By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close
BMaker11 on 03 January 2014
Edit Thread
padib said:
BMaker11 said:

If you see that Wendy Wright interview, she does exactly bonzobana said.

With regard to "like what", I already gave examples. But to expand: Lightning was thought to come up because the gods were angry. Nope, just electrons bouncing around in the atmosphere. Crops growing was thought to be because the gods were pleased with your work, so they grew your food. Nope, it was just plants growing in a good farming season. Thought that the gods were shaking the earth, for some reason, and that caused earthquakes. Nope, tectonic plates. Thought gods caused possessions (via demons). Nope, epilepsy. Thought gods caused eclipses. Nope, just the moon moving in between the earth and sun. Thought gods caused diseases and sickness (also, via demons). Nope, germs.

You see where I'm going with this?

If the bible is true, then germs would be evil in origin, even if they are defined by science, science does not provide their spiritual origin, that's religion's job. Science describes, religion gives the purpose.

According to the bible, disease, predation and thorns are part of the curse at the fall of man. You have no way to prove that such things did not exist prior to the fall (say 6k years ago). Also, there are reports of prayer healing people, and there is a lot of work done on the power of the mind over disease. So it still begs the question.

Problem is though, some of those "evil" germs can be beneficial as well. HIV has been used to treat cancer. So is HIV "good" now? An even greater problem is the leap "if the Bible is true" because for all intents and purposes, it isn't (as a form of history). And yea, I can prove that predation existed more than 6,000 years ago. There are many fossils of prey dinosaurs with incisor marks in their bones. We know dinosaurs lived millions of years ago. The incisor marks show one animal eating another. I can't prove that disease happened more than 6,000 years ago but that's only because written history started roughly 6,000 years ago. But if other stuff you attribute to "the fall" can be shown to happen more than 6,000 years ago, it can be assumed that disease occured as well.

Also, the "reports" of prayer healing people have all either came from the citation having a religious bias or a sickness that can randomly go into remission (like some forms of cancer). So either it's pandering to your own audience, or just being wrong about "the power of prayer". Prayer doesn't heal the flu. The flu goes away after a week in most people, for example. But let's not forget the plethora of times that parents forwent simple medical treatments for their children that could quickly save them and instead tried "the power of prayer" and their children died as a result.