Queen of Swords

Originally posted by spurly
I've been thinking about the post I wrote about viruses deteriorating to what we have today. that could have happened, remember it is just conjecture.

So there's no biblical evidence - or, for that matter, any evidence - for this theory?

Another possibility is that in the beginning, before the fall, we had bodies that were immune to viruses such as those you mentioned. Life was meant to be forever, so the human body may have been immune to viruses like that. That may have been why pre-flood humans lived so long.

Just humans? Could the viruses have killed any other creatures, including the apes? In other words, could there have been disease, suffering and death before the Fall - only affecting all species on earth except one?

I'm not even going to get into the details of how, precisely, the immune system was revved up against viruses it might never even have encountered before.

As the body gradually declined, with the fall, part of the curse may have been that the body was no longer immune to such viruses anymore.

How? Did pre-formed antibodies vanish? Were B-cells suddenly wiped out?

But remember, this is all conjecture. We will never know the truth about how things were in the beginning until the end. But it is fun to think about.

What's not fun is the fact that you didn't answer my questions about what good Neisseria and Yersinia and Ebola et al. did before the fall.

What is your best conjecture?

My best conjecture for what, precisely? The fact that bacteria and viruses exist? A poem by Stephen Crane sums it up nicely :

"A man said to the universe,
'Sir, I exist!'
'However,' replied the universe,
'That fact has not created within me
A sense of obligation.'"