Goddammit my Wisdom teeth really hurt. What kind of intelligent being would give me useless teeth that only cause me pain?

Or create insects that glitch on light and fly into fire because they use the light of the moon to navigate?

Or internal organs that randomly explode to lethal effect without immediate medical care?

If humans were engineered by another sentient creature, that creature was a fucking idiot.

Not to mention the myriad of vestigial biology.

Why would an intelligent designer give all humans tonsils which can be so easily infected and (for ease of living) need to be removed?

Or create an ostrich, what the FUCK?

Because if a tooth was nerveless then you'd die from blood poisioning before you knew you had an infection?

Because if a tooth was nerveless then you'd die from blood poisioning before you knew you had an infection?

^ Good answer!!! *cues applause*

shittywok, I feel your pain. I had all four of my wisdom teeth extracted at the same time, and the pain that led up to their decision to remove them was enough to make me want to ram my head into a concrete wall because it would feel better to have a crushed skull that those throbbing teeth.

God doesn't care that your teeth hurt. Your dentist does. Demand that they pull them, at once!

I thought you were supposed to put ":rolleyes:" atop your post when you are being sarcastic.

Why would ID create the simplist of life forms first? Why would he create lifeforms that are more complex after that? And more complex after that? Why would this process of creation of simplest to complex (which is fact) take such an insanely long time?

Perhaps the ID were learning as it went and it's learning took an inordinate amount of time, which would take away intelligent and just leave design. Then we can just throw natural in front of it.

to give physco dentists who love inflicting pain on young people jobs of course.

to give physco dentists who love inflicting pain on young people jobs of course.

Well, in that case....this "Intelligent Designer" must be some kind of psychpathic freak who would do something like, let's just say, kill scores of children for making fun of a bald guy.

Because if a tooth was nerveless then you'd die from blood poisioning before you knew you had an infection?
I think he was asking why we have vestigal teeth, not why we have nerves in those teeth.

Not to mention the myriad of vestigial biology.

HEATHEN. It's a test of faith!

And I thought atheists considered themselves intellectuals...

And I thought atheists considered themselves intellectuals...

Intellectual or not, who considers themselves non-intellectual?

The point of the OP is still a good one and your comment does nothing to add to thread, or refute the original claim on a foolish designer. The point of the OP is to clue some of you thiests in on the fact that if God made us as we are (no evolution) then he is a shitty/retarded designer.

Intellectual or not, who considers themselves non-intellectual?

The point of the OP is still a good one and your comment does nothing to add to thread, or refute the original claim on a foolish designer. The point of the OP is to clue some of you thiests in on the fact that if God made us as we are (no evolution) then he is a shitty/retarded designer.

God makes mistakes too, he did let Muhammed live didnt he?

God makes mistakes too, he did let Muhammed live didnt he?

I lol'd

Intellectual or not, who considers themselves non-intellectual?

The point of the OP is still a good one and your comment does nothing to add to thread, or refute the original claim on a foolish designer. The point of the OP is to clue some of you thiests in on the fact that if God made us as we are (no evolution) then he is a shitty/retarded designer.

The answer to this query is within the bible book of Job. People in this thread, I suggest you read it.

Job thinks he knows the answers. He thinks he knows why God does what he does. Job thinks God is mistreating him. The designer is not foolish, but the man who was designed is because he thinks he has understanding, when that understanding is wrong and nothing compared to the understanding and wisdom of God. God puts him in his place, and shows him that he knows virtually nothing about how or why God does what he does...

Man and his reasoning is like... infinitely mentally retarded when compared to God's.

And no, I am not a Christian. I'm merely pointing out where you will find the answer.

Not to mention the myriad of vestigial biology.

Why would an intelligent designer give all humans tonsils which can be so easily infected and (for ease of living) need to be removed?

The Tonsils are a line of defence, if they get infected, it stops the infection from getting further into your body.

to give physco dentists who love inflicting pain on young people jobs of course.

^ This made me remember Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors. :D

http://tinyurl.com/2jelxt

Why would ID create the simplist of life forms first? Why would he create lifeforms that are more complex after that? And more complex after that? Why would this process of creation of simplest to complex (which is fact) take such an insanely long time?

Perhaps the ID were learning as it went and it's learning took an inordinate amount of time, which would take away intelligent and just leave design. Then we can just throw natural in front of it.

This is really a good answer. And has some biblical support.

*applauds*

The answer to this query is within the bible book of Job. People in this thread, I suggest you read it.


The book of Job just displays how God will make you his bitch by brutally abusing you. And despite having everything in your life destroyed by God, you will bow to Him. In many ways, this is similar to a heroin addiction.

The answer to this query is within the bible book of Job. People in this thread, I suggest you read it.

Thought Job was about God proving a point to Satan.

Satan: "Job only loves you b/c you have blessed him so well."
God: "Nuh-uh, watch this!"

God lays waste to Job's family, holdings, wealth and livestock, in order to prove a point to Satan. Many bloodied innocent corpses later...

Job: "Still love ya big guy"
God: "Told you Satan"
Satan: "Pretty fun to watch, douchebag"

Job was having a hard time understanding why God was fucking his whole world up...but the bible explains why he did it. So humans (who wrote the bible) obviously can understand God.

The answer to this query is within the bible book of Job. People in this thread, I suggest you read it.

Job thinks he knows the answers. He thinks he knows why God does what he does. Job thinks God is mistreating him. The designer is not foolish, but the man who was designed is because he thinks he has understanding, when that understanding is wrong and nothing compared to the understanding and wisdom of God. God puts him in his place, and shows him that he knows virtually nothing about how or why God does what he does...

Man and his reasoning is like... infinitely mentally retarded when compared to God's.

And no, I am not a Christian. I'm merely pointing out where you will find the answer.

God does what he does because he's trying to prove a point to satan. It says that very clearly.

The book of Job is useless.

^ This made me remember Steve Martin in Little Shop of Horrors. :D

http://tinyurl.com/2jelxt

hhahaha, wtf. Never seen that one.

Why would ID create the simplist of life forms first? Why would he create lifeforms that are more complex after that? And more complex after that? Why would this process of creation of simplest to complex (which is fact) take such an insanely long time?

Perhaps the ID were learning as it went and it's learning took an inordinate amount of time, which would take away intelligent and just leave design. Then we can just throw natural in front of it.

This is one of the most intriguing counterpoints I've yet read.

Recently I heard the appendix was originally the way our bodies broke down the hair we ate with the meat of the animals we slaughtered in the wild. Now that we don't so nasty shit like stick our faces down into fresh kill and start chowing down, we don't need our appendixes (appendices?) anymore. Anybody know if that's the truth?

God does what he does because he's trying to prove a point to satan. It says that very clearly.

The book of Job is useless.

It's true, when taken literally God is "trying to prove a point to Satan." But Job doesn't understand God's motives. For a while, Job thinks God is punishing him or has abandoned him. God shows Job that he doesn't understand anything compared to God's wisdom and understanding.

Job couldn't understand why God does what he does. He thought he could, but he couldn't.

The thread-starter and people who posted below him are asking similar questions, because they are limited by the confines of human understanding. This is nothing compared to God's damn near/or infinite wisdom and like Job, you guys can't understand or get your head around God's motives.

"Why would ID create the simplist of life forms first? Why would he create lifeforms that are more complex after that? And more complex after that? Why would this process of creation of simplest to complex (which is fact) take such an insanely long time?"

God has the answers. Just because we, limited within the confines of human reasoning cannot understand them, does not mean they aren't there.

Job also questioned God. He couldn't understand God, but he thought he could.


"After several rounds of debate between Job and his friends, in a divine voice, described as coming from a "cloud" or "whirlwind", YHVH describes, in evocative and lyrical language, what the experience of being responsible for the world is like, and asks if Job has ever had the experiences that YHVH has had.

YHVH's answer underscores that Job shares the world with numerous powerful and remarkable creatures, creatures with lives and needs of their own, whom God must provide for, and the young of some hunger in a way that can only be satisfied by taking the lives of others. Does Job even have any experience of the world he lives in? Does he understand what it means to be responsible for such a world? Job admits that he does not."

Couldn't God, in all his infinite wisdom, benevolence and power, have communicated that to Job without completely destroying everything he loved? It seems like a pretty sadistic way of getting your point across.

Job was having a hard time understanding why God was fucking his whole world up...but the bible explains why he did it. So humans (who wrote the bible) obviously can understand God.

Well, assuming the Bible was inspired by God (since I am not a Christian I don't actually believe this) we cannot understand God. He merely provided us with a watered-down, simplified version of things so that the human mind could fathom them.

For example, he may have allowed the creation story to be incorportated into his book so that people could understand that he is the creator of the earth. We now know of natural selection, evolution etc. but God was merely dumbing things down for us in a way that our minds could rationalize. We couldn't understand his massive amount of knowledge as he does, so he waters things down? Just a guess from the top of my head.

Couldn't God, in all his infinite wisdom, benevolence and power, have communicated that to Job without completely destroying everything he loved? It seems like a pretty sadistic way of getting your point across.

This is true, and one of the many qualms I have with Christianity.

There's always the old cop-out answer "The Lord works in mysterious ways" ways which we cannot understand but ways in which he knows are best. Sort of like an immature child, who thinks it knows what's best for it but really doesn't, the parent does.

"The book of Job just displays how God will make you his bitch by brutally abusing you. And despite having everything in your life destroyed by God, you will bow to Him. In many ways, this is similar to a heroin addiction."

- This is all about perspective. You have responded in the typical atheist manner which is fine, and the same way I tend to.

Here is another man who was like that. Until he understood that the Bible can be interpreted and viewed in many different ways. Though I remain unconvinced of Christianity it has opened my eyes a little.

"The Bible didn't make sense to me. But why did it make sense to others? What were they seeing that I didn't? Did they so desperately want there to be a God that they had deluded themselves into thinking that there was one? It was New Year's Day, 1998. I made a resolution to read the entire Bible again, only this time I was going to read it as I would poetry or fiction, and not as a proposal of fact.

In the months that followed, I kept my resolution and I began noticing a change in my way of interpreting the Bible. Intellectually, I found that my mind could logically accept two very different interpretations of almost everything I was reading. One interpretation of any verse or passage would render the whole story as nonsensical. But the other interpretation allowed the whole story to make sense"

I don't agree with his conclusions, but he shows that there are many different ways of percieving things.


http://ex-atheist.com/Learning%20To%20Think%20Spiritually.html

http://ex-atheist.com/from-skepticism-to-worship.html

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding
-Proverbs 3:5

This is true, and one of the many qualms I have with Christianity.

What are some others?

There's always the old cop-out answer "The Lord works in mysterious ways" ways which we cannot understand but ways in which he knows are best. Sort of like an immature child, who thinks it knows what's best for it but really doesn't, the parent does.

A cop-out answer, indeed. Eventually the child begins to mature and understand why the parents did what they did. They aren't scolded for misunderstanding, because being naive is just a given for a child. If God made us with full knowledge beforehand that we'd become so overwhelmed with questions, yet still be hopelessly naive in spiritual matters, you'd think he'd have devised a way to shed more light on the mysteriousness of it all, so the Job scenario wouldn't have had to manifest itself.

You have responded in the typical atheist manner which is fine, and the same way I tend to.

I don't expect you to believe me, but I am being completely honest when I tell you that I held those exact same sentiments the entire time I clung to faith, which was the majority of my life.

It doesn't take an atheist mindset to recognize the many contradictions in the alleged benevolence of God. You said so yourself.

If I were a Christian, I'd concieve of the Bible in this manner: The Bible was not 'inspired' or guided by God as it was put together. Neither is it inerrant. God gave his revelation to man over the centuries, and man wrote it down and put its own interpretations onto events. Slowly, the message of God via. books such as the bible became distorted over time.

The Bible must be interpreted within its cultural context. Judging by my morality, in the Old Testament God was brutal and unjust. But peraps the Ancient Hebrews merely distorted the true nature and message of God to fit in with their own values?

On top of that, you cannot always view things from the rose-coloured glasses of 21st century morality, and assume your sense of morality to be the correct one.

Many of the harsh and seemingly nonsensical events in the Bible can make sense if you read the Bible not coming from the perspective of a hard-line atheist. This is illustrated on that ex-atheist site. My guess is that much of the Bible is more metaphorical than literal in nature, and we don't pick up many of the subtle naunces/sarcasm/whatever in it due to it being an English translation and us not being a part of ancient Hebrew culture.

Well, assuming the Bible was inspired by God (since I am not a Christian I don't actually believe this) we cannot understand God. He merely provided us with a watered-down, simplified version of things so that the human mind could fathom them.

For example, he may have allowed the creation story to be incorportated into his book so that people could understand that he is the creator of the earth. We now know of natural selection, evolution etc. but God was merely dumbing things down for us in a way that our minds could rationalize. We couldn't understand his massive amount of knowledge as he does, so he waters things down? Just a guess from the top of my head.

That’s a pretty bad guess, since we’ve managed to get this far scientifically on our own. He could have at least given a couple warnings, explicitly stating the accuracy of the Copernican Revolution and evolution. This would have saved a lot of unnecessary feuding.

Many of the harsh and seemingly nonsensical events in the Bible can make sense if you read the Bible not coming from the perspective of a hard-line atheist.

The Old Testament does make a lot of sense if you read it within context. The Greeks too deemed it OK to rape other tribes’ women. They saw this as a form of asserting dominance. Luckily most people don’t think like this anymore. I am aware that I say this through cultural bias, and I am also aware that most religions change to fit this cultural bias. The problem is when some of the outdated ethics get dragged into modern debate by bigots.

My guess is that much of the Bible is more metaphorical than literal in nature, and we don't pick up many of the subtle naunces/sarcasm/whatever in it due to it being an English translation and us not being a part of ancient Hebrew culture.

The problem is actually that most tribes made up a religion where they were deemed as important above all else. And most tribes were by todays standards highly barbaric. Their religious texts have been altered though, but there's no evidence that what's being altered is the word of God, if anthropology and history have any epistemic accuracy.

"What are some others?"

There are many, and I don't wish to go into it for the sake of convenience.

"A cop-out answer, indeed. Eventually the child begins to mature and understand why the parents did what they did. They aren't scolded for misunderstanding, because being naive is just a given for a child. If God made us with full knowledge beforehand that we'd become so overwhelmed with questions, yet still be hopelessly naive in spiritual matters, you'd think he'd have devised a way to shed more light on the mysteriousness of it all, so the Job scenario wouldn't have had to manifest itself."

In the analogy of a child and a parent, the child will eventually mature. This is not the case with humanity and God. Humans will always be stuck within the confines of their humanity. They won't reach a stage where they become as wise and knowledgable as God.

"If God made us with full knowledge beforehand that we'd become so overwhelmed with questions, yet still be hopelessly naive in spiritual matters, you'd think he'd have devised a way to shed more light on the mysteriousness of it all, so the Job scenario wouldn't have had to manifest itself."


With your limited human reasoning and lack of understanding compared to God, you'd think that, wouldn't you. It doesn't make sense to you, you can't fathom why God didn't devise a way to shed light on the myseriousness of it at all. But it makes sense to God. God has his reasons for doing what he does.


"I don't expect you to believe me, but I am being completely honest when I tell you that I held those exact same sentiments the entire time I clung to faith, which was the majority of my life."

Odd, but I believe you. It's hard to have faith, including absolute faith. The question is whether absolute faith is even necessary? The whole faith thing has always sounded like one big way of promoting irrationality to me.


"It doesn't take an atheist mindset to recognize the many contradictions in the alleged benevolence of God. You said so yourself."

Or what you only percieve to be contradictions. The ex-atheist dude percieved many until he looked at the Bible in a different way. Now I'm not saying that his interpetation is correct, but he has a point. A lot is about perception.

God is beyond human understanding. Job thought he understood, but he didn't. You see contradictions, God understands the truth. Unfortunately I can only describe God in human terms, as if he thought like a human, but he is beyond that.

That’s a pretty bad guess, since we’ve managed to get this far scientifically on our own. He could have at least given a couple warnings, explicitly stating the accuracy of the Copernican Revolution and evolution. This would have saved a lot of unnecessary feuding.

The Old Testament does make a lot of sense if you read it within context. The Greeks too deemed it OK to rape other tribes’ women. They saw this as a form of asserting dominance. Luckily most people don’t think like this anymore. I am aware that I say this through cultural bias, and I am also aware that most religions change to fit this cultural bias. The problem is when some of the outdated ethics get dragged into modern debate by bigots.


This is true, but as I have been saying we cannot fathom the ways of God. what I said was only a guess by using my own (limited) human reasoning. I am also skeptical as to why there was a lack of things like evolution or something else happening in the future, that has now happend explicitly stated. Things don't make sense to you, like you I see inconsistencies. but they make sense to God.

The second paragraph, I'm inclined to agree with you.

Oh, we were forgetting that God isn't bound by logic.

:(

Oh, we were forgetting that God isn't bound by logic.

:(

Not bounded by human logic and rationalizations. The human mind is limited and subjective in its conception of things, and its perception. The way we percieve reality, we often think that's the 'correct' or 'real' way things are. Then we find an unsolvable paradox or something very counter-intuitive, and realize our logic and understanding isn't all we think it is.

Bats or bees, for example, percieve reality completely differently because they have different 'minds', and different senses than us. Bats detect things by sound, for example. Bee's sense ultraviolet light.

A bee, being of limited intellect, could not possibly understand why a human wants to steal its honey. Likewise, the human mind could not truly understand God and his motives behind things, though he tells us they are noble and pure.

I understand. It's just VERY convenient. It makes me sad.

I understand. It's just VERY convenient. It makes me sad.

It is indeed. Awfully convenient and awfully cult-like, but it's biblical (as illustrated in that Proverbs verse I quoted above) that's how religion works. Faith.

Humans always have been and always will be curious. Christians don't tend to hold their beliefs under close scrutiny, I guess. Or to a lesser scrutiny than atheists tend to.

Here's an idea of mine: everyone has faith (or unfounded assumptions) in something. For example, we have faith that we are not in some kind of matrix world and all the physical/mathematical properties of this world are some kind of false illusion of the matrix world. What do we base this on? Our sensory perceptions, empirical evidence throughout our lifetimes and whether or not it makes sense using the logic our human mind provides us. All could be flawed.

A few ideas of mine:


As an example of the sensory, our senses pick up things and our brain interprets that information in a subjective manner. We don't see any objective or true reality (assuming there is one). We can only look at things and understand them from the perspective of a human. What if this 'true reality' was some kind of matrix world that our senses couldn't pick up on? It's possible...

As an example of the empirical, we see the sun rise every day. So we assume it is always going to rise every day. But the empirical can easily be wrong. In old times Europeans believed all swans were white. Why? Becuase they had never seen a black swan. That is until they got to Australia and found black swans.

As an example of the logical: The human mind is limited and our logic can be easily flawed, and is often based on assumptions on our beliefs about reality and the way the world is. We can't seem to attain absolute truth, nor look at things from an objective viewpoint. Only a limited human one.

Ancient Greek philosophical skeptics advised that we "suspend all judgement" but that's not a practical way to live. Not being able to attain absolute truth, we just go on what we find to be most reasonably true. Christians find their beliefs to be most reasonably true, and atheists find theirs to be most reasonably true. Oftentimes Christians just need less 'evidence' to believe, because they tend to be less scrutinizing and perhaps sometimes more 'feeling' over 'logic' people.

But as illustrated above, I'm guessing that everyone's logic is based upon faulty assumptions about the nature of reality and the world, so we're all equally wrong.

It seems to me that we are likely all equally deluded by the subjective and flawed nature of the human experience.

That's just about all my young mind can offer to this thread, but if someone posts I might come back and reply.