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Unintelligent design

Yes. And does God still have his?


A good point. :D

If you are a Muslim you may think he does not. The most perfect man, Muhammad, according to some traditions, was born without a foreskin. If he was the most perfect perhaps he resembled God most.

However there is some disagreement about this, as others maintain his grandfather Abd-al-Muttalib circumcised him when he was seven days old.
 
Oh silly humans . . . there's no mystery as to why we were designed with flaws. Obviously, the flaws exist 1)in order to give God a multitude of ways to punish us for our transgressions, 2)so that we experience suffering, the overcoming of which allows us to spiritually grow and 3)to provide seeds for conversations like this where God can separate the faithful from the faithless.
 
Don't forget there was neither disease nor death before The Fall™.

Yes, but there was plenty of unrecognized nudity. After the fruit incident, god's little humans looked at each other and said "eek! nakedness!" and jerry-rigged some quick loin coverings. Adam even hid from god because he was ashamed of his nakedness.

If your body was created in god's image, why are you embarrassed to show it off?
 
Better question:

Why would a god design you nude and also design you so you are ashamed or embarrassed by your nudity -- after first not having you embarrassed of it?

There's a certain inconsistency here, isn't there? Also, why do all the other gods allow nudity? Aren't their creations ashamed?
 
Better question:

Why would a god design you nude and also design you so you are ashamed or embarrassed by your nudity -- after first not having you embarrassed of it?

There's a certain inconsistency here, isn't there? Also, why do all the other gods allow nudity? Aren't their creations ashamed?
Their gods are fakes. The real god is a meddlesome control freak. I mean, if you were a god wouldn't you be? Any god worth his salt will be a jealous prick and probably a butt-groper too. I mean what's the point otherwise?
 
Even God himself decided that at least one part of the design must have been unintelligent and needed to be corrected. But somehow that part was the foreskin.
Huh? Needed correction? I've... never heard that before. The removal of the foreskin was supposed to be done to demonstrate that you're one of the followers of god; to set you off from all the rest. Nothing to do with correcting anything.
 
Huh? Needed correction? I've... never heard that before. The removal of the foreskin was supposed to be done to demonstrate that you're one of the followers of god; to set you off from all the rest. Nothing to do with correcting anything.

The earliest documentation of circumcision was in Egypt circa 2400 BCE; it was for hygienic rather than theological reasons.
 
Huh? Needed correction? I've... never heard that before. The removal of the foreskin was supposed to be done to demonstrate that you're one of the followers of god; to set you off from all the rest. Nothing to do with correcting anything.


How can you be set off from all the rest if the part of the body you've modified can't be shown to anyone else due the shamefulness of nudity?
 
The earliest documentation of circumcision was in Egypt circa 2400 BCE; it was for hygienic rather than theological reasons.
Huh. Did not know that. I stand corrected, thanks!



How can you be set off from all the rest if the part of the body you've modified can't be shown to anyone else due the shamefulness of nudity?
Good point. I myself try to lead by example and strut around nude. Most especially when attending church services.
 
Have someone mentioned caries?

In the light human beings are badly designed to eat tons of simple carbohydrates in soft food and keep our teeth healthy, I always wondered why the "creator" was so short-sighted about how our diet would evolve and the lack* of religious dietary prescriptions regarding those, that is, "sugar is no kosher" or "going to bed without brushing your teeth is taboo".

* I'm sure there are some isolated rules in different religions, but I'd like to know their historical origin and how efficient they are to avoid caries. Besides those which come just from some kind of cultural p-hacking.
 
But aleC, isn't that a bit unfair? Eating carbohydrates is a choice, subject to free will. We eat it despite knowing it's bad for teeth. That's like a well designed tractor that tolerates a wide range of oils and diesels as fuels and even runs if you mix in some sugar, but we insist on feeding it pure molasses.

Nothing can be designed for every use and abuse. Design is always making choices of what to design for. Thus every design has an envelop inside of which it should perform well. That implies you can take any design outside of its envelop. If you do, don't blame the design.

God created man for a state of paradise, where no agriculturally grown and industrially processed food was a design criterion. Presumably, our teeth are well designed to such stone-age diet. It was a choice (or long chain of choices, starting with eating that damned forbidden fruit) that took our teeth outside their design envelop.
 
Fair enough.

Yet some religions will throw baptism at you to protect you against the consequences of loosing the state of paradise. Then, why don't they add some rules about not eating sugar cane by-products? Prescriptions against gluttony came later, and they are not simple-carbohydrate specific.

Besides I have a hard time believing sugar cane wasn't a feature in paradise. Ergo "unintelligent designer".
 
Unsowed, uncared, unbred, unprocessed sugar cane is sufficiently rare and low on sugars to not pull the overall paradise diet outside of the envelop.

It's sugar beets in my corner of the world - and some dentists recommend chewing fresh beet chips when a toothbrush is unavailable: the plaque- and dirt-removing qualities of the fibers apparently outweigh the modest sugar content, most of which you dissolve and swallow with your saliva.

Not sure if Eden, somewhere in or near Mesopotamia, would have had more cane or more beets.
 
That's like a well designed tractor that tolerates a wide range of oils and diesels as fuels and even runs if you mix in some sugar, but we insist on feeding it pure molasses.

Bad analogy. Sugar will not dissolve in either gasoline or diesel fuel. In sufficient quantity it might clog the fuel filter, but would not harm the engine itself.
 
Bad analogy. Sugar will not dissolve in either gasoline or diesel fuel. In sufficient quantity it might clog the fuel filter, but would not harm the engine itself.
What?!? You have not seen and lauded my honey-mustard salad dressings where the honey's sugar mixes (I did not say dissolve) beautifully with olive oil [emoji14]
 
Not sure if Eden, somewhere in or near Mesopotamia, would have had more cane or more beets.

Sugar beet is a much modern mutation, and sugar cane only appeared in Asian Mesopotamia when the Arabs took it there from India.

All the tales of the "peoples of the Book" predate the cultivation and elaboration of sugar sources. Even in modern times sugar is considered to be kosher even when animal bones and other animal parts are used to refine it.

So, clearly "the creator" hasn't inspired any of them to correct any design mistake made in "its created creature".
 
Sugar beet is a much modern mutation, and sugar cane only appeared in Asian Mesopotamia when the Arabs took it there from India.

All the tales of the "peoples of the Book" predate the cultivation and elaboration of sugar sources. Even in modern times sugar is considered to be kosher even when animal bones and other animal parts are used to refine it.

So, clearly "the creator" hasn't inspired any of them to correct any design mistake made in "its created creature".

Yes, but you can't expect God to foresee everything.

Er... hang on a moment...

Dave
 
Dental Caries does seem a bit niche compared to autoimmune diseases, for example.

Admittedly, it does show a distinct lack of foresight on the part of a supposedly omniscient being.
 
The eustachian tubeWP, that balances pressure between the middle ear and the atmosphere.

Clearly god, in her vast and omniscient wisdom, anticipated aircraft and deep diving, where this facility is really handy to stop your head hurting. Otherwise, why? Monkey climbs a few meters up tree ... climbs down.

(The science in this post might be a tad flakey, but it wasn't hurt in its production)
 

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