NoBull.ws - A Few Questions You Might Want to Ask Your God

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On the Origin of Species

by Charles Darwin

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A Few Questions You Might Want to Ask Your God (If You Dare)

What kind of mean streak would a God have to have to create humans and other animals with calcium-based teeth in a world full of acid foods that will eat holes in them? Natural foods like tomatoes and fruit, for example. As well as honey and many other foods. Yes, I mean foods that He supposedly made for us to eat, that rot our teeth.
If God is kind and loving, then why does He let people suffer with cancer, arthritis, cystic fibrosis, AIDS, diabetes, and thousands of other terrible diseases?
Even if a God is going to permit such awful diseases as cancer to exist, does it strike you as strange that the three most common kinds of cancer in humans all have to do with some of the most wonderful and exciting things in life: sex and reproduction? Breast and cervical cancers in women, and prostate cancer in men? I don't know what it means. Ask your God. I just said it's strange.
And mentioning the prostate gland brings up another question: Why would any wise Creator wrap a man's prostate gland around his urethra? Didn't He realize He had made the prostate gland so that it was going to enlarge in most men as they grow older? (And why would He do that either, by the way? Was it just negligence? Or didn't He even care?)

And didn't He realize that as it enlarged, it would strangle the men's urethras, making urination difficult or impossible for many? Does God not care? I have to wonder how many painful, lingering deaths that sorry design caused, before we learned how to manage it with medicines and surgery. (And I wonder how many men still suffer from it now, in undeveloped parts of the world where the meds and operations aren't readily available?)

Probably not as many as one would think, though; since most people in the past died young anyway. Of disease or malnutrition. Or they stepped on a deadly snake, or they were smashed by a falling tree in the jungle, or they were eaten by a pride of lions or a crocodile, or ... or any of a million dangers in the world God is said to have made. Most men, I suppose, just didn't live long enough to have prostate problems. (Maybe that's the answer. 'Just let 'em die young, and their prostates won't have time to hurt 'em.' Good thinking, God.)
A similar design flaw exists in the thyroid gland, which is wrapped around the front and both sides of the trachea in both men and women, and can swell into an enlarged form known as a goiter. Most goiters remain in the neck, but some even grow into the chest cavity and compress the body parts there. Both forms can cause serious problems for the patient.

According to Endocrine Web, "This mass will compress the trachea (windpipe) and esophagus (swallowing tube) leading to symptoms such as coughing, waking up from sleep feeling like you can't breath, and the sensation that food is getting stuck in the upper throat." Sometimes it can also cause food to actually get stuck in the throat and cause choking; and it may compress blood vessels and interfere with circulation.

The most common cause of goiter is a shortage of iodine in the diet. In the past, only people living near an ocean or saltwater sea could be assured of getting enough iodine; and this is still true in undeveloped parts of the world. Until iodized salt was introduced in 1924, goiter was very common among people in parts of the United States. The iodized salt prevents most goiter and treats most of the rest very effectively. It is currently the primary food source of iodine in the United States.

There are also other kinds of goiter, and some causes are still unknown; but symptoms are usually similar in most kinds.

For more information on this subject see the following web sites:

Endocrine Web (General info)
Salt Institute (Iodized salt info)
MedLine Plus (Goiter)
MedLine Plus (Iodine in Diet)
Cushing's Help Site (Drawings of normal.and enlarged thyroid glands)

For many more examples of poor design in "God's creation," visit Oolon Colluphid's Guide to Creation.
God is said to heal people with diseases. Not always, for some reason; but sometimes. The Bible claims in many places that certain people were healed instantly or almost instantly of many terrible diseases. Even blind and deaf people were reported to have been healed so they could see and hear, including some who had been blind from birth.

The Bible clearly promises healing for God's people. For example, James 5:14-15 say, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; ...". Evidently when the sick are not healed by these prayers, somebody didn't have enough faith. (Or maybe the "elders" used the wrong kind of oil. Who knows?)

Nevertheless, there are thousands of stories of people who sincerely believe God made them well when they had been sick. (It is important to understand, of course, that these are just anecdotes. Not one of them has been verified by the scientific method. Nevertheless, some can seem quite convincing.) So I have to wonder why God doesn't also set and heal broken bones?

If somebody has a mangled leg, the jagged end of the broken bone sticking out through the torn flesh, and blood squirting all over the floor from a major artery, why can't God instantly heal that? Is it too hard for Him? Does He faint when He sees the blood? Is He too busy with cancer patients? Does He just deal with infectious diseases but not injuries? Or is the injured person just naturally so scared that he or she can't find the required faith? There must be some reason.

I've heard of similar cases where the injured person got more or less well over a period of months and thanked God for healing them. But our bodies heal themselves over time, if they have a chance. God should be able to do it instantly, as with the stories of healed diseases. I can't help but wonder why He never seems to do it. Really, shouldn't an all-powerful God be able to heal broken bones and torn flesh instantly?

Or broken or decaying teeth, either, for that matter? Bad teeth never seem to get better without being treated appropriately by a dentist.

He's your God; not mine. If it bothers you too, then you ask Him.
Why does He send people to hell to be burned in fire for all eternity? "For ever and ever: ..." (Revelation 14:11 "And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, ...") Without ever any interruption or rest or relief? Not ever? No more opportunity to repent or be forgiven or rehabilitated or even put out of their misery by really dying? No more opportunity to ever escape the horrors of eternal torture by fire and obnoxious chemical smoke? (Revelation 20:10 "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.")

Doesn't that seem kinda mean to you? Kinda excessive? Kinda sick?

This must undoubtedly be the cruelest, most horrific, most totally horrendously evil and depraved idea ever to be conceived by the mind of God or man. If conscious human souls are going to be literally tortured forever after their bodies die, as many Christians believe, won't it already be too late for any reasonable purpose to be served? Can they still repent or be rehabilitated? Of course not! It's for ever and ever. It never stops. It's eternal.

What purpose can possibly be served by that? If this is supposed to be justice, then why does it sound like the most awful, terrible, mean revenge anybody could ever imagine?

The Bible even admits that God is vengeful. In fact, it claims He personally owns the right to revenge. (Deuteronomy 32:35 "To me belongeth vengeance, ..." And in the New Testament, Romans 12:19 "... Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.") OK, but doesn't eternal torment seem just a little bit excessive?

On a personal level, is He actually going to fry me just because I can't believe all that supernatural stuff? (John 3:18 "He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.") Actually, I'm not worried about it. I simply cannot believe in a God that irrational or that cruel. Or any other kind of god, for that matter.

If people -- any people at all -- are so totally depraved and incorrigible that something extraordinary must be done with them, wouldn't it make more sense to just let them really die, completely and permanently, soul and all? Or maybe lock up their souls in some kind of soul jail so they can't hurt anybody any more? Maybe put them on another planet in a far, faraway galaxy somewhere?

It seems to me that any god worthy of the name could think of some way better than torture that never ends to deal with unbelievers or rebels or whatever. People or even devils, or anybody or anything. Really! Ask your God about that.

Ask him if He's really that sick! If you dare!

This page was last updated 08/21/09 04:43 PM.

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