Neruda

I like the juxtaposition with the evil dictator and God, because as artists, both are just as cruel. Well, maybe god has the edge.

It appears to me, GPlindsey, that your pet theory is just a cheap way to try and avoid tough questions about what you apparently see as a designed universe. I wonder when you'll come to terms with the fact that it wasn't designed? When you do, you won't have to call the appendix art anymore, and I assure you that things will make a lot more sense.

But as it is, you've simply fallen back on the standby creationist explanation for strange things: "this is what happened, it's all part of god's plan, who are we to question it?" Whatever. I prefer the honest rationality of atheism.

[ October 03, 2002: Message edited by: Neruda ]</p>

Dr Rick

Your color preferences do not cause pain and suffering; the appendix and the tapeworm do. Dissmissing the harm the last two cause as the product of artistic musings is similar to characterizing Nazi concentration camps as amusement parks.

Rick

Oolon Colluphid

Because it is the ‘art’ of a really vicious sadist? Furthermore, it is living art. He merely gets to view it from a distance, while we get the full experience! So god is Titian painting the Death of Actaeon... only Actaeon is a zebra, and it gets to actually experience being torn apart by (African) hunting dogs for real.... Hmm. I was under the impression that this was a loving god...?

There are three organisms, each utterly reliant on the others for their existence. Each is extremely well adapted to its lifestyle -- the sort of adaptations creationists claim are a sign of god’s hand in things.

One is a species of insect. It lives on a mammal, clinging to its hair with cleverly designed appendages, and drinking the mammal’s blood through well-designed mouthparts.

Another is a bacterium. It is an obligate intracellular parasite: it can’t make its own ATP and has to get it from a host cell. This alternates between living in the gut of the insect and the bloodstream of the mammal. It too is remarkably adapted to do this: it is excreted in the insect’s faeces and gets rubbed into the insect bite by the mammal’s scratching.

Both of these species are obligate parasites on just one species of mammal. They are adapted to it and it alone, without it they die. Hence, according to creationists, they were designed for it.

The insect is Pediculus humanus, the human body louse. The mammal is of course Homo sapiens, us. And the bacterium is Rickettsia prowazekii, which in the course of simply doing what it needs to survive, is the cause of epidemic typhus. Which historically is a devastating disease: it killed three million Russians during the First World War alone. Would you like me to list the symptoms?

If adaptation is a sign of divine design, then this set-up was designed by god. (Please explain -- for I’ve heard it claimed but never explained -- how the Fall, or Satan, are to be credited for intricate adaptations, if you wish to argue that.) Therefore, the designer is a malicious sadist. Want me to tell you about hookworms?

<a href="http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol4no2/azadg.htm" target="_blank">Rickettsia life cycle</a>

God the idiot savant... I like it! However...

(a) Please offer some evidence.

(b) Please explain how we might check this is right -- what evidence might show it to be wrong?

(c) This doesn’t explain plain stupid and pointless designs, such as the reduced and non-poisonous poisonous spur on echidnas’ hind legs (cf the working one, on... hedgehogs? Nope, the platypus) and the human post-auricular muscles (being able to wiggle our ears being one of god’s less-appreciated gifts to us )

(d) That ain’t no Christian god you’ve got there.

TTFN, Oolon

GPLindsey

Wait a minute, you atheists. You spend most of your time pointing out to religious people that the earth is just a speck of dust in an immense universe. But when I suggest that much of the immense universe is just God's canvas, you just want to cry about pain and suffering on earth! What is human suffering when weighed on the immense scales of the universe?!

The Orion Nebula never hurt anybody. The Andromeda Galaxy didn't send anyone off to a concentration camp. Why don't you go out in your yards tonight, shake your fist at the heavens, and shout: "Look at all the suffering you caused today!!!" If you were to discover that Michelangelo used to kick his dog, does that mean his statue of David isn't art???

Also, it pains me to point out the obvious, but human suffering was due to Man's Fall from Grace. It's in scripture.

Ab_Normal

If the universe is art for art's sake, then why the Fall?

Edited because it's Friday night and I'm really really tired

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: Ab_Normal ]</p>

Neruda

Well why don't you prove that it's God's canvas? You can't, can you? What's your evidence? All you're doing is grasping for straws, since you really don't know why God would create such a vast universe.

good, you've admitted that your God doesn't care about you. That's the first step towards recovery!

daaaamn, according to you God's a real asshole! You're saying it's alright for God to cause pain or intentionally torture his creations just because he's god?? What the hell happened to all that benevolence he's known for? A god such as the one you describe is not worthy of worship. (can you believe this, guys? I guess if God's michelangelo then we're the lowly mutts he gets to kick around. does this sound like a theist to you?)

And by the way, we're not going to be shaking our fists at the heavens. As atheists, we don't believe there's anything up there to shake our fists at. We're just trying to make you realize why your reasoning is self-contradictory. (by the way, if any *rational* theists are commenting in this thread, please don't take offense at my blanket term 'atheists.' I was only referring to myself and any other atheists that are involved with this thread.)

Point out the obvious, eh? Care to show some proof? because scripture is not proof. Quite the opposite, actually. There are so many flaws with scripture that it sickens me to hear someone speak of it the way you do.

Liquidrage

Dear:

[ ] Clueless Newbie
[ ] Lamer
[ ] Flamer
[ ] Pervert
[ ] Geek
[ ] Canadian
[ ] Spammer
[ ] Racist
[ ] Jackass
[ ] Troller
[X] Fundamentalist
[ ] Satanist
[ ] "Expert"
[ ] Wannabe
[ ] Dumbass
[ ] Waste of Sperm
[ ] Other:

You Are Being Flamed Because:

[ ] Abusing a derogatory term.
[ ] You imported another debate into this post
[ ] You obviously don't know anything about the topic at hand
[ ] You posted a 'Top 10' post.
[ ] You posted a 'Religion' post
[ ] You started a long, stupid thread
[ ] You continued spreading a long, stupid thread
[ ] Your post is absurdly off topic for where you posted it
[ ] Your lack of understanding of the fundamentals is disgusting
[ ] You posted a 'Lord of the Rings' post
[ ] You posted a "YOU ALL SUCK" message
[ ] You posted low-IQ flamebait
[ ] You posted a blatantly obvious troll
[ ] You followed up to a blatantly obvious troll
[ ] You said "X rules, Y sucks" and gave no support for your lame statement
[ ] You make no sense
[X] You made a post yet failed to say anything
[ ] Your sig/alias/avatar is dreadful
[ ] Your post contained nothing but psycho-babble.
[ ] You are claiming that you know more than Newton, Ohm, Pavlov, etc.
[ ] Your awful markup made the post unreadable
[X] You made a baseless assertion
[ ] You posted SCREAMING in RANDOM CAPS (OR IN ALL CAPS) for NO REASON
[ ] YoU tYpEd SoMeThInG lAmE lIkE tHiS
[ ] You say you're 'L33t liek Jeffk.', Or your spelling is so bad that no one can read it.
[ ] You didn't do anything specific, but appear to be so generally worthless that you are being flamed anyway
[ ] You started a lame thread with a very old and worthless idea thinking it was something new and cool.

To Repent, You Must:

[X] Refrain from posting until you have a vague idea what you're doing
[ ] Stop masturbating for a week
[ ] Read every group you posted to for a week
[ ] Give up your AOL account
[ ] Bust up your modem with a hammer and eat it
[ ] Tell your Mommy to up your medication
[ ] Jump into a bathtub while holding your monitor (monitor must be plugged in)
[ ] Actually post something relevant
[ ] Read and memorize the FAQ
[ ] Print your home phone number in your ads
[ ] Be the guest of honor in alt.flame for a month

In Closing, I'd Like to Say:

[ ] Blow me
[X] Get a clue
[ ] Get a life
[ ] **** a goat
[ ] Go away
[ ] Grow up
[ ] Never post again
[ ] I pity your dog
[ ] You need to seek psychiatric help
[ ] Morons like you give ammo to pro-censorship morons
[ ] Yer momma's so fat/stupid/ugly that etc...
[ ] Take your gibberish somewhere else
[ ] Go back to school and actually learn something
[ ] Learn how to post or get off the site
[ ] Send your sister to my bedroom at 10:30 PM
[ ] DON’T send your sister to my bedroom at 10:30 PM; she’s a fat *****!
[ ] All of the above

Ab_Normal

Thanks, Neruda - that's what I wanted to say, but I couldn't get beyond boggled.

scigirl

And doesn't that fact cast even the tiniest of doubts that God created this whole universe just for some Homo sapiens to worship him every day? Not even a little bit of doubt?

No they are two different arguments in my opinion. The vastness of the universe indicates that if there was a God, he didn't make this place just for us. The suffering on earth may indicate that God is NOT loving, NOT powerful, or perhaps just inactive (in other words, NOT the normal Christian God that people tend to believe in).

I don't see it that way. And PLEAAASE don't start in with that old "atheists have no morals" bullcrap!!

Well a meteor could instantly kill everything on the planet, couldn't it? And this God of yours did allegedly kill everything on the planet - including innocent human babies - (except 5 people and 2 of every animal if you believe that silly story that is - I obviously don't). God also killed a lot of other people in the OT. You should read it sometime, if you want some examples of mass violence and destruction.

What?? I think you are just extremely confused. Atheists don't think that the Andromeda galexy caused the holcaust (do we?? I stopped going to those atheist conspiracy meetings last month, so I may have missed that announcement).
No but I would think he was an asshole. And I certainly wouldn't want to worship him anymore (if I had previously worshipped him).

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha!

scigirl

[ October 06, 2002: Message edited by: scigirl ]</p>

scigirl

I want to spend a little more time on this particular quote.

Time and again, I have heard creationists preach at me, "We are so marvelously and wonderfully complex - doesn't that prove (my particular definition of) God exists?"

Then they will go on to give examples of biological complexity - like, say DNA replication. "Isn't it obvious that our DNA must have been intelligently designed because the base pairs fit perfectly together?"

Like, DUH! I have my masters degree in molecular biology, yeah I did in fact know that the DNA bases fit together. I can even draw their organic structure. (Incidentally, the co-discoverers of DNA structure - Watson and Crick - are both atheists, so this "obvious" designer isn't so obvious after all).

So anyway they babble on about the beutiful and pretty parts of biology as proof of an intelligent and loving God.

Then someone like me points out, "Ok what about Plasmodium falparicium or Rotavirus? Aren't those beautiful in design too?" And actually from a pure aesthetic standpoint, they are indeed very pretty. Virus structures are totally cool. If God created our beautiful DNA, than God also created the DNA (or in the case of some viruses the RNA) of all the nasty bacteria, parasites, and viruses that make us sick and make us die. Right?

Then these same creationists babble something like "human suffering was due to Man's Fall from Grace. It's in scripture."

Ok so all the good and pretty things like OUR DNA came from a loving and nice God, but all the nasty things came from this same God, but he was in a bad mood and he was punishing us. Fine and dandy.

But here's a question then - what mood was God in when He invented E. coli? Why do I ask? Well we need E. coli to digest certain things that we eat (because this intelligent God apparently didn't realize we'd eat plants and forgot to give us enzymes that digest cellulose). Anyway, so E. coli is a good thing. But occasionally the bacteria get into places they aren't supposed to be, or mutate to a different form, and then they are very dangerous. Especially to kids. So, these bugs are a blessing and a punishment. How do they fit in to the nice little creationist categorization of "good" and "bad" things?

scigirl