God Just Plain Messed Up When He Supposedly Designed Us

[LAGC]

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Colombian authorities said Tuesday that they've been frustrated in their attempts to file criminal charges against the young father of a baby born two weeks ago to a 10-year-old ethnic Wayuu girl.

That's because the Wayuu people have their own justice system and rarely cooperate with agents of the Colombian state in such matters, said Maria Gladys Pabon, chief prosecutor in Riohacha, the regional capital.
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The girl, who cannot be identified by law, gave birth on March 29 via Caesarean section and is one of the youngest mothers on record.
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(more)

http://news.mywebpal.com/news_tool_v2.cfm?show=localnews&pnpID=348&NewsID=1015710&CategoryID=20366&on=1

The world's youngest mother in a medically documented case was Lina Medina of Peru, who in 1939 produced an infant at the age of 5 years, 8 months, according to the Guinness Book of Records.

I'm sorry, but tell me how this could possibly be by design? A 5-year-old capable of producing a baby? A fetus won't even fit through the pelvis at that age! Short of performing surgery to remove the baby, its a death sentence for both the fetus and the mother, as I'm sure it was many times in our distant past, before modern medicine made such success stories possible.

What kind of sick freak would design his own creations to be capable of such things?

Surely God didn't think this procreation thing through very well...

[LAGC]

1. You know, some days I really want to believe in a Higher Power...

...that there really is SOMETHING out there looking over us, giving us purpose. But shit like this really gives me pause.

I just can't see how so much of life on earth is anything but a total freak accident, just total random acts of nature with no apparent purpose whatsoever.

I mean, don't get me wrong, its amazing that we are ALIVE and able to think and even ponder our own existence, but I just can't fathom how this could have been someone's "master plan." There's just too many quirks and irregularities, so much life that is created just to suffer and die...

[FedUpWithIt All]

2. I tend to believe the "flaw" is in the nature of man, rather than the biology.

Man is too often cruel, selfish, incurious, vain and gluttonous.




It is hard to wrap ones head around a story about a young girl dealing with this aspect of life so young. It is hard to deal with the realities in the lives of countless young girls, on a daily basis, where they are made to endure way too much, way too soon. But I'm also having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a 15 yr old indigenous boy spending up to 9 years in a Colombian prison.

I wish everyday, with all my heart, for a different world.

[Silent3]

8. If our biology was better, a lot of flaws "in the nature of man" wouldn't matter

Further, if there is such a thing as the nature of man, then that nature is at least partly biological.

So, so many things go wrong with people biologically and medically that it's an impossible stretch of the imagination to lay the blame on some human moral failing for each and every one of those many problems.

[crunch60]

3. God didn't screw up, the human race screwd up, on their own. Not fair to point fingers.

[Namvet67]

6. take a walk through any big children's hospital......who screwed them up?

[crunch60]

24. Something in a screwed up DNA. Parents pass on to their children many anomalies. Humans

have been poisoned by many factors over the years. We have been over medicated, our air, water, our food supply contaminated (Monsanto) so many factors contribute to birth defects and illness. We have to Stop blaming God for everything, that's just a cop out and to simplistic an answer people use when they don't have the real answer. Yea right, just blame God.

[Silent3]

28. Oh, bullshit

Horrible childhood diseases have been around for millions of years, a bit longer than Monsanto, and for whatever new problems we've created with technology we have solved many more.

Besides, if there were a God (which I don't believe myself) you think he'd do a better job of protecting children from the ignorance (as if it's fair to denounce as "ignorant" a person who, 2000 years ago, didn't account for his recessive genes before having children) or malice of their parents.

[crunch60]

29. So tell me, just how do you know what childhood diseases were around a million years ago?

[Silent3]

30. Fossil record

There's plenty of evidence of disease and injury in the fossil record. And in the nearer term, well before Monsanto or the supposed evils of science and technology, there's plenty of historical records of childhood and other diseases. For most of the time humanity has been on this planet, infant mortality has been very high, and average lifespans have been 18-40 years.

Besides, even if there were a complete absence of evidence, do you think the benefit of the doubt goes toward imagining the human past was some paradise of long, healthy lives, that people, by being so bad and naughty, destroyed?

[Namvet67]

47. If a god gets credit for "saving" and healing the sick,...then...

the god has to take the heat for causing children to be born with HIV, covered with insects, and starving to death before its 1st birthday. .......an outcome the god knew before the creation since omniscient.....this god is a sadist and a terrorist

[cbayer]

49. That's a good argument if one believes that god actually saves or heals the sick.

It would be hypocritical to say that god is responsible for the good things that happen but not the bad.

[Namvet67]

50. yes.....i agree

[trotsky]

52. So it's a good argument for the vast majority of US Christians?

I.e., the ones that wield the most power and control the message in the media?

[LARED]

4. If procreation is based solely on the process of evolution,

why would a female evolve in a way that allows birth to occur in a way that will surely kill her?

Basically evolution says that girl was biologically defective.

[LAGC]

5. That's a very good question.

I honestly think its just part of the randomness and diversity of nature, how people hit puberty at different rates. Although I will admit I was quite surprised at the notion that a 5-year-old could ever possibly be capable of getting pregnant, it would just seem to defy all logic.

But just the fact that we are now medically capable of saving the offspring of such young girls who can't possibly conceive naturally, would only seem to make such genetic traits more common if passed to the offspring, which is disturbing in its own right.

[trotsky]

7. Not defective, just a genetic variant.

Absolutely vital to the health of any population.

If some sort of environmental or health crisis hit that wiped out most people before the onset of "normal" puberty, that girl and her offspring, provided they survived, would have ensured the survival of the species. Hardly "defective" in that case, wouldn't you say?

Evolution can explain that girl. Creationism cannot.

[Namvet67]

48. AMEN

[Silent3]

10. The process of evolution is mindless, it doesn't care about all the wrong turns...

...it takes, all of the dead ends it explores. Evolution is experimenting with life all the time, in ways that, were there an intelligence behind it, you'd often have to describe as cruel.

[trotsky]

11. Very well put. n/t

[tama]

14. Why "mindless"?

I consider myself very much part of the evolution process and also mindfull, very much mindfull and caring about avoiding the dead end of cancer-like capitalistic imperialism destroying the carrying capacity and resulting in Gaussian die-off relatively soon, if not much worse. Being mindfull of this situation our species and cultures are now in and caring enough to at least share my mind in this discussion is not outside the process of evolution, to my best understanding, but essential part.

[Silent3]

16. Now that we have evolved intelligence, we can of course try (however imperfectly!) to manipulate...

...the evolutionary process. But our abilities are currently limited, crude, and certainly not directly, consciously responsible for things like 5 five year-olds giving birth. No person or people sat down and said, "let's see what survival advantage we get out of making 5 year olds capable of pregnancy, and let's not bother with the details of whether they can give birth without dying".

Natural evolution, however, mindlessly "experiments" with crap like that all of the time.

[tama]

20. And in this state of evolution

we have also the ability and freedom to call evolution "quantum jazz", which sound nice and fun from the big picture, though I agree that pregnant 5-years olds are not most pleasing jazz solos to my aesthetic conditioning and sensibility.

[Silent3]

27. You can call evolution "Susan" or "prismatic parking crate" if you like.

From your posting history, it wouldn't surprise me. You'd probably pat yourself on the back for demonstrating how valiantly you resist the Oppressors with your "free" thinking.

[tama]

31. I'm not calling it "Susan"

and it was you who called evolution "mindless" against what is blatantly obvious.

[Goblinmonger]

32. Do you think that evolution has a thought process?

Or are we playing word games with "mindless"?

[tama]

37. Word games

are thought processes, sentience and intentionality not necessarily so and can happen also without thinking. I don't know if you refer by mind and mental to only thought processes and exclude sentience and intentionality. I don't.

[Silent3]

38. If intentionality can happen without thinking...

...you're certainly doing your level best to demonstrate that.

[tama]

40. Are you suggesting with your intention

to insult me with words and hurt my emotions...

that intentionality is limited to human languages and linguistic thought processes?

[Silent3]

42. I'm sure that elsewhere in the living world...

...especially in other animals with large, complex brains, that there is behavior that could well be described as "intentional".

That intentionality, however, has nothing to do with the OP or the aspects of biology being discussed here, even when that biology is the biology of beings that exhibit intentionality in other ways.

No, I do not believe, nor see the slightest evidence, that sunflowers "intend" to turn toward the sun.

No, I do not believe, nor see the slightest evidence, that MRSA "intends" to fight against antibiotics and make people sick.

No, I do not believe, nor see the slightest evidence, that the first pre-amphibians "intended" to go for a walk.

[Silent3]

33. What's blatantly obvious?

Until you launched into confusing obvious and distinct meanings of "evolution", the kind of evolution being clearly being discussed -- natural evolution without and before human invention -- shows no signs of "mindful" development: no goals, no purpose, no design.

You can imagine that such things are possible if you wish to speculate, but since there's no apparent reason evolution needs any of that, and plenty of evidence that would suggest that any mind behind directing evolution would be stupid, insane, evil, or any combination thereof, the burden of proof (which I'm sure you'll never except, evil scientism, blah, blah) for mind-directed evolution would be on you.

[tama]

39. I see now that your confusion arises

from wish to debate against ID and to see me as defender of ID. As well as the confusion about excluding sensing and intentionality from what is usually meant by mind or mental processes - and reserve that to only, let me guess, brains and neural systems?

To me that sounds awfully anthropocentric as I have no problems of considering also monocell organisms. mushrooms and plants etc. able of sensing and having intentions - in other words, mental processes. And need I remind that Dawkins attaches attribute usually linked to consciousness to genes (reflecting and projecting apparently the values of technocratic consumerist culture that he is evolutionary product of)?

[Silent3]

41. No, I don't think you're talking about ID, but I would guess that there's...

..."quantum consciousness" bullshit lurking behind your rambling on.

Whether it happens in a brain or inside some "quantum consciousness", there is NO EVIDENCE, and plenty of counter-evidence, that living systems don't "intend" to spread into new habitats, that they don't "decide" that a longer neck would sure be a good idea for reaching those high-up leaves in trees, that living systems (at least not until we came along) don't "design" new genes or new organs in order to gain a "desired" capability.

The types of flaws that living being exhibit, like the insane laryngeal nerve in the neck of a giraffe, are exactly the kinds of flaws you'd expect from a mindless, unintentional process that bumbles and stumbles its way into useful adaptations for exploiting various environmental niches.

[tama]

43. Intention

Wikipedia: "Intention is an agent's specific purpose in performing an action or series of actions, the end or goal that is aimed at. Outcomes that are unanticipated or unforeseen are known as unintended consequences."

Finding food, reproducing, avoiding danger etc. or more generally organic or sentient metabolism count as intentional behavior as I understand the concept. And there is also ample proof of biomatter sensing electromagnetic fields (also quantum mechanically), with or without neural systems.

[Silent3]

44. So what?

That's intentionality of evolved organisms, not intentionality of the evolutionary process that produces those organisms.

And what on earth does "biomatter sensing electromagnetic fields" have to do with intentionality of evolution? Either there's no connection at all, or, if there is, any such connection is mere evidence-free speculation.

[tama]

45. So to clarify confusions

arising from generally confuced vocabulary concerning mental processes.

And to make the hopefully uncontroversial claim that mental processes like intention and sensing are present in all biomatter in all states of evolution, in fact defining what we normally consider life.

In this light the claim that mental processes are emergent properties of classical neurological processes is truly extraordinary and twisted view of evolution.

[Silent3]

46. Saying that muffins are an emergent property of train stations is truly...

...and extraordinarily twisted view of tennis.

When you start making sense, please let me know. Better yet, inform your doctor first.

[Mariana]

13. Individuals don't evolve.

Populations evolve. It makes no sense at all to ask why "a female" can evolve in a certain way.

[tama]

15. I do evolve, also as individual nt

[Silent3]

17. There are two different meanings of "evolve" going on there

I hate it when people confuse words and meanings, then treat the results of their own confusion like profound wisdom or insight.

[tama]

21. Theories and meanings of evolution

can and do also evolve.

[Silent3]

26. You're not "evolving" here...

...you're treating wooly-headed confusion as a virtue.

It's like a guy holding a baseball and a mitt asks you for a "bat", you bring him a small winged mammal, and when the guy expresses displeasure over your confusion, you accuse him of not being open-minded enough about the meaning of "bat", perhaps of imperialistically trying to impose meanings on you and your vapid-minded "freedom".

Thinking someone should hit baseballs with small winged mammals would not be, I'm afraid, "evolved" thinking. Your deliberate confusion about "evolve" is no better, and certainly not at all clever, as you seem to think.

[tama]

35. There's no confusion except in your posts

I'm part of cultural evolution, as are also theories about evolution.

[Silent3]

36. Age of reproduction isn't cultural evolution

A 5 year-old being able to give birth is not an mindfully-directed cultural development. It's an accident of biology triggered by criminal activity. To the extent that "mindful" human activity plays into such an event, pregnancy almost certainly is not an intended goal.

If you're a part of cultural evolution, culture is headed for extinction.

[Mariana]

22. You know, some posts just aren't worth the effort

of typing up a response. I don't mean yours, obviously.

I spent 2 or 3 seconds wondering if that attempted threadjack was intentional or unintentional. Then I lost interest.

[Silent3]

34. I guess I'm too stubborn and argumentative to easily let some things slide.

[Namvet67]

51. you are also trying to educate......keep it up

[laconicsax]

25. Are you joking, or do you really not understand evolution?

[ProfessionalLeftist]

9. No argument from me on that.

IMO men should also bear children. And it shouldn't be such a painful, physically damaging process. That it is, is indicative of poor design.

[Warren Stupidity]

12. Knees.

A better example of obviously flawed design is the knee. What was god thinking?

[eqfan592]

18. Forget the knees, how about the eye!

How completely screwed up is the design of the human eye? Especially when you compare it to others found in nature. No reasonably intelligent being would have designed it that way.

[Silent3]

19. Or the human body's response to spinal injury

Many cases of paralysis are not caused directly by physical trauma to the spinal nerves, but in the hours than follow such an injury, as a result of the body's sometimes self-destructive reaction to the injury.

[cbayer]

23. You think that's bad. Sometimes he must really just have a bad day.