Nature and the fall of man

There are some Christians who hold that before the fall of man nature was different from what we see today. Animals were not wild but tame and peaceful, and they did not eat each other. There were no diseases and there were no natural disasters. This was the condition of nature in Eden. However, when man sinned and was turned out of Eden, nature changed and became what we see today, in which disasters and diseases are common, and animals eat each other.So this view explains that the reason for human suffering due to events in nature is that man brought such a state of affairs on himself. It is all the fault of mankind.Some Christians do not, I think, hold this view. If one believes in evolution, for example, I would think it would not be possible to hold the view that nature changed in this way. So my question is for those Christians who do not hold the view that nature changed in the way I have described. If the current state of nature is not due to the Fall, then what is it due to? Why does God permit these terrible natural events to occur? {For the record, this topic was promoted from message 6 of the PNT version. - Adminnemooseus}This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 12-26-2005 01:37 PM

And your answer to the second question?

What about those other Christians, the ones I am addressing. How do they explain away nature?

Well, God set up nature, so He's ultimately responsible, even if He's a hands-off God. So if He set up nature, he set up indirectly all those disasters that befall people.

You didn't mention birth defects. I guess they aren't terrible either--just "amazing."

So if I get cancer, that's bad for me but good for the cancer, which after all, has a right to live too.If a baby is born with a severe birth defect, that's bad for the baby, but good for . . . good for. . .

Well, everything's perfect. I'm just too human-centric and me-centric to see it.God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.A different type of piety. It strikes me as mere sentimentality.

In my view, it's an attempt to graft modern humanistic ideas onto a two thousand year old religion. But in order to make it nice, we are going to have to de-emphasize certain unpleasant ideas such as the Fall and the Passion.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-28-2005 07:55 AM

What you and Purpledawn seem to be suggesting it that it's the best of all possible worlds, except of course for bad things done by people.A plague sweeps across Europe and kills untold numbers who suffer and die. That was bad for the people, of course, but good for the plague bacteria (not so good for the rats either). God loves all His little creatures. If we need to make a few hundred thousand humans die for the sake of My beloved bacteria, then so be it. That's the system!Only it's not quite the best of all possible worlds because we are going to make it better. God did the best he could with what He had, but it took him a few billion years to evolve this creature called Man, who had Reason, and then it took a few hundred thousand more years for Man to get to the point where he could start improving this mess that God had on his hands.Thank goodness we got over that superstitution about the Fall.God's in his heaven, all's right with the world.

You said the system He set up is perfect. So it's the best of all possible worlds. You can't get better than perfect.

The situation in Europe and Asia in the 14th century was a little different. They died from the plague, not starvation. And anyway, there weren't that many people back then to begin with. After it was over with, the situation was no different except that there were a lot fewer people. That also means fewer farmers.

Evolution doeesn't seem to be a perfect system to me. It looks like a hit and miss affair. Just to take a tiny example, this system produces vestigial structures that do nothing but take up space and sometimes are harmful. These are leftovers from the evolutionary past. There are cave animals that have eyes that don't work anymore. I suppose one might say they perform a cosmetic function (I would find a fish without eyes rather spooky), but that would be a humancentric view since the fish can't see each other and so don't care about the cosmetics.Apart from this, I don't see how one can separate our judgment of a system from its products. The system exists for its products. Let's say I had this system for making medicines. I hired some workers and set up an assembly line and was boasting about how perfect my system was. I could produce medicines right and left, all different varities, and I could change and produce new and different medicines. The only problem was the quality of the medicines themselves. Some worked rather well, while others did nothing to the patient one way or the other. Others killed the patients, or maimed them for life, and still others made them go crazy and start killing and eating other people. My system was perfect in one sense: it produced many different medicines.

Why should I ask you a question? I'm arguing a point.

Mankind didn't create the plague. You seem to be introducing some odd environmental point. If only we treated the natural system better, it would treat us better. You may very well be right about that, but it doesn't seem to fit this topic. Perhaps I am misunderstanding you.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 12-27-2005 02:29 PM

Please continue. I'm tired.