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> I honestly don’t understand how anyone who has been proximate to childbirth can believe in intelligent design. One way to believe in intelligent design despi

by m1n1 2y ago

> I honestly don’t understand how anyone who has been proximate to childbirth can believe in intelligent design. One way to believe in intelligent design despite how awful human childbirth is compared to those for other animals -- is found in Genesis: Humans decided they knew better than God about what is best for themselves so they didn't listen to His one and only (at the time) command. So He imposed some consequences, including "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children." Genesis 3:16.

cma 2y ago
That's so sadistic, that wasn't Satan?
- m1n1 2y ago
  In this worldview, Satan is not merely sadistic. He wishes to detract from God. So if one is walking away from God or apart from God, Satan would want that person to feel justified (comfortable, rewarded) in their opinion that they know better than God about what's best for themselves. Parents allow or impose consequences to signal to children when their choices could be wiser.
  - cma 2y ago
    > Parents allow or impose consequences to signal to children when their choices could be wiser. Torture is generally off limits. And then God didn't think through the invention of epidurals for his punishment which didn't say it would expire once they were invented, or only wanted to keep punishing the poorest most downtrodden without access to hospitals?
    - m1n1 2y ago
      It's a consequence and not the only one, and put together the consequences aren't really avoidable. But they are consequences, not punishment. For punishment, see a sibling comment elsewhere on this page that has a massive quote.
kazinator 2y ago
That's actually very clever. The person writing that passage was responding to an obvious criticism. How could an all-knowing all powerful being mess up the design of procreation so badly? Conveniently, we will write that up as a deliberate punishment.
- m1n1 2y ago
  There is what you might call cleverness in this passage as well. Do you see it? Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images...
aziaziazi 2y ago
That doesn’t seem fair, does men also get some "consequences"? Or did Eve listen less than Adam at that time? (I didn’t read the Genesis) edit: found it. Adams gets to eat plants from the soils (instead of form the trees?) and will work hard to produce those plants. Just before, the Serpens deceive the women by telling her eating the fruits not in the middle of the garden is ok. She was suspicious but the Serpens was very convincing (by lying) However when Eve told Adam to eat the fruit, he didn’t ask anything and did it. IMHO the man is more in fault here because he didn’t even try to understand why he should eat Eve fruits while god said no. > To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&ver...
- 542354234235 2y ago
  The serpent didn’t lie. It just told Eve the truth, that she could eat from the tree and not die.
  - m1n1 2y ago
    No Eve alive today claims to be the original. Eve ate from the tree and surely (eventually) died. Edit: the supposition in Genesis is if they hadn't ever eaten, they'd be alive today.
    - 542354234235 2y ago
      I think that is debatable and semantic. The tree didn’t kill them or cause them to die. It wasn’t the tree of life, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says if you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will die. In the King James Version, it is even “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. This indicates that eating from the tree will kill you, possibly even killing you the very day you do it. But the tree of knowledge does not kill you, it just gives you knowledge. God chose to kick them out of the garden (preventing them from eating from the tree of life and being immortal). If someone tells me “You can have any drinks in the fridge but don’t drink that bottle under the sink, or you will die” means the bottle under the sink is poison, not that they plan on murdering you if you drink it. They can choose not to murder you, that is on them, not on the sink bottle. But when you are the all power supreme being, I guess you can say or do anything you want.
ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? QED.
- m1n1 2y ago
  God is both able and willing but there are additional considerations. Therefore not QED.
xenadu02 2y ago
Punishing people thousands of generations removed who have no responsibility seems sadistic and cruel. If that's how God operates then why not do slave reparations? Why not do a huge series of land swaps to give land back to descendants of original owners even if the taking happened 2000 years ago? Who cares how much it hurts people who weren't even born yet; apparently God thinks that is just fine. The sins of the father fall on the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson forever. Human childbirth is terrible because we walk upright and the four-limb vertebrae with pelvis+spine design is built for quadrupedal movement. The changes necessary to make bipedal movement work (combined with larger complex brains) make childbirth difficult. A case of competing requirements that can't be improved without redesigning the entire skeletal structure from scratch - something a God could trivially do but evolution has trouble with over such a short time span. The nutritional requirements for a large brain plus quirks of our evolutionary path are also responsible for menses/monthly cycles. That is literally a mechanism to flush out fertilized embryos that may not be well-formed. It is extremely uncommon in animals. Most animals that have some need to pause or terminate fetal development do it cooperatively; the mother's chemical signals will command the fetus to slow, stop, or even kill itself and the fetus obeys. Humans are among the extreme few where mother-fetus interactions are adversarial. Miscarriages are relatively common for the same reason: a human baby is expensive and hard on the mother. Any hint it might be developing incorrectly and better to dump it so we can start over. Let's not even get to the fragile disaster that is the human back.
- m1n1 2y ago
  This comment (and another cousin comment elsewhere) uses the word Punishment. But I used the word Consequence. As for Punishment, I found this quote to be helpful in understanding: "It is just with God eternally to cast off and destroy sinners."- For this is the punishment which the law condemns to- The truth of this doctrine may appear by the joint consideration of two things, viz. Man's sinfulness, and God's sovereignty. I. It appears from the consideration of man's sinfulness. And that whether we consider the infinitely evil nature of all sin, or how much sin men are guilty of. 1. If we consider the infinite evil and heinousness of sin in general, it is not unjust in God to inflict what punishment is deserved; because the very notion of deserving any punishment is, that it may be justly inflicted. A deserved punishment and a just punishment are the same thing. To say that one deserves such a punishment, and yet to say that he does not justly deserve it, is a contradiction; and if he justly deserves it, then it may be justly inflicted. Every crime or fault deserves a greater or less punishment, in proportion as the crime itself is greater or less. If any fault deserves punishment, then so much the greater the fault, so much the greater is the punishment deserved. The faulty nature of any thing is the formal ground and reason of its desert of punishment; and therefore the more any thing hath of this nature, the more punishment it deserves. And therefore the terribleness of the degree of punishment, let it be never be so terrible, is no argument against the justice of it, if the proportion does but hold between the heinousness of the crime and the dreadfulness of the punishment; so that if there be any such thing as a fault infinitely heinous, it will follow that it is just to inflict a punishment for it that is infinitely dreadful. A crime is more or less heinous, according as we are under greater or less obligations to the contrary. This is self-evident; because it is herein that the criminalness or faultiness of any thing consists, that it is contrary to what we are obliged or bound to, or what ought to be in us. So the faultiness of one being hating another, is in proportion to his obligation to love him. The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to honour him. The fault of disobeying another, is greater or less, as any one is under greater or less obligations to obey him. And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligations to love, and honour, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty. Our obligation to love, honour, and obey any being, is in proportion to his loveliness, honourableness, and authority; for that is the very meaning of the words. When we say any one is very lovely, it is the same as to say, that he is one very much to be loved. Or if we say such a one is more honourable than another, the meaning of the words is, that he is one that we are more obliged to honour. If we say any one has great authority over us, it is the same as to say, that he has great right to our subjection and obedience. But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. To have infinite excellency and beauty, is the same thing as to have infinite loveliness. He is a being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory; and therefore he is infinitely honourable. He is infinitely exalted above the greatest potentates of the earth, and highest angels in heaven; and therefore he is infinitely more honourable than they. His authority over us is infinite; and the ground of his right to our obedience is infinitely strong; for he is infinitely worthy to be obeyed himself, and we have an absolute, universal, and infinite dependence upon him. So that sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving of infinite punishment.- Nothing is more agreeable to the common sense of mankind, than that sins committed against any one, must be proportionably heinous to the dignity of the being offended and abused; as it is also agreeable to the word of God, I Samuel 2:25. "If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him;" (i.e. shall judge him, and inflict a finite punishment, such as finite judges can inflict;) "but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" This was the aggravation of sin that made Joseph afraid of it. Genesis 39:9. "How shall I commit this great wickedness, and sin against God?" This was the aggravation of David's sin, in comparison of which he esteemed all others as nothing, because they were infinitely exceeded by it. Psalm 51:4. "Against thee, thee only have I sinned."-The eternity of the punishment of ungodly men renders it infinite: and it renders it no more than infinite; and therefore renders no more than proportionable to the heinousness of what they are guilty of. If there be any evil or faultiness in sin against God, there is certainly infinite evil: for if it be any fault at all, it has an infinite aggravation, viz. that it is against an infinite object. If it be ever so small upon other accounts, yet if it be any thing, it has one infinite dimension; and so is an infinite evil. Which may be illustrated by this: if we suppose a thing to have infinite length, but no breadth and thickness, (a mere mathematical line,) it is nothing: but if it have any breadth and thickness, though never so small, and infinite length, the quantity of it is infinite; it exceeds the quantity of any thing, however broad, thick, and long, wherein these dimensions are all finite. So that the objections made against the infinite punishment of sin, from the necessity, or rather previous certainty, of the futurition of sin, arising from the unavoidable original corruption of nature, if they argue any thing, argue against any faultiness at all: for if this necessity or certainty leaves any evil at all in sin, that fault must be infinite by reason of the infinite object. But every such objector as would argue from hence, that there is no fault at all in sin, confutes himself, and shows his own insincerity in his objection. For at the same time that he objects, that men's acts are necessary, and that this kind of necessity is inconsistent with faultiness in the act, his own practice shows that he does not believe what he objects to be true: otherwise why does he at all blame men? Or why are such persons at all displeased with men, for abusive, injurious, and ungrateful acts towards them? Whatever they pretend, by this they show that indeed they do believe that there is no necessity in men's acts that is inconsistent with blame. And if their objection be this, that this previous certainty is by God's own ordering, and that where God orders an antecedent certainty of acts, he transfers all the fault from the actor on himself; their practice shows, that at the same time they do not believe this, but fully believe the contrary: for when they are abused by men, they are displeased with men, and not with God only. The light of nature teaches all mankind, that when an injury is voluntary, it is faulty, without any consideration of what there might be previously to determine the futurition of that evil act of the will. And it really teaches this as much to those that object and cavil most as to others; as their universal practice shows. By which it appears, that such objections are insincere and perverse. Men will mention others' corrupt nature when they are injured, as a thing that aggravates their crime, and that wherein their faultiness partly consists. How common is it for persons, when they look on themselves greatly injured by another, to inveigh against him, and aggravate his baseness, by saying, "He is a man of a most perverse spirit: he is naturally of a selfish, niggardly, or proud and haughty temper: he is one of a base and vile disposition." And yet men's natural and corrupt dispositions are mentioned as an excuse for them, with respect to their sins against God, as if they rendered them blameless. 2. That it is just with God eternally to cast off wicked men, may more abundantly appear, if we consider how much sin they are guilty of... https://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/justice.html https://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/justice.html

by m1n1 2y ago

cma 2y ago

That's so sadistic, that wasn't Satan?

m1n1 2y ago
In this worldview, Satan is not merely sadistic. He wishes to detract from God. So if one is walking away from God or apart from God, Satan would want that person to feel justified (comfortable, rewarded) in their opinion that they know better than God about what's best for themselves. Parents allow or impose consequences to signal to children when their choices could be wiser.
- cma 2y ago
  > Parents allow or impose consequences to signal to children when their choices could be wiser. Torture is generally off limits. And then God didn't think through the invention of epidurals for his punishment which didn't say it would expire once they were invented, or only wanted to keep punishing the poorest most downtrodden without access to hospitals?
  - m1n1 2y ago
    It's a consequence and not the only one, and put together the consequences aren't really avoidable. But they are consequences, not punishment. For punishment, see a sibling comment elsewhere on this page that has a massive quote.

kazinator 2y ago

That's actually very clever. The person writing that passage was responding to an obvious criticism. How could an all-knowing all powerful being mess up the design of procreation so badly? Conveniently, we will write that up as a deliberate punishment.

m1n1 2y ago
There is what you might call cleverness in this passage as well. Do you see it? Romans 1:18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images...

aziaziazi 2y ago

That doesn’t seem fair, does men also get some "consequences"? Or did Eve listen less than Adam at that time? (I didn’t read the Genesis) edit: found it. Adams gets to eat plants from the soils (instead of form the trees?) and will work hard to produce those plants. Just before, the Serpens deceive the women by telling her eating the fruits not in the middle of the garden is ok. She was suspicious but the Serpens was very convincing (by lying) However when Eve told Adam to eat the fruit, he didn’t ask anything and did it. IMHO the man is more in fault here because he didn’t even try to understand why he should eat Eve fruits while god said no. > To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.” https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&version=NIV https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&ver...

542354234235 2y ago
The serpent didn’t lie. It just told Eve the truth, that she could eat from the tree and not die.
- m1n1 2y ago
  No Eve alive today claims to be the original. Eve ate from the tree and surely (eventually) died. Edit: the supposition in Genesis is if they hadn't ever eaten, they'd be alive today.
  - 542354234235 2y ago
    I think that is debatable and semantic. The tree didn’t kill them or cause them to die. It wasn’t the tree of life, it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says if you eat from the tree of knowledge, you will die. In the King James Version, it is even “for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”. This indicates that eating from the tree will kill you, possibly even killing you the very day you do it. But the tree of knowledge does not kill you, it just gives you knowledge. God chose to kick them out of the garden (preventing them from eating from the tree of life and being immortal). If someone tells me “You can have any drinks in the fridge but don’t drink that bottle under the sink, or you will die” means the bottle under the sink is poison, not that they plan on murdering you if you drink it. They can choose not to murder you, that is on them, not on the sink bottle. But when you are the all power supreme being, I guess you can say or do anything you want.

ThePowerOfFuet 2y ago

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? QED.

m1n1 2y ago
God is both able and willing but there are additional considerations. Therefore not QED.

xenadu02 2y ago

Punishing people thousands of generations removed who have no responsibility seems sadistic and cruel. If that's how God operates then why not do slave reparations? Why not do a huge series of land swaps to give land back to descendants of original owners even if the taking happened 2000 years ago? Who cares how much it hurts people who weren't even born yet; apparently God thinks that is just fine. The sins of the father fall on the great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandson forever. Human childbirth is terrible because we walk upright and the four-limb vertebrae with pelvis+spine design is built for quadrupedal movement. The changes necessary to make bipedal movement work (combined with larger complex brains) make childbirth difficult. A case of competing requirements that can't be improved without redesigning the entire skeletal structure from scratch - something a God could trivially do but evolution has trouble with over such a short time span. The nutritional requirements for a large brain plus quirks of our evolutionary path are also responsible for menses/monthly cycles. That is literally a mechanism to flush out fertilized embryos that may not be well-formed. It is extremely uncommon in animals. Most animals that have some need to pause or terminate fetal development do it cooperatively; the mother's chemical signals will command the fetus to slow, stop, or even kill itself and the fetus obeys. Humans are among the extreme few where mother-fetus interactions are adversarial. Miscarriages are relatively common for the same reason: a human baby is expensive and hard on the mother. Any hint it might be developing incorrectly and better to dump it so we can start over. Let's not even get to the fragile disaster that is the human back.

m1n1 2y ago
This comment (and another cousin comment elsewhere) uses the word Punishment. But I used the word Consequence. As for Punishment, I found this quote to be helpful in understanding: "It is just with God eternally to cast off and destroy sinners."- For this is the punishment which the law condemns to- The truth of this doctrine may appear by the joint consideration of two things, viz. Man's sinfulness, and God's sovereignty. I. It appears from the consideration of man's sinfulness. And that whether we consider the infinitely evil nature of all sin, or how much sin men are guilty of. 1. If we consider the infinite evil and heinousness of sin in general, it is not unjust in God to inflict what punishment is deserved; because the very notion of deserving any punishment is, that it may be justly inflicted. A deserved punishment and a just punishment are the same thing. To say that one deserves such a punishment, and yet to say that he does not justly deserve it, is a contradiction; and if he justly deserves it, then it may be justly inflicted. Every crime or fault deserves a greater or less punishment, in proportion as the crime itself is greater or less. If any fault deserves punishment, then so much the greater the fault, so much the greater is the punishment deserved. The faulty nature of any thing is the formal ground and reason of its desert of punishment; and therefore the more any thing hath of this nature, the more punishment it deserves. And therefore the terribleness of the degree of punishment, let it be never be so terrible, is no argument against the justice of it, if the proportion does but hold between the heinousness of the crime and the dreadfulness of the punishment; so that if there be any such thing as a fault infinitely heinous, it will follow that it is just to inflict a punishment for it that is infinitely dreadful. A crime is more or less heinous, according as we are under greater or less obligations to the contrary. This is self-evident; because it is herein that the criminalness or faultiness of any thing consists, that it is contrary to what we are obliged or bound to, or what ought to be in us. So the faultiness of one being hating another, is in proportion to his obligation to love him. The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to honour him. The fault of disobeying another, is greater or less, as any one is under greater or less obligations to obey him. And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligations to love, and honour, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty. Our obligation to love, honour, and obey any being, is in proportion to his loveliness, honourableness, and authority; for that is the very meaning of the words. When we say any one is very lovely, it is the same as to say, that he is one very much to be loved. Or if we say such a one is more honourable than another, the meaning of the words is, that he is one that we are more obliged to honour. If we say any one has great authority over us, it is the same as to say, that he has great right to our subjection and obedience. But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. To have infinite excellency and beauty, is the same thing as to have infinite loveliness. He is a being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory; and therefore he is infinitely honourable. He is infinitely exalted above the greatest potentates of the earth, and highest angels in heaven; and therefore he is infinitely more honourable than they. His authority over us is infinite; and the ground of his right to our obedience is infinitely strong; for he is infinitely worthy to be obeyed himself, and we have an absolute, universal, and infinite dependence upon him. So that sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving of infinite punishment.- Nothing is more agreeable to the common sense of mankind, than that sins committed against any one, must be proportionably heinous to the dignity of the being offended and abused; as it is also agreeable to the word of God, I Samuel 2:25. "If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him;" (i.e. shall judge him, and inflict a finite punishment, such as finite judges can inflict;) "but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" This was the aggravation of sin that made Joseph afraid of it. Genesis 39:9. "How shall I commit this great wickedness, and sin against God?" This was the aggravation of David's sin, in comparison of which he esteemed all others as nothing, because they were infinitely exceeded by it. Psalm 51:4. "Against thee, thee only have I sinned."-The eternity of the punishment of ungodly men renders it infinite: and it renders it no more than infinite; and therefore renders no more than proportionable to the heinousness of what they are guilty of. If there be any evil or faultiness in sin against God, there is certainly infinite evil: for if it be any fault at all, it has an infinite aggravation, viz. that it is against an infinite object. If it be ever so small upon other accounts, yet if it be any thing, it has one infinite dimension; and so is an infinite evil. Which may be illustrated by this: if we suppose a thing to have infinite length, but no breadth and thickness, (a mere mathematical line,) it is nothing: but if it have any breadth and thickness, though never so small, and infinite length, the quantity of it is infinite; it exceeds the quantity of any thing, however broad, thick, and long, wherein these dimensions are all finite. So that the objections made against the infinite punishment of sin, from the necessity, or rather previous certainty, of the futurition of sin, arising from the unavoidable original corruption of nature, if they argue any thing, argue against any faultiness at all: for if this necessity or certainty leaves any evil at all in sin, that fault must be infinite by reason of the infinite object. But every such objector as would argue from hence, that there is no fault at all in sin, confutes himself, and shows his own insincerity in his objection. For at the same time that he objects, that men's acts are necessary, and that this kind of necessity is inconsistent with faultiness in the act, his own practice shows that he does not believe what he objects to be true: otherwise why does he at all blame men? Or why are such persons at all displeased with men, for abusive, injurious, and ungrateful acts towards them? Whatever they pretend, by this they show that indeed they do believe that there is no necessity in men's acts that is inconsistent with blame. And if their objection be this, that this previous certainty is by God's own ordering, and that where God orders an antecedent certainty of acts, he transfers all the fault from the actor on himself; their practice shows, that at the same time they do not believe this, but fully believe the contrary: for when they are abused by men, they are displeased with men, and not with God only. The light of nature teaches all mankind, that when an injury is voluntary, it is faulty, without any consideration of what there might be previously to determine the futurition of that evil act of the will. And it really teaches this as much to those that object and cavil most as to others; as their universal practice shows. By which it appears, that such objections are insincere and perverse. Men will mention others' corrupt nature when they are injured, as a thing that aggravates their crime, and that wherein their faultiness partly consists. How common is it for persons, when they look on themselves greatly injured by another, to inveigh against him, and aggravate his baseness, by saying, "He is a man of a most perverse spirit: he is naturally of a selfish, niggardly, or proud and haughty temper: he is one of a base and vile disposition." And yet men's natural and corrupt dispositions are mentioned as an excuse for them, with respect to their sins against God, as if they rendered them blameless. 2. That it is just with God eternally to cast off wicked men, may more abundantly appear, if we consider how much sin they are guilty of... https://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/justice.html https://www.ccel.org/e/edwards/sermons/justice.html