[Reverend AtheiStar]

By now I'm sure you've heard of Intelligent Design, which focuses on alleged irreducible complexity, and perhaps even Incompetent Design, which focuses on the mysterious designer's shoddy handiwork, but have you heard of Malevolent Design? This takes ID and turns it on it's head. The Intelligent Design Creationists always love to focus on the benevolent to be found in nature such as a flagellum or an eye. But why stop there? Why, unless you are intentionally avoiding the negative in order to preserve an image of deity that loves everyone? Why not take things a bit further and look at the flip side of the equation? Seeing as I lack belief in all gods and goddesses and have no such agenda to preserve anything about their alleged personalities, I shall delve full into this fascinating mythological concept.

Malevolent Design (hereafter MD), simply put, is the secondary negative quality that one should see if one first sees intelligence. If there be a master designer then one should be able to gauge how he feels about his creations by the interaction between them. There various body parts should spell out he/she/them/it's intentions. Are we the darlings of a deity or merely part of an experiment led by a pantheon of gods on Lab Earth? Are we no more than white mice to be toyed with in order to test out new MDs and their effectiveness?

Mosquitoes have a special facial appendage known as a proboscis. This appendage has six parts, two pairs of cutters for opening up the skin of the victim and two fine tubes. One is for sucking up blood and the other is for dripping in anticoagulant, which keeps the blood from clotting. Why would a benevolent designer create such a little monster? And why, for their traveling companion would said designer create special pathogens to go along with it?

Mosquitoes carry many diseases. They include Malaria, West Nile virus, Dengue Fever, Encephalitis and Yellow Fever. All of these diseases kill indiscriminately, cutting swaths through the young and old, especially in third world countries. Death from these is neither quick nor pleasant. They kill regardless of religion, race or social status. The believer and Atheist can die just the same without medical treatment. Why would the mysterious designer create these tiny beings? To watch us die slow, torturous deaths? To see if he/she/them/it could overcome the immune system that he/she/them/it designed previously, kind of like a hacker breaking into his own program?

Carnivores have sharp teeth, perfect for cutting flesh, a strong digestive system perfect for digesting meat and various other body parts that aid them in acquiring their victims. A great white shark, for example, has rows upon rows of very sharp, serrated teeth that, when lost, turn to replace the old ones. They can smell minute traces of blood in the water from miles away. It would appear to show excellent signs of MD! Is it too far off to assume the designer wants his other creations, upon entering the water, to be eaten by this beast if given a chance?

There are countless other examples I could cite to show the prevalence of the neglected obvious but these few examples prove my point: if you believe you see intelligence, there is malevolence right along with it!

~Reverend AtheiStar

http://www.reverendatheistar.com
http://reverendatheistar.blogspot.com/
http://www.FTLshop.com
----------------------------------------
"The fossil record is the most obvious place to search for evidence of evolution. Although the record was sparse in Darwin's time, there were already findings that suggested evolution. The living armadillos of South America bore a striking resemblance to fossil glyptodonts, extinct armored mammals whose fossils occurred in the same area. This suggested that glyptodonts and armadillos shared a common South American ancestry. And the record clearly displayed changes in the forms of life existing over large spans of time, with the deepest and oldest sediments showing marine invertebrates, with fishes appearing much later, and still later amphibians, reptiles, and mammals (along with the persistence of some groups found in earlier stages). This sequence of change was in fact established by creationist geologists long before Darwin, and was often thought to reflect hundreds of acts of divine creation. (This does not exactly comport with the account given in Genesis.)"

~Jerry Coyne
"The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name"
The New Republic
08.11.05

[nightflight]

Excellent post!

[bob]

Bravo!!

...and welcome.


...and I am enjoying your website.

This post has been edited by bob: 16 February 2006 - 03:02 PM

[Gnosis of Disbelief]

Welcome aboard, RA!

Something to add to your MD argument: Extinctions.
Fundies looooove to talk about how "perfect" nature is, but
they don't want to look into nature's garbage heap, and see
all the many species that never made it (including some that
did not make it recently, during recorded history). If gawd
were so wonderful, then why does he make so many of his
creations go extinct? Sounds pretty cold-hearted at best,
downright perverse at worst.

Anyway, glad to have you here! Hope to read more of
your posts here soon!

Edited to add: I am enjoying your website, as well!

This post has been edited by Gnosis of Disbelief: 16 February 2006 - 03:20 PM

[Reverend AtheiStar]

nightflight, on Feb 16 2006, 02:33 PM, said:

Excellent post!

Thank you.

bob, on Feb 16 2006, 02:51 PM, said:

Bravo!!

...and welcome.


...and I am enjoying your website.

<bows> Thanks and thanks, again. It's been a while since I posted anything in Ex-Christian. I used to post in the "letters" section of the site where the testimonies are. I started getting way too many email notifications, though, and I had to unsubscribe.

I kept getting asked when I'd be back and I kept saying soon. I kept telling people that I had an idea for a little something called Malevolent Design. That was months ago, though! lol... But between the kids, my wife and work it gets hard to actually sit down and write anything more than a few senetnces -- and usually just in reply to something someone else wrote.

I'm glad you like my site. It's been a work in progress since July 2001. It started as just something to support my endeavors on Freethought Radio. I created it at the suggestion of one of the producers who thought it'd be a good way to advertise. FTR and I have long since parted ways but the site's purposes has evolved into something much better, I think. It's a storehouse for my best arguments and other great and useful reading material that people can access all in one place -- instead of having to travel all around the net just to debate a single fundy!

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Gnosis of Disbelief, on Feb 16 2006, 03:17 PM, said:

Welcome aboard, RA!

Something to add to your MD argument: Extinctions.
Fundies looooove to talk about how "perfect" nature is, but
they don't want to look into nature's garbage heap, and see
all the many species that never made it (including some that
did not make it recently, during recorded history). If gawd
were so wonderful, then why does he make so many of his
creations go extinct? Sounds pretty cold-hearted at best,
downright perverse at worst.

Anyway, glad to have you here! Hope to read more of
your posts here soon!

Edited to add: I am enjoying your website, as well!

Those fall under a combination of Incompetent Design -- if they were designed better they wouldn't have died out, MD -- the predators were designed to be so deadly, and just plain malevolence since, if we're speaking of the god of the monotheists, he would have power over everything and so would be personally causing these animals to die out. This would especially be factor since all natural disasters would actually be of divine origin.

"I'm tired of the dinosaurs and I haven't had death on an epic scale in a while so I think I'll hurl an asteroid towards Earth. Die! Die! Die!!!" <gets popcorn ready>

Thanks, visit often. I'm always updating with new pieces of news, articles or the latest Letters ot the Editor.

[Dhampir]

Of course the answer to all this is: The Fall Of Man. Yep, one bad apple in a garden somewhere in the Mediterranean caused Mosquitos to grow that proboscis, that allows them to annoy and infect everything it penetrates. And that same piece of produce was responsible for why everything, not just the people that ate it ends up dying, and why animals eat other animals and verily, subsist on other living things such as plants (fruit doesn't count, because eating it spreads the seeds which create new life). And of course that forbidden fruit made everything from dinosaurs to the Great Auk and *possibly* the tazmanian tiger suddenly inviable in the world that was created to house them.

Yeah, not because God created everything to be this way, but because he created the potential for evil, and we (we being some dude and some chick) chose realize that potential (though not knowingly). God is good. We are evil. Just because God created us, doesn't mean he's evil, even though all things come from him, including the potential for evil...

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Dhampir, on Feb 16 2006, 06:53 PM, said:

Of course the answer to all this is: The Fall Of Man. Yep, one bad apple in a garden somewhere in the Mediterranean caused Mosquitos to grow that proboscis, that allows them to annoy and infect everything it penetrates. And that same piece of produce was responsible for why everything, not just the people that ate it ends up dying, and why animals eat other animals and verily, subsist on other living things such as plants (fruit doesn't count, because eating it spreads the seeds which create new life). And of course that forbidden fruit made everything from dinosaurs to the Great Auk and *possibly* the tazmanian tiger suddenly inviable in the world that was created to house them.

Yeah, not because God created everything to be this way, but because he created the potential for evil, and we (we being some dude and some chick) chose realize that potential (though not knowingly). God is good. We are evil. Just because God created us, doesn't mean he's evil, even though all things come from him, including the potential for evil...

lol... I really thought you were joking and even laughed to myself as I read it. But you're serious! You're really serious! Oh, I do love you fundies. You embody irrationality and it's so much fun to go and correct all the nonsense you come up with. I'm guessing you're the Pet Fundy™ of this forum?

[Varokhar]

Reverend AtheiStar, on Feb 16 2006, 07:32 PM, said:

lol... I really thought you were joking and even laughed to myself as I read it. But you're serious! You're really serious! Oh, I do love you fundies. You embody irrationality and it's so much fun to go and correct all the nonsense you come up with. I'm guessing you're the Pet Fundy™ of this forum?

Obviously, you're new here...

Anyway, good post above. I've realized things like that myself, and it causes me to take a step away from the classical Deists (like Thomas Paine) who saw only good in nature. The reality is that it is both, cruelty and kindness, and that's just how it all developed over the eons. There's no evidence this is all the exact and premeditated will of any god for things to have developed like they do. Life sucks and then you die, for a good part of it.

[Dhampir]

revvie rev rock said:

lol... I really thought you were joking and even laughed to myself as I read it. But you're serious! You're really serious! Oh, I do love you fundies. You embody irrationality and it's so much fun to go and correct all the nonsense you come up with. I'm guessing you're the Pet Fundy™ of this forum?

Wait, what? Are you serious? You're fooled? I wrote those last couple sentences to drive home the joke. Which still sailed right into orbit over your head!

[Asimov]

It was an interesting read. While I think a lot of ID proponents are obviously Christian and they do wish to attempt to verify their ideologies in the scientific field, what about non-religion ID proponents? Are you just arguing purely against the religious IDers?

And what's so bad about death that it must be demonized in this way? Since ID is vague in the methods that the designer used to create the Universe, how can you say that the designer intentionally caused any of the events in our lives (and other organisms throughout the course of the universe to happen), hypothetically speaking?

This post has been edited by Asimov: 16 February 2006 - 07:50 PM

[Curtdude]

Dhampir, on Feb 16 2006, 08:41 PM, said:

... Wait, what? Are you serious? You're fooled? I wrote those last couple sentences to drive home the joke. Which still sailed right into orbit over your head!

"Secret Agent Man, Secret Agent Man..." Dhampir, dude you are now "Dhampir-007"! hahahahaha

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Of course the answer to all this is: The Fall Of Man.

Ah, Judeo/Christian creation mythology! Of course! The story that was Malevolently Designed, itself, to demonize women is the answer! Right. The problem is it never happened. It's just a silly story that makes nonbelievers laugh. It's in the same comedic vein as the Flood myth, the Babble fable and the Cruci-fiction.

You guys love to try and insult what science has found with evolution by saying "I didn't come from no monkey!" (evolution doesn't say this amusingly) and yet you actually believe that you came from some mud that ol' forgetful Yahweh blew some stinky breath into. And if that was funny enough, you believe his wife was created out of his rib. This, of course, makes her his twin sister -- with which he proceeded, according to your mythology, to populate the allegedly barren Earth. There are contradictions to be found here but we can discuss those later.

Yep, one bad apple in a garden somewhere in the Mediterranean caused Mosquitos to grow that proboscis, that allows them to annoy and infect everything it penetrates.

Yes, I'm familiar with Gen. 1:30. That has to be one of the top ten funniest things in the Bible! I think of a Tyranosaurus gently nibbling on a carrot! Or a snake like the anaconda swallowing whole cabbages! It ignores all of paleontology, too, as we have plenty of dinosaurs and cranivorous reptiles, terrestrial and marine that had many, many sharp teeth. Another mistake you make is not realizing that everything is supposed to be under your deity's control. And I do mean everything! The Bible has a very nice admission from Yahweh stating that all evil is created by him. It can be found here:

Isaiah 45

6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create EVIL: I the LORD do all these things.

You diminish the role of your god with your lame excuse to keep him stain free. If a mosquito didn't drink blood before "the fall" then it was Yahweh who made the change. If a Tyranosaur went from nibbling carrots to tearing apart living reptilian bodies, it was, again, your god that made the change.

He incorporated the MD according to plan as he knew everything that would happen, including all his actions to make it all happen, billions and billions of years beforehand. That's the way omniscience works. Kind of ruins the whole "free will" excuse, doesn't it?

And of course that forbidden fruit...

Forbidden fruit that made your god bear false witness to his creations? Yes, another funny moment in the early parts of the Bible. Let's look, shall we?

Genesis

2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Die? How old did Adam live to be?! 930! That's not some small lie! That's a whopper! It seems to have had the opposite effect! lol...

God is good. We are evil.

I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy! Let me kiss your ass oh mighty Skydaddy! Whatever you do is good! Even if it is completely evil it is still good because you did it!

This leads me a very interesting theological problem known as the Euthyphro Dilemma. Is what your god does good simply because he's a god? Or does he choose between a list of preexisting rules and regulations? Click on the link to read more!

Ciao. It's been fun.

Dhampir, on Feb 16 2006, 07:41 PM, said:

revvie rev rock said:

lol... I really thought you were joking and even laughed to myself as I read it. But you're serious! You're really serious! Oh, I do love you fundies. You embody irrationality and it's so much fun to go and correct all the nonsense you come up with. I'm guessing you're the Pet Fundy™ of this forum?

Wait, what? Are you serious? You're fooled? I wrote those last couple sentences to drive home the joke. Which still sailed right into orbit over your head!

You mean I just wasted all that firepower? Jesus Ass Ramming Christ! Oh well, it was fun, nontheless. Thanks for the ride.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Obviously, you're new here...

Yup. Green as can be! Obviously! lol...

Anyway, good post above.

Thanks.

I've realized things like that myself, and it causes me to take a step away from the classical Deists (like Thomas Paine) who saw only good in nature.

Robert Ingersoll does a really good job in showing just how cruel nature is. I love this quote from Why I'm an Agnostic:

"The teeth and beaks, the claws and fangs, that tear and rend, fill me with horror. What can be more frightful than a world at war? Every leaf a battle-field -- every flower a Golgotha -- in every drop of water pursuit, capture and death. Under every piece of bark, life lying in wait for life. On every blade of grass, something that kills, -- something that suffers. Everywhere the strong living on the weak -- the superior on the inferior. Everywhere the weak, the insignificant, living on the strong -- the inferior on the superior -- the highest food for the lowest -- man sacrificed for the sake of microbes. Murder universal. Everywhere pain, disease and death -- death that does not wait for bent forms and gray hairs, but clutches babes and happy youths. Death that takes the mother from her helpless, dimpled child -- death that fills the world with grief and tears."

[Asimov]

Reverend AtheiStar, on Feb 16 2006, 05:26 PM, said:

Robert Ingersoll does a really good job in showing just how cruel nature is.

Seems a little negative.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

It was an interesting read. While I think a lot of ID proponents are obviously Christian and they do wish to attempt to verify their ideologies in the scientific field, what about non-religion ID proponents? Are you just arguing purely against the religious IDers?

Yes. It's doubtful the Raeliens really care if the aliens made the animals with MD in mind.

And what's so bad about death that it must be demonized in this way?

Well, do you have kids or loved ones? Do you want them to die? I sure don't. I surely wouldn't want them to die from some horrible disease transmitted from a mosquito or to be eaten by another animal.

I personally don't fear death, itself, as it's simply nonexistence. It'd be the pain that I'd experience beforehand and the life I'd miss that bothers me. I also think of the pain my loved ones would go through in my absence.

Since ID is vague in the methods that the designer used to create the Universe, how can you say that the designer intentionally caused any of the events in our lives (and other organisms throughout the course of the universe to happen), hypothetically speaking?

If you recall, I was specifically referencing the gods of the monotheists, Yahweh in particular, of which their holy texts I'm familiar. Isaiah 45: 6-7 makes it very clear that all evil is created by him. That would make every bad and good thing that ever happened his domain. We'd just be puppets in a game controled, in every aspect, by a god easily bored.

Asimov, on Feb 16 2006, 08:37 PM, said:

Reverend AtheiStar, on Feb 16 2006, 05:26 PM, said:

Robert Ingersoll does a really good job in showing just how cruel nature is.

Seems a little negative.

There are those who are overly bothered by Nature and then there are those who just accept it for what is and have little feeling about the matter. My mother is the former. She could never watch he National Geographic channel as she empathised with the anaiml being preyed upon. It turned her stomach and made her want to cry. I would watch it and feel a little sorry for the animal, but I realized that a) it was taped previously and even if I was there I could never stop all the lions from eating. And why would I? Starving them would cause a death just as horrible as being eaten as it takes so much longer.

[Asimov]

Reverend AtheiStar, on Feb 16 2006, 05:52 PM, said:

Well, do you have kids or loved ones? Do you want them to die? I sure don't. I surely wouldn't want them to die from some horrible disease transmitted from a mosquito or to be eaten by another animal.

So? Death is a natural part of life, I'm not talking about fear, I'm asking why you demonize it as if it's a bad thing?

Quote

If you recall, I was specifically referencing the gods of the monotheists, Yahweh in particular, of which their holy texts I'm familiar. Isaiah 45: 6-7 makes it very clear that all evil is created by him. That would make every bad and good thing that ever happened his domain. We'd just be puppets in a game controled, in every aspect, by a god easily bored.

Yes, I'm aware of that passage, however you seem to be interpreting it that he directly controls every single bad thing that happens. It doesn't say that, it says that evil was created by him (makes sense, considering the Bible), and yet you seem to cherry pick and leave out where he also creates peace. Since there is no actual polar opposite to God, it would make sense that God would have to create evil. Why? I don't know, why not?

If we are puppets controlled in every aspect then everything you are thinking and typing and feeling and believing is the result of being controlled, so you shouldn't worry. If you do worry, it's because God wants you to.

Quote

There are those who are overly bothered by Nature and then there are those who just accept it for what is and have little feeling about the matter. My mother is the former. She could never watch he National Geographic channel as she empathised with the anaiml being preyed upon. It turned her stomach and made her want to cry. I would watch it and feel a little sorry for the animal, but I realized that a) it was taped previously and even if I was there I could never stop all the lions from eating. And why would I? Starving them would cause a death just as horrible as being eaten as it takes so much longer.

I would disagree with Robert Ingersoll in that Nature, since it lacks cognition, is neither malevolent nor benevolent. It simply is. While I think it is necessary to show the realities of nature, the good and the bad, that doesn't mean we have to automatically look at the glass as half empty and only see the bad.


If I come across as abrasive it's because I didn't like how everyone was just agreeing with you and thought I'd play devil's advocate.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

[quote name='Asimov' date='Feb 16 2006, 09:15 PM' post='143909']
[quote name='Reverend AtheiStar' post='143902' date='Feb 16 2006, 05:52 PM']
Well, do you have kids or loved ones? Do you want them to die? I sure don't. I surely wouldn't want them to die from some horrible disease transmitted from a mosquito or to be eaten by another animal.[/quote]

So? Death is a natural part of life, I'm not talking about fear, I'm asking why you demonize it as if it's a bad thing?

Quite simply, because I don't like it's effects. I demonize what I don't like. It may be natural but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I don't want my loved ones to die. I don't want my pets to die. I don't want to die. I do everything in my power to keep them alive.

My feelings change, of course, according to the recipent of said effects. If a murderer was being executed, then I'd be happy. When I kill a roach, especially the big American type, I'm happy and even enjoy the thrill of the hunt -- man, are they agile!

Yes, I'm aware of that passage, however you seem to be interpreting it that he directly controls every single bad thing that happens. It doesn't say that, it says that evil was created by him (makes sense, considering the Bible), and yet you seem to cherry pick and leave out where he also creates peace. Since there is no actual polar opposite to God, it would make sense that God would have to create evil. Why? I don't know, why not?

Wrong tense. It doesn't say "created," it says "create." There's a huge difference, you know. Shall we look at the verses in question? I think so:

Isaiah 45

6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.
7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create EVIL: I the LORD do all these things.

You see? To me this is saying that he does everything. It's clearly not saying that he created Satan in this verse. In fact, with this verse in mind, Satan really doesn't have much of a job. He's reduced to that of warden and even then Yahweh would control all his actions, too. lol...

If we are puppets controlled in every aspect then everything you are thinking and typing and feeling and believing is the result of being controlled, so you shouldn't worry. If you do worry, it's because God wants you to

Precisely, though we would have be experiencing the illusion of free will as said god's control would be undetectable.

I would disagree with Robert Ingersoll in that Nature, since it lacks cognition, is neither malevolent nor benevolent. It simply is. While I think it is necessary to show the realities of nature, the good and the bad, that doesn't mean we have to automatically look at the glass as half empty and only see the bad.

I don't see where he said he believed it had cognition. He merely looked at nature and using his emotion as guide labeled Nature. You can easily call Nature evil without believing anything supernatural about it as you are just totalling up the bad against the good and coming up with a sum. It's basic math, not supernaturalism.

If I come across as abrasive it's because I didn't like how everyone was just agreeing with you and thought I'd play devil's advocate

That's fine. I can be quite abrasive myself. I rather like your challenges. That's what makes for good debate. When everyone agrees it can be quite boring.

[Brando]

Good topic.

I once read an article by an engineer explaining all these examples of bad design in the human body, such as the way our retinas work, childbirth problems, and awkward structural design. Any body have this or heard of it?

[AtheistMommy]

Curtdude, on Feb 16 2006, 07:52 PM, said:

Dhampir, on Feb 16 2006, 08:41 PM, said:

... Wait, what? Are you serious? You're fooled? I wrote those last couple sentences to drive home the joke. Which still sailed right into orbit over your head!

"Secret Agent Man, Secret Agent Man..." Dhampir, dude you are now "Dhampir-007"! hahahahaha

I'm confused, what's so funny? Could someone please explain this to me? Maybe if we all put our name tags back on things like this won't happen again.

Quote

So? Death is a natural part of life, I'm not talking about fear, I'm asking why you demonize it as if it's a bad thing?

Don't you think it's safe to say that death isn't something most people would view as "good?" And why would they? Death is the end of life. Do you want your life to end? If you do, you'd better start doing something about it. Demonizing death, wouldn't that be more like creating a fictional character to represent death? I think in this case "demonizing" is the incorrect word to use.