Stupid Design

[Margee]

As carriers of deadly diseases, mosquitoes are the deadliest insect on the earth! Each year, millions of people die from malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever after being bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito. Mosquitoes also carry diseases that pose serious threats to livestock and pets. Besides mosquitoes and shrimp having better eyes than us, what else can you think of, that shows us that intelligent design is stupid? Watch this:

[ConureDelSol]

I LOVE Neil Degrasse Tyson!

 

Let's see, some people say that mosquitoes are part of the pollination process, but we have bees for that. Ticks and fleas have no purpose that I can see. I think snakes in general, while they can be beautiful creatures, are not necessary. If I have a rat problem, I'll just get a cat, thank you. Snakes kill children, pets and adults on a regular basis. I saw a show where a couple called crying because their pet snake got loose and choked their baby to death. Not to mention that the way they eat is the most grotesque and horrifying way anyone could ever think of.

 

Hail is damaging and the water it brings in comparison to rain is so minimal that it doesn't even compare. Tornadoes have no purpose in nature and are simply spinning funnels of death that ruins lives and habitable areas. Another thing that's always bugged me is that human children are completely helpless. Many other animals are born and walking within a day. If there was a threat to a baby, not only would they not know what the crap was going on, but they wouldn't be able to run away. I say that's a serious design flaw.

 

I'll probably add more as I think about it.

[Margee]

I LOVE Neil Degrasse Tyson! Let's see, some people say that mosquitoes are part of the pollination process, but we have bees for that. Ticks and fleas have no purpose that I can see. I think snakes in general, while they can be beautiful creatures, are not necessary. If I have a rat problem, I'll just get a cat, thank you. Snakes kill children, pets and adults on a regular basis. I saw a show where a couple called crying because their pet snake got loose and choked their baby to death. Not to mention that the way they eat is the most grotesque and horrifying way anyone could ever think of. Hail is damaging and the water it brings in comparison to rain is so minimal that it doesn't even compare. Tornadoes have no purpose in nature and are simply spinning funnels of death that ruins lives and habitable areas. Another thing that's always bugged me is that human children are completely helpless. Many other animals are born and walking within a day. If there was a threat to a baby, not only would they not know what the crap was going on, but they wouldn't be able to run away. I say that's a serious design flaw. I'll probably add more as I think about it.

Awesome points you bring up Con! thank you! I didn't even think about a couple of these , like some animals being able to walk within a day??? Even animals can save themselves one day old if 'mom' turns her back. I mean, when you think about it, even these animals could feed themselves on their 1st day on earth!!!!

 

Unbelievable - when I put all this logic together...just helps me relax more and more everyday!! What a relief!!

[mymistake]

As carriers of deadly diseases, mosquitoes are the deadliest insect on the earth! Each year, millions of people die from malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever after being bitten by a disease-carrying mosquito. Mosquitoes also carry diseases that pose serious threats to livestock and pets. Besides mosquitoes and shrimp having better eyes than us, what else can you think of, that shows us that intelligent design is stupid?

 

Any ID proponent who cuts off their foreskin, or shaves, or wears glasses, or had their appendix removed, or had their wisdom teeth removed, or had any kind of dental work done is a hypocrite. The less common body modifications and enhancements apply as well.

 

edit:

Oh let's do add deodorant, perfume and cologne to the list. What, don't you like the natural scent your intelligent designer gave you?

 

And why are they brushing their teeth or flossing?

[VacuumFlux]

I didn't even think about a couple of these , like some animals being able to walk within a day??? Even animals can save themselves one day old if 'mom' turns her back. I mean, when you think about it, even these animals could feed themselves on their 1st day on earth!!!!

 

Human babies are a very weird set of compromises. Part of the reason our babies are so dumb is that their brains are much less developed than that of other great apes at birth. Why? Because we're bipedal, and bipeds need narrow hips. That makes it hard to fit baby heads through. Did you know that humans have much worse labor than other great apes? It's that stupid bipedal hip issue again. So we get the babies out while they might still fit (though with young, malnourished mothers in 3rd countries, the babies often don't fit and that's bad for both mother and child), with squishy skulls so we can squeeze them out, and then they're these really helpless undeveloped things. On the plus side, that undeveloped brains at birth mean that we've got years to go about learning (ie, wiring our brains) the world around us and the culture, so we're much less tied to instinct than other animals.

 

Speaking of human lady bits, women's urethras are in a really dumb place and way too easily infected. Sure, let's put something that delicate right next to a petri dish!

[ConureDelSol]

I know another one! I think blackpudd1n will agree with me on this one...PERIODS.

[mymistake]

There is no reason for children to endure pain when their teeth come in. Yet they do because of stupid design.

[florduh]

If, for the sake of argument, we were designed, the designer made many mistakes. I doubt that a perfect creator would make imperfect creations. I doubt that he could.

[Zephie]

I've never thought about...I hate scorpions...don't really see a purpose for them either....and crane flies apparently only exist to procreate...ewww...when I read things I realized how much I just took in without really questioning.

[SairB]

For examples of nastiness in nature (and by implication, malice on the part of any intelligent designer), it's hard to go past the ichneumon wasp.

 

Honestly, there are so many things in nature that point to the tinkering of natural selection rather than deliberate design, certainly by anything we would consider intelligent. The human birth canal is just one example. Another is the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe.

 

In short, it's very hard to see how a competent - let alone benevolent - designer would have made nature the way it is. Why predation, for example? Why parasitism? What is the necessary function of these things that could not have been served by more humane mechanisms built into the system? It's very hard to go past David Attenborough's response to believers' objections that he doesn't credit God with the creation of the natural world - "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs."

[traveller2]

yeah ghood video.I need to start reading or watching more of this kind of thing i think.

[Sunny49]

Yeah, the food chain. You practically have to kill to survive. It's just horrible.

[Sunny49]

For examples of nastiness in nature (and by implication, malice on the part of any intelligent designer), it's hard to go past the ichneumon wasp.

 

Honestly, there are so many things in nature that point to the tinkering of natural selection rather than deliberate design, certainly by anything we would consider intelligent. The human birth canal is just one example. Another is the recurrent laryngeal nerve of the giraffe.

 

In short, it's very hard to see how a competent - let alone benevolent - designer would have made nature the way it is. Why predation, for example? Why parasitism? What is the necessary function of these things that could not have been served by more humane mechanisms built into the system? It's very hard to go past David Attenborough's response to believers' objections that he doesn't credit God with the creation of the natural world - "They always mean beautiful things like hummingbirds. I always reply by saying that I think of a little child in east Africa with a worm burrowing through his eyeball. The worm cannot live in any other way, except by burrowing through eyeballs."

 

You just helped a little with my deconversion

[Margee]

Yeah, the food chain. You practically have to kill to survive. It's just horrible.

 

It's so true Sunny - when you think about it, most of what we eat is another 'living species'' that was once alive!! I can barely think about the eggs I eat every morning for breakfast and what they do to the dear little chick-a -dees to make produce these eggs for me!!!

 

I am so glad I don't even like much meat - I barely eat it, but again, as I love my fish....I also tend to remember how they once were swimming freely and happily in the oceans!!! No wonder some people become total vegetarians... but don't some people say plants can have feelings too!!!

[Sunny49]

I eat meat because it's usual in my family, but when I think about preparing meat on my own, it just feels so gross. I think when I leave home I will become a vegetarian. I could never kill a chicken, although I must admit I do like it's meat. Yeah, some say vegetables can percieve also, but I kind of have the impression that they are meant for us to eat them I mean, what is the point of an apple if it just dies? I kind of think of fruits as natural candy

 

But, then also, some people say that humans must eat meat cause it gives them necesarry vitamines. I always thought vegetarian cuisine is healthier, but then one women told me that when she became a vegetarian her nails began to split, they almost fell off!! Weird.

 

But, it's the same in the animal world. I hate when I see spiders catching ants into their web. Once I felt so sorry for the ant I took scissors and cut the web. The ant died anyway.

[Margee]

But, it's the same in the animal world. I hate when I see spiders catching ants into their web. Once I felt so sorry for the ant I took scissors and cut the web. The ant died anyway.

Oh my god Sunny - I do the exact same thing!! I rescue insects!!! Any insect that I can!! I have done the same thing with the spider who has caught his 'fly'!! I try to save the goddamned fly!! I take the big, long, flying dandie long legs that are here in the fall and try to get as many out of the house with a kneenex as I can!! When I spray a wasp that gets in my house (because I am terrified of them!) I tell the stupid thing that I am so sorry as I watch it die!! I could almost cry, I am soooooooo damn sensitive that it makes me stupid!!! (because I have been called that!)

when I watch someone step on a spider, I feel so sorry for the spider..... and I hate all these insects!!!!!!!!! somethins' wrong with my head!!! I think it is one of the reasons that I grieve too long over more serious matters........

 

Even grief is part of the STUPID DESIGN!! Why would any god make heartbreak so fucking hard!!!

 

God made this very hard on me. First he gave me this stupid, sensitive personality and then he forces me to kill when i don't want to. He REALLY could have made this sooooo different!!!

[Sunny49]

Yes, I'm exactly the same! When I told my friends about what I did they told me I shouldn't mess with the natural selection! It's funny, but in a cruel way - it is true!

[mymistake]

Yeah, the food chain. You practically have to kill to survive. It's just horrible.

 

What do you mean "practically"? Living is killing. You cannot live without killing. That is the way our planet is set up.

 

Much of human crime is built upon the fact that we have to take from some source in order to live. And you can't get away from it by being a vegan. You still kill things by being alive.

 

Life on this planet was designed to find the best genetic code. If you are born with a good genetic code then you are rewarded. If not then life chews you up and you get eaten; you die. That has to be the number one evidence against intelligent design. The intelligent designer's goal must have been to create a system of evolution and the reason to believe intelligent design is because it is an alternative to evolution. So intelligent design is self contradictory.

[Will02]

This thread reminds me of a jury-rigged design article I read awhile back:

 

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/jury-rigged.html

[Margee]

This thread reminds me of a jury-rigged design article I read awhile back:

 

http://www.talkorigi...ury-rigged.html

 

Thank you! This is fascinating to read Will02!! Quote from article:

 

''In human males, the urethra passes right through the prostate gland, a gland very prone to infection and subsequent enlargement. This blocks the urethra and is a very common medical problem in males. Putting a collapsible tube through an organ that is very likely to expand and block flow in this tube is not good design. Any moron with half a brain (or less) could design male "plumbing" better''.

[SairB]

This is probably opening up a whole new topic, but on a related note, I've seen people claim that god couldn't have designed the world any other way, and that suffering and death are inevitable consequences of a physical existence. It seems that no amount of insisting that a perfect god should be able to create perfectly will convince them out of their belief that no matter how bad things are, it's the best god could do.

 

Talk about delusional...

 

The flip side of the argument, of course, is that if this is all intelligently designed, we're most likely dealing with an evil god...

[ConureDelSol]

This thread reminds me of a jury-rigged design article I read awhile back:

 

http://www.talkorigi...ury-rigged.html

 

Thank you! This is fascinating to read Will02!! Quote from article:

 

''In human males, the urethra passes right through the prostate gland, a gland very prone to infection and subsequent enlargement. This blocks the urethra and is a very common medical problem in males. Putting a collapsible tube through an organ that is very likely to expand and block flow in this tube is not good design. Any moron with half a brain (or less) could design male "plumbing" better''.

 

First off WARNING! GROSS STUFF AHEAD. DO NOT READ IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH!

 

My mother used to work in a urological surgery center. There are little boys who are born with their urethra in the wrong area along the penis. The only way to correct the problem is slice down the penis (like a hotdog) and realign the urethra in its correct position. The procedure is incredibly painful and the patients are most often male toddlers. Why God would screw up so bad that he can't put a urethra in the right place and force a child to undergo such a horrible and painful procedure is beyond me.

[mymistake]

The procedure is incredibly painful and the patients are most often male toddlers. Why God would screw up so bad . . .

 

But it's so simple.

 

You see a drunk driver was going to be on the road and kill the children. So God gave them this birth defect so that they would be in surgery the day the drunk driver was going to kill them. It all makes perfect sense!

 

:sarcasm emote:

[Inqui]

First off .... Why God would screw up so bad that he can't put a urethra in the right place and force a child to undergo such a horrible and painful procedure is beyond me.

I've seen it argued that the world has become imperfect since sin first entered. Basically it means a couple of things:

*Before the original sin, there was no death - even in the animal world.

*The human body was perfectly designed, but when sin was introduced (mankind rebelling against God) flaws like the above became more and more common. It's also to do with why God tolerated incestuous relationships among the first generations: because defective mutations were less common.

 

First, this means that two humans sinning has fucked up the ENTIRE natural world. I don't know how parasitic organisms that live in a human's gut are explained or how lions were first vegetarians and what made them switch to meat and not an antelope or rhinoceros, but hey - that shit's in the bible so it has to be true.

 

Second, it means that the kids you described were born into a state where they deserved that pain (specifically, a sinful one). I challenge you to stare a mother of one of those children in the eye and tell her that what her boy is about to go through is something they deserve.

 

I can't believe I took all that stuff seriously. Not my proudest moment.

[older]

An interesting look at this issue is a short piece written by Mark Twain on the fly:

 

http://www.ratbags.c...ent/twain02.htm