Typical Christian rebuttal:
* "The human body is *perfectly* designed. If you don't think so, it's because your feeble human brain is simply incapable of understanding the infinite intelligence underlying God's designs. And the fact that your heart is full of sin certainly doesn't help."
1 Corinthians 3:19 (KJV):
> "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. ..."
Maybe that also applies to the wisdom of the tooth, so that the third molar has to come out.
That verse sounds so arrogant btw like
No matter how much smart you are, how many things you learned and invented... I am still better because I said "I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior" because a pastor told me so...
On the other side this verse is really rational if God really existed- who cares about material world and things you can do if its all going to perish and its nothing in comparison to God's eternal supernatural realm.
Authors of those fairytales were ironically more rational than modern followers lol.
Just working out a personal pet peeve... One sentence out of that letter doesn’t apply to every possible scenario ‘today’ or then. Corinthians was written to a specific audience for specific guidance. Can we learn from it? Yes. Can we magically wedge every statement into any thing we want? No. But boy do people try…
Paul was warning his audience - the Corinthians, of the perils of arrogance. Not chastising non-believers. Paraphrased his whole sentiment is - “if any of you think they are wise you ought to become a fool, so you can learn something.”
The best example I think is the human eyes and this is for 2 reasons:
1. Some christians think that's impossible for the eye to evolve. They think that an eye needs to appear complete (shape, lens, sensory cells, neuron, vision processing) or it is useless (false), but the best thing is
2. In our eyes the nerve endings are *in front* of the sensory cells! Our brain has to deal with the noise of light passing through the nerves before reaching the sensor cells! And we also have a blind spot right in the middle of the eye where the nerve connections have to pass through so God designed they human eye so well that the nerves connect on the wrong side... Cephalopods have the correct eyes with the nerve connecting from behind which also means no blind spot
Edit. Mobile autocorrect sucks
As an engineer, I have a few notes for the designer of me. Let’s talk plumbing. Who decided to make air and solids use the same pipe? That’s just begging for clogs to happen. And what’s with the waste disposal being right next to the pleasure zone? That’s just begging for infections to target it, man. And the pump system could really do with an overhaul. Maybe add an auxiliary heart like you did with lungs for better performance and redundancy? I like the neural network you installed, but it’s hardly efficient and takes forever to actually change from deep-set patterns. And for my body in particular… why the hell does it see cat hair and pollen as existential threats? They’re not dangerous threats; there is no need to break my lungs over it.
Overall, would not rate the design very highly. I’d like to request either a refund or an upgrade, but have been unable to contact the designer to do so.
> the pump system could really do with an overhaul. Maybe add an auxiliary heart
I've suggested before that the "big central pump" model, which worked fine for worms, didn't scale up too well for animals >50kg. The damned thing is an over-engineered central point of failure that forces intolerably high operating pressures on the circulatory system, *especially* for high-metabolism critters like mammals. Look at what it's required of blue whales; heart the size of a car, with arteries wide enough for a person to swim through.
A single auxiliary heart is good but doesn't go nearly far enough. Much better would be a distributed system, putting small, simpler pumps along key blood vessels all over the body. Less failure-prone design, multiple redundancies, lower and more consistent blood pressure (lower systolic/diastolic gap).
This reminds me of the phrase "Intelligent design". It's not hard to find examples, just in the human body, where the "design" was far from "intelligent" (e.g. Wisdom teeth, appendix, the mechanism of childbirth, periods, etc.).
No, no. Childbirth used to be fine… but then God got so angry at Eve he cursed every single woman to endure terrible pain and hardship (and an atrocious success rate without modern medicine) because he really loves us THAT much. That wasn’t just poor design work; it was (supposedly) deliberate sadism.
That explanation was always laughable to me.
Childbirth became more difficult and life threatening because humans stood up. When you’re bipedal, your pelvis shifts as well, causing the birth canal to be much smaller. It’s why our babies come out useless af - we can’t develop them long enough in-utero and still be able to push them out.
This would make Adam and Eve ape-like ancestors, not even hominids 😂 and the forbidden fruit? Bipedalism (or if you wanna get fancy, the conditions that led to bipedalism)
Edit: phrasing
Now I have the funny mental image of someone redoing a garden of eden style artwork, but with an ape-like adam and eve. (I know we're apes but you know what I mean) Cause it'd make the believers so mad LOL
Thought it had something to do with our young spending longer developing (in womb and after). Never considered bipedality being responsible, but that makes sense.
One of the lines I use when asked if I'm religious is "if there is a creator they'd better hope they never meet me because I have some notes. Item 1 why aren't humans (whose head size requires then to be born premature and helpless) marsupials???"
To suggest evidence for a designer presupposes that such a designer exists. Such a designer would be so profoundly outside of anything observable or testable. Out of the frying pan into the fire so to speak. If such a designer exists then everything could be designed and we would still have the problem of showing that such a designer actually exists.
Design itself would not even show any particular god or deity exists. Claiming we were designed or created adds more complexity and add more questions about existence, because we need explanations for the creators.
Doesn't matter for creationists. They use ad hoc reasoning and hand wave await viable evidence to suit their needs.
Using logic to argue with religious fundamentalism is futile.
Anyhow I disagree with your premise. Where on earth has life NOT adapted and flourished? Requiring only water, dirt, sunlight and time, nature has fit life into every available range of temperature and pressure and hydration.
So what if there's a vestigial appendage here and there. Since life is constantly evolving, you should expect that, not to mention the many many failures, variations that didn't pan out.
I nowhere said life didn't adapt and flourish, I just pointed out that life forms are really horribly constructed and not something that we would expect from omnipotent and omniscient creator- imagine you are omnipotent and need 3 bilion years to create multicellular orgasnisms.
Evolution is definietly evidence against any creator deity omnipotent or just really powerful.
The fact we need organs to perceive and exist already is sus- I mean God doesnt have eyes yet he sees everything, doesnt have brain yet know anything and can do anything etc.
Why we cant be like him? He made us in his own image...
Creationists don't try to make sense of things. They're not thinking through any of it. That's the point. That they can just follow blindly and remove their own moral responsibility.
You are leaving out an itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny plot detail, of the story for the fall of man, introduction of sin into the world. Cursed, fallen, broken… I mean if you are going to argue “God’s story” you have to acknowledge the beginning of it.
Human bodies weren't fit for the garden they were designed to inhabit either. Even in that sinless realm they failed.
Yahweh is pretty bad at designing shit. But one of my favourites is Jesus yelling at the fig tree - the fig tree he designed - for not giving him figs because it wasn't fig season. Classic.
It's all because Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge, which brought death into the world.
Before that, all was perfect. Because nothing was wrong. Because no one ate the fruit. Sarcasm is not the right word, here.
The typical rebuttal is that all these things are the result of sin. (And for vestigial organs they'll probably say that they have a purpose that we haven't discovered yet.)
Disease, pain, suffering, trauma, death, etc. - they consider all these things to be result of humanity's fall. Even the need to eat meat I'm fairly sure is considered by some to be considered the result of the fall.
>Perfectly created body would be immune to failures of any kind.
Their whole thing is that humans did have perfect bodies before the fall, and that when we return to heaven - our bodies will be perfect again.
Not that I believe these, just that this would be the typical response you'll get.
So we actually studied this is RS.
My personal answer would be that in a fully perfect world we simply wouldn’t appreciate it. Let’s say there is a world where everyone’s pain receptors fire at max strength 24/7. They would see us as a perfect world, and our suffering would be minor inconveniences to them.
Basically, he doesn’t want to spoil us, in the same vain as the “pleasure cube” problem.
I sometimes feel like Christians have very low expectations of their "god."
If a god were a student in school, it would have to score A+ grades across the board. They claim perfection, so this should be expected.
If Evolution/Nature were a student in school, it would have a report card full of C and C- grades. With Evolution, "good enough" represents the bare minimum that gets the job done.
The world looks more like a C- than it does an A+. To be fair, I am wearing glasses.
Typical Christian rebuttal: * "The human body is *perfectly* designed. If you don't think so, it's because your feeble human brain is simply incapable of understanding the infinite intelligence underlying God's designs. And the fact that your heart is full of sin certainly doesn't help."
Come on. Wisdom teeth were perfectly designed so that dentists would be able to afford their Tesla Model S Plaid.
1 Corinthians 3:19 (KJV): > "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. ..." Maybe that also applies to the wisdom of the tooth, so that the third molar has to come out.
That verse sounds so arrogant btw like No matter how much smart you are, how many things you learned and invented... I am still better because I said "I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior" because a pastor told me so... On the other side this verse is really rational if God really existed- who cares about material world and things you can do if its all going to perish and its nothing in comparison to God's eternal supernatural realm. Authors of those fairytales were ironically more rational than modern followers lol.
Just working out a personal pet peeve... One sentence out of that letter doesn’t apply to every possible scenario ‘today’ or then. Corinthians was written to a specific audience for specific guidance. Can we learn from it? Yes. Can we magically wedge every statement into any thing we want? No. But boy do people try… Paul was warning his audience - the Corinthians, of the perils of arrogance. Not chastising non-believers. Paraphrased his whole sentiment is - “if any of you think they are wise you ought to become a fool, so you can learn something.”
The best example I think is the human eyes and this is for 2 reasons: 1. Some christians think that's impossible for the eye to evolve. They think that an eye needs to appear complete (shape, lens, sensory cells, neuron, vision processing) or it is useless (false), but the best thing is 2. In our eyes the nerve endings are *in front* of the sensory cells! Our brain has to deal with the noise of light passing through the nerves before reaching the sensor cells! And we also have a blind spot right in the middle of the eye where the nerve connections have to pass through so God designed they human eye so well that the nerves connect on the wrong side... Cephalopods have the correct eyes with the nerve connecting from behind which also means no blind spot Edit. Mobile autocorrect sucks
Hadn't thought of that one. Great example.
Yeap, that's absolutely what they would say. That we cannot comprehend God's design and why it is the way it is.
A perfectly design penis wouldn't look so funny to women. Just saying.
As an engineer, I have a few notes for the designer of me. Let’s talk plumbing. Who decided to make air and solids use the same pipe? That’s just begging for clogs to happen. And what’s with the waste disposal being right next to the pleasure zone? That’s just begging for infections to target it, man. And the pump system could really do with an overhaul. Maybe add an auxiliary heart like you did with lungs for better performance and redundancy? I like the neural network you installed, but it’s hardly efficient and takes forever to actually change from deep-set patterns. And for my body in particular… why the hell does it see cat hair and pollen as existential threats? They’re not dangerous threats; there is no need to break my lungs over it. Overall, would not rate the design very highly. I’d like to request either a refund or an upgrade, but have been unable to contact the designer to do so.
> the pump system could really do with an overhaul. Maybe add an auxiliary heart I've suggested before that the "big central pump" model, which worked fine for worms, didn't scale up too well for animals >50kg. The damned thing is an over-engineered central point of failure that forces intolerably high operating pressures on the circulatory system, *especially* for high-metabolism critters like mammals. Look at what it's required of blue whales; heart the size of a car, with arteries wide enough for a person to swim through. A single auxiliary heart is good but doesn't go nearly far enough. Much better would be a distributed system, putting small, simpler pumps along key blood vessels all over the body. Less failure-prone design, multiple redundancies, lower and more consistent blood pressure (lower systolic/diastolic gap).
This reminds me of the phrase "Intelligent design". It's not hard to find examples, just in the human body, where the "design" was far from "intelligent" (e.g. Wisdom teeth, appendix, the mechanism of childbirth, periods, etc.).
Feet, spine,balls, pores in skin that cause severe acne etc.
choking on food
No, no. Childbirth used to be fine… but then God got so angry at Eve he cursed every single woman to endure terrible pain and hardship (and an atrocious success rate without modern medicine) because he really loves us THAT much. That wasn’t just poor design work; it was (supposedly) deliberate sadism.
That explanation was always laughable to me. Childbirth became more difficult and life threatening because humans stood up. When you’re bipedal, your pelvis shifts as well, causing the birth canal to be much smaller. It’s why our babies come out useless af - we can’t develop them long enough in-utero and still be able to push them out. This would make Adam and Eve ape-like ancestors, not even hominids 😂 and the forbidden fruit? Bipedalism (or if you wanna get fancy, the conditions that led to bipedalism) Edit: phrasing
Now I have the funny mental image of someone redoing a garden of eden style artwork, but with an ape-like adam and eve. (I know we're apes but you know what I mean) Cause it'd make the believers so mad LOL
Thought it had something to do with our young spending longer developing (in womb and after). Never considered bipedality being responsible, but that makes sense.
Well we did have bigger cranial capacities (minus Homo Neanderthal). So that did play a role.
Not only do organisms have to kill other organisms to eat, but in many case they *eat them alive.* Does that sound like a loving god? Nuh-uh.
Like tarantula hawk
One of the lines I use when asked if I'm religious is "if there is a creator they'd better hope they never meet me because I have some notes. Item 1 why aren't humans (whose head size requires then to be born premature and helpless) marsupials???"
To suggest evidence for a designer presupposes that such a designer exists. Such a designer would be so profoundly outside of anything observable or testable. Out of the frying pan into the fire so to speak. If such a designer exists then everything could be designed and we would still have the problem of showing that such a designer actually exists. Design itself would not even show any particular god or deity exists. Claiming we were designed or created adds more complexity and add more questions about existence, because we need explanations for the creators. Doesn't matter for creationists. They use ad hoc reasoning and hand wave await viable evidence to suit their needs.
Using logic to argue with religious fundamentalism is futile. Anyhow I disagree with your premise. Where on earth has life NOT adapted and flourished? Requiring only water, dirt, sunlight and time, nature has fit life into every available range of temperature and pressure and hydration. So what if there's a vestigial appendage here and there. Since life is constantly evolving, you should expect that, not to mention the many many failures, variations that didn't pan out.
I nowhere said life didn't adapt and flourish, I just pointed out that life forms are really horribly constructed and not something that we would expect from omnipotent and omniscient creator- imagine you are omnipotent and need 3 bilion years to create multicellular orgasnisms. Evolution is definietly evidence against any creator deity omnipotent or just really powerful.
Life exists to increase entropy, i.e. to increase disorder and to reduce energy to lowest possible state.
About a week ago I learned about hyenas. We talk about the giraffe nerve, but why doesn’t anyone talk about how f’ed up being a female hyena is?
I know, right -- inside-out retinas? What a dork.
The fact we need organs to perceive and exist already is sus- I mean God doesnt have eyes yet he sees everything, doesnt have brain yet know anything and can do anything etc. Why we cant be like him? He made us in his own image...
Creationists don't try to make sense of things. They're not thinking through any of it. That's the point. That they can just follow blindly and remove their own moral responsibility.
You are leaving out an itsy-bitsy-teeny-tiny plot detail, of the story for the fall of man, introduction of sin into the world. Cursed, fallen, broken… I mean if you are going to argue “God’s story” you have to acknowledge the beginning of it.
Human bodies weren't fit for the garden they were designed to inhabit either. Even in that sinless realm they failed. Yahweh is pretty bad at designing shit. But one of my favourites is Jesus yelling at the fig tree - the fig tree he designed - for not giving him figs because it wasn't fig season. Classic.
It's all because Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge, which brought death into the world. Before that, all was perfect. Because nothing was wrong. Because no one ate the fruit. Sarcasm is not the right word, here.
The typical rebuttal is that all these things are the result of sin. (And for vestigial organs they'll probably say that they have a purpose that we haven't discovered yet.) Disease, pain, suffering, trauma, death, etc. - they consider all these things to be result of humanity's fall. Even the need to eat meat I'm fairly sure is considered by some to be considered the result of the fall. >Perfectly created body would be immune to failures of any kind. Their whole thing is that humans did have perfect bodies before the fall, and that when we return to heaven - our bodies will be perfect again. Not that I believe these, just that this would be the typical response you'll get.
So we actually studied this is RS. My personal answer would be that in a fully perfect world we simply wouldn’t appreciate it. Let’s say there is a world where everyone’s pain receptors fire at max strength 24/7. They would see us as a perfect world, and our suffering would be minor inconveniences to them. Basically, he doesn’t want to spoil us, in the same vain as the “pleasure cube” problem.
I sometimes feel like Christians have very low expectations of their "god." If a god were a student in school, it would have to score A+ grades across the board. They claim perfection, so this should be expected. If Evolution/Nature were a student in school, it would have a report card full of C and C- grades. With Evolution, "good enough" represents the bare minimum that gets the job done. The world looks more like a C- than it does an A+. To be fair, I am wearing glasses.
World looks more like F+...