yet we see not one word in all the Bible about the REAL causes of disease, or any real cures or treatments. Were the Bible truly the product of a supreme cosmic intelligence, we would find within it, not worthless twaddle about dipping birds into blood, but a list of plants and herbs that could be used to cure some common illnesses.
Quote from: "ApostateLois"Presumably, the idea was that the live bird would carry away the disease when released, in much the same way that the scapegoat would carry away the nation's sins into the wilderness. This superstitious behavior naturally would do nothing at all to alleviate a sick person's misery, yet we see not one word in all the Bible about the REAL causes of disease, or any real cures or treatments. Were the Bible truly the product of a supreme cosmic intelligence, we would find within it, not worthless twaddle about dipping birds into blood, but a list of plants and herbs that could be used to cure some common illnesses.
Or at least an abject apology for having created disease in the first place.
If god created the earth and everything in it, he created disease as well. I do not know of a single cure for any disease that comes from a recognizably god given source, but from scientific endeavor and from laboratories.
A god that created disease and then forces his subjects to first suffer and then hunt for a cure? Doesn't strike me as either logical or benevolent. Likewise, I can't think of any science, such as microbiology, that stems from creationist "theory" because creationist theory doesn't exist.