Parasites and other pointless, harmful creatures

[Hanna Tyler]

I'm an atheist. So I just thought of a great argument. My dog just had a tick, which as most of you know can cause lime disease. This brought me to the thought of why were they created if they can be such a harmful creature? That then brought me to why were spiders created? To eat the flies and mosquitos and such. Then why were mosquitos and flies created? All they do is cause harm and deaths. So it led me to thinking, if there were a God, why would he create such harmful and deadly things?

 

Answer me this. Please.

 

-Hanna Geldart DFTBA

[Lauren]

good explanation

[Somewhere In the shadows]

how would you be able to see how beautiful things are if you didn't know how terrible they aren't?

[Keegan Darden Holschen]

Let me get this straight, "God" made bad things so we would appreciate good things? Solid answer; I can think of no counter-argument. This reminds me of something I heard, about the creation of dogs and cats.

God was creating all of the amazing creatures to fill his world when Man walked up to him. "Man" god said "You are my greatest creation, and I love you more then any other. To show my love, I will create a creature that is the reflection of me; it will embody all of my love for you." and so God created Dog. Man was happy, with his faithful new companion; he was overjoyed with Dog's willingness to love, and endless admiration.
“Man has become arrogant and big-headed, Dog is too loving. I must make a new animal, to put everything in perspective.” God concluded; and so God made Cat. Overjoyed with his new companion, Man attempted to train Cat. Cat, however, would not be trained. Disappointed, Man decided to accept the faithful love he expected. Cat, however, provided none; instead Cat treated man poorly and with much distain.
And so Man was Humbled, Dog was Happy, and Cat still didn’t give a shit.
Excuse my poor writting, someone told me that story quite a while ago, so I had to make must of it up.

[Andrew]

This actually made me laugh out loud. Well done.

[Keegan Darden Holschen]

Everything can be explained by science, therefore there is no room for some ridiculous all-powerful being. The problem with religious people is: they aren't logical. This means that our logical, rationalized, and well formed arguments are useless and ultimately pointless. In conclusion, needless "discussion" or "fighting" should be avoided.

[Mr. E]

I disagree. Many high level scientific minds come to understand that our world it too perfect to have occurred from change, and there is a TREMENDOUS amount about the nature of universe that has not been explained by science (for example, the bridge between electromagnetism and gravity, the nature of time, where all the antimatter went, or what/where is the dark matter)

With that being said, why would a creator micromanage our planet? Once evolution got things off to a good start, the soul was well formed, and the karma cycle was in play we can more or less exist on our own. Parasites often cull the weak, and sometimes serve a greater unknown purpose. (For example, that pesky mold that kept spoiling our bread turned out to be penicillin, and we are now discovering that hookworms cure athsma... who knew!)

[Lenore103]

To remind us we are human. And because (in my opinion) God has a very odd sense of humor.

[Stewart Alan Williams]

You don't know that they were harmful when created. Like for example, it says in the Bible that all animals and people were originally vegetarians. Then after sin came around, some of the animals and people became carnivores. The Bible doesn't specifically talk about what happened with every creature, like parasites and insects, but the same thing very well could have happened with them too.

[Kenny]

If you think god is real and god is benevolent, google search "human bot fly". Warning, don't watch any videos if you would like to sleep again ever.

[Kenny]

Also, this topic made me think of this video.

[Andrew]

I suppose this just boils down to the classic problem of evil argument which any half wit doing philosophy could tell you about, and its on wikipedia, so you can always look it up there.

Basically, the only arguments for it are that they are either a test, or god didn't really create them, they were created outside of god, but he allowed them to stay, or they have some higher purpose, i refer you too the mice in hitchikers.

All in all its a pile of bollocks. They are just nasty little buggers.

And God Fails At Logic.

[Stewart Alan Williams]

God is not in control of Earth anymore. This has nothing to do with how powerful he is, or how loving he is. We kicked him out and let someone else take over. Now there's a constant battle going on and we just have to decide which side we're on so when it's over we go with whichever side we want.

P.s. Sorry, I don't mean to preach a sermon or anything but it seems it is impossible to discuss many topics without defending every single aspect of Christianity :P...