Theists, how do you explain natural evil and bad design?

[yodachoda]

I'm an atheist, and perhaps one of the strongest reasons is natural evil and bad design.  They kinda are related to each other but let me explain what I mean.  I'm mostly going to focus on humans.

Natural evil just means terrible things happening to people which are outside of people's control.  For example, by pure chance if your chromosomes happen to not fuse properly in meiosis, you could be born mentally retarded with down syndrome.  Also, by pure chance, you could be born with any number of possible terrible birth defects.  How does the theist explain why an innocent baby is born with a genetic disorder where he/she lives only a year in pain before dying?  Also, why are there ebola zaire virus particles that exist ONLY to infect humans and monkeys, cause their internal organs to liquify, bleed out all orfices, then die within a week? 

This question is very different from the question "why is there evil?" when evil means evil people or evil actions caused by people.  This is nature, outside of man's control, causing suffering. 

Also, how do the theists explain such terrible "design" for humans?  Many people need glasses because our eyesight is bad, many people have wisdom teeth that offer no benefit and are detrimental (I had mine removed years ago), before invention of new birth techniques giving birth often killed both the mother and child, old people get alzheimer's, ect.

And I'm not so sure I buy the reason "all this is because of the fall of Adam and Eve".  You can see detrimental mutations in other species besides humans, and mutations are actually required for evolution to proceed (I'm assuming you all accept evolution as true). 

[IcyBabe]

Good point on the virus, why would god create us as his prize creations then create things that could destroy us?  That also includes animals that attack us, bears etc.  Why would God not punish an animal for taking the life of a human?  Wipe out that specific animal species etc.?

[Asmodean]

Father Asmo, he can tell you why there be evil and bad design.

Satan.

oO(...Or was it Santa..?)

In any case, lemme have an amen! 

[Sandra Craft]

Father Asmo, he can tell you why there be evil and bad design.

Satan.

oO(...Or was it Santa..?)

In any case, lemme have an amen! 

Amen!  You just can't trust anyone who dresses all in red.

[Pharaoh Cat]

Here's how I would answer it:

God is a dick.

Pic:

[xSilverPhinx]

Parasites that are specific to humans (and other species-specific parasites) are the best examples, IMO. You can mention how accumulated evolution can produce a complex organism that isn't perfect, hear some rather silly strawman jokes about the subject and wonder if some people were aware that perhaps it's better to keep one's mouth shut than open it and look rather dense. Nothing gained there.

Seems like human cell-specific viruses though were designed for us. Viruses need cells to reproduce, so there's no way around that. And that's a fact.

[yodachoda]

So, theists, any serious answer? 

[The Magic Pudding]

Our planet has created us, tigers, albatross and turtles.  I think these are great things, the planet as it is with all the pain and suffering is how such things were created. 

I can imagine other ways of doing things, nutrition may be drawn in with air, sexual reproduction isn't used, population is painlessly constrained.  Our characteristics of empathy, community and drive to know are born of our difficult ancestry.  Omnipotent god should be able to just plonk our hard won characteristics into a brand new life form, I can't make excuses for this guy.  I could forgive/thank a less than omnipotent god for who the tooth and claw, pain and suffering way of creation is the only/best way.  I do think life is better than no life, Earth is better than Mars.

[Crow]

Is it really "natural evil" though? Personally I don't see viruses as natural evil, they are a form of life that exists by consuming energy and multiplying, they do this by infecting different forms of life such as plants and animals, the more effective they are the deadlier they are to the host. If we take humanity through metaphor we can be comparable to a virus (in fact all life can), as all life follows the same basic fundamentals - to consume energy and multiply - the more effective life is at this principle the bigger the impact they have to other forms of life. Maybe the question should be why would life be created by a god that in its most fundamental aspect be a disadvantage to other forms of life? and if the universe was created for humanity then why are there more successful forms of life?

[Twentythree]

I think that your reason for seeking atheistic answers to the fundamental question of why is admirable. The ideas proposed are valid but I think they could use a little help regarding the definitions of the terms used. And I think a deeper understanding will help to clarify some things. Evil by definition requires there to be some sort of moral code in place to be violated. Nature does not run on morality just survival and chance. If an animal kills another animal that is not evil, but survival. And, if an animal by chance falls off a cliff in pursuit of prey or fleeing a predator that is chance. Unlucky, unfortunate, call it what you will but there is violation of any code of morals in order for evil to be implied. Evil can only be applied to humans, when they act in violation to moral codes that they have established. Beating your wife today could be considered evil. But 200 years ago that was called keeping your family in line. So evil is a purely subjective term and is only effective when comparing and contrasting it to acceptable forms of behavior established by a critical majority within a certain culture and society. So in short form, evil is a construct of humanity and therefore evil by definition does not exist in nature and nature acting in accordance with the laws of natural selection can never be evil. Bad design on the other had exists but I think using a term like design is not entirely correct. Design implies that forethought was involved in creating a solution to an existing problem. Evolution does not work like that. If it appears as though something was designed for a specific purpose it is only in hindsight that this solution emerged. Take for example beaks and nuts. If you saw a bird with a particularly large beak breaking open relatively large nuts one might assume that the tree produces large nuts therefore the birds needed to have a large beak in order to eat the nuts. A designer would look at this problem and say... simple enough, in subsequent generations beaks will be larger and hence the nuts will be eaten. The truth is actually very far from that. the truth probably reads something like this. Birds with average sized beaks ate nuts form trees with average sized nuts. As the population of birds with average sized beaks grew most if not all of the average sized nuts were eaten. Only nuts from trees that occasionally produced oversized nuts would not be eaten therefore the genes for large nuts propagated within the tree gene pool until a majority of the trees produced nuts that were too large for the average sized beaks. In this case now the birds with average sized beaks would be undernourished have fewer children and average sized beaks would be replaced in the gene pool by genes for larger beaks. This took place very slowly over thousands of generation until at long last you have a bird with a large beak that appears to have been designed for the larger nuts of the tree. Nither nuts nor beaks were designed they emerged as a result of mutual pressures exerted on one another.

I'm not sure if either of my responses were necessarily helpful to you. It sounds as though you may want help in defending a position in an argument where things like...why would god design a skull that is too small for wisdom teeth...or how does a compassionate god give innocent (another entirely subjective term) children diseases or defects. Well keep in mind as an atheist you may be engaging in discussions with individuals that by no stretch of the imagination believe in ghosts and magic. I think having a clear and precise position on the idea natural emergence rather than creative design and the semantics of evil will be helpful but only up to the point where magic and ghosts come into play in which case all bets are off.

[Ecurb Noselrub]

The very fact that we have evolved as creatures with a moral sense is due to the suffering that is built into this life from natural processes.  The stress of natural forces that seem to operate against us has caused us to develop the very concepts of right and wrong, good and evil. God, IMHO, set the initial conditions of creation (natural laws) that he knew would eventually result in us.  Perhaps this is the only way in which creatures like us can develop.  His intent was not to create perfect beings who do not suffer, as such beings would have no discussions as we are having about good and evil. His purpose was to create mortal beings who struggle with issues, to prepare us for the next phase of existence, which in the New Testament is referred to as the Kingdom of God.  In that phase, "every tear will be wiped away," and the injustices of this life rectified.  This cannot be proven, of course, and remains in the realm of faith.  Some believers have had experiences in life which give them a foretaste of this realm, but cannot claim knowledge of it.  It is a matter of faith and personal experience, IMHO. 

Adam and Eve is a metaphor about this struggle, of losing one's innocence and grappling with the problem of good and evil.  Christianity provides one scenario in which that struggle comes to a conclusion, and people are given an option of participating in the kingdom of God or being excluded, not in eternal torment, but in cessation of existence. 

[Tristan Jay]

It's funny you mention you say "Bad Design," it's been plaguing my mind for a while now.  Ever since I read The Magicians, where a character confronts an Aslan-type of character and calls him out on the nature of the world, "Next time you build a world, why don't you try doing less of a half-ass job?"

What trips me out is that we can easily use our imagination and try and imagine how we might have constructed things differently.  Makes the world look like a rough-draft.  It kind of feels to me like if God made us in his image, and he is hypothetically more like us than we are lead to believe, then it is easy to see that, yeah, the universe was made by a moron who didn't know what he was doing because he was doing it the first time.  There were teething troubles.  He continued to pretend that the obvious problems were part of the plan.  It's like he's insecure.  Like he can see how we're learning from how stupidly it is as a designed work, and he's more afraid of several thousands of years spent building up his name, so he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that he's perfect.  If it was true, I think I would actually like and respect him better if he came clean and was honest about it.  It really rubs me raw when it looks like he's always blaming us for his failure.  It's almost as if the best reason for learning forgiveness in this life is for the great surprise: the test beyond the end of life is if we are actually able to forgive him for his failings.  Now I'm just saying crazy stuff.

There are two possibilities that I think are likely, that the universe developed on it's own it quite an extaordinary manner beyond what we could reasonably expect, or that it was designed by a guy who was doing it the first time and isn't receptive to constructive criticism.  While I'm not allowed to reject constructive criticism, and I'm sure He'd be the first in line to say that I should learn better.  Yeah, he's got to be a hypocrite and a jerk.  A complete knee-biter.  This is why I tell him to fix it or fuck off, every day.

[AnimatedDirt]

It's funny you mention you say "Bad Design," it's been plaguing my mind for a while now.  Ever since I read The Magicians, where a character confronts an Aslan-type of character and calls him out on the nature of the world, "Next time you build a world, why don't you try doing less of a half-ass job?"

What trips me out is that we can easily use our imagination and try and imagine how we might have constructed things differently.  Makes the world look like a rough-draft.  It kind of feels to me like if God made us in his image, and he is hypothetically more like us than we are lead to believe, then it is easy to see that, yeah, the universe was made by a moron who didn't know what he was doing because he was doing it the first time.  There were teething troubles.  He continued to pretend that the obvious problems were part of the plan.  It's like he's insecure.  Like he can see how we're learning from how stupidly it is as a designed work, and he's more afraid of several thousands of years spent building up his name, so he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that he's perfect.  If it was true, I think I would actually like and respect him better if he came clean and was honest about it.  It really rubs me raw when it looks like he's always blaming us for his failure.  It's almost as if the best reason for learning forgiveness in this life is for the great surprise: the test beyond the end of life is if we are actually able to forgive him for his failings.  Now I'm just saying crazy stuff.

There are two possibilities that I think are likely, that the universe developed on it's own it quite an extaordinary manner beyond what we could reasonably expect, or that it was designed by a guy who was doing it the first time and isn't receptive to constructive criticism.  While I'm not allowed to reject constructive criticism, and I'm sure He'd be the first in line to say that I should learn better.  Yeah, he's got to be a hypocrite and a jerk.  A complete knee-biter.  This is why I tell him to fix it or fuck off, every day.

On our 'made in His image' point...what exactly would you consider a design flaw that this crazy hypocrite jerk fucked up?  It must be a doosie.

[Tank]

It's funny you mention you say "Bad Design," it's been plaguing my mind for a while now.  Ever since I read The Magicians, where a character confronts an Aslan-type of character and calls him out on the nature of the world, "Next time you build a world, why don't you try doing less of a half-ass job?"

What trips me out is that we can easily use our imagination and try and imagine how we might have constructed things differently.  Makes the world look like a rough-draft.  It kind of feels to me like if God made us in his image, and he is hypothetically more like us than we are lead to believe, then it is easy to see that, yeah, the universe was made by a moron who didn't know what he was doing because he was doing it the first time.  There were teething troubles.  He continued to pretend that the obvious problems were part of the plan.  It's like he's insecure.  Like he can see how we're learning from how stupidly it is as a designed work, and he's more afraid of several thousands of years spent building up his name, so he doesn't want to let go of the illusion that he's perfect.  If it was true, I think I would actually like and respect him better if he came clean and was honest about it.  It really rubs me raw when it looks like he's always blaming us for his failure.  It's almost as if the best reason for learning forgiveness in this life is for the great surprise: the test beyond the end of life is if we are actually able to forgive him for his failings.  Now I'm just saying crazy stuff.

There are two possibilities that I think are likely, that the universe developed on it's own it quite an extaordinary manner beyond what we could reasonably expect, or that it was designed by a guy who was doing it the first time and isn't receptive to constructive criticism.  While I'm not allowed to reject constructive criticism, and I'm sure He'd be the first in line to say that I should learn better.  Yeah, he's got to be a hypocrite and a jerk.  A complete knee-biter.  This is why I tell him to fix it or fuck off, every day.

On our 'made in His image' point...what exactly would you consider a design flaw that this crazy hypocrite jerk fucked up?  It must be a doosie.

Inside-out retina would be a good start. Particularly as molluscs all have it the right way round so they don't have a blind spot.

[AnimatedDirt]

Inside-out retina would be a good start. Particularly as molluscs all have it the right way round so they don't have a blind spot.

Does not the neck serve the purpose reducing the blind spot?  We don't live in a "3d" world of water.  It's not our "home".  If evolution has weeded out the good and the bad, it suggests that reducing blind spots are traits associated with those that are hunted rather than the hunter or top of the food chain.  I'm not certain on this so I could be wrong...it just seems to me.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have 360 degree vision?  What kind of body would that make for.  What would our heads look like that IMPROVE upon the evolved condition we are at now?