Why did god create diseases?

[Bob Kelso]

Especially hereditary ones. I'm sure certain people would like to say something

Cancer and depression in particular.

Because god's a dick?

[tor]

Which leads to a follow up question: why beat around the bush? Why not just install the lower birth rate from the beginning and skip the unspeakable agony and death that diseases have caused all life on earth?

The lower birth rate propensity is built in. It just doesn't kick in until it's needed. Natural population control is a fact of nature.

I would call you a fantasist. Are you happy or unhappy with reality?

I think he was talking about employing less brutal population control strategies. Come on frodo stop pretending not to understand things which are THAT simple.

[Rampant.A.I.]

My job is to seriously duck with your heads tor ;)

Oh, so you admit you're here to troll.

[Minimalist]

[fr0d0]

The lower birth rate propensity is built in. It just doesn't kick in until it's needed. Natural population control is a fact of nature.

I would call you a fantasist. Are you happy or unhappy with reality?

I think he was talking about employing less brutal population control strategies. Come on frodo stop pretending not to understand things which are THAT simple.

I understood and answered.

Come on tor stop pretending to be so dumb!

[tor]

[Chas]

Which leads to a follow up question: why beat around the bush? Why not just install the lower birth rate from the beginning and skip the unspeakable agony and death that diseases have caused all life on earth?

The lower birth rate propensity is built in. It just doesn't kick in until it's needed. Natural population control is a fact of nature.

I would call you a fantasist. Are you happy or unhappy with reality?

That's not how it works. There is no 'built-in propensity' for lower birth rate. The only 'natural population control' is death.

Birth rates are partly a function resources, as is infant mortality.

Populations of animals are often cyclic, boom and bust phenomena.

[fr0d0]

The lower birth rate propensity is built in. It just doesn't kick in until it's needed. Natural population control is a fact of nature.

I would call you a fantasist. Are you happy or unhappy with reality?

That's not how it works. There is no 'built-in propensity' for lower birth rate. The only 'natural population control' is death.

Birth rates are partly a function resources, as is infant mortality.

Populations of animals are often cyclic, boom and bust phenomena.

Lower birth rates are a statistical fact of a developed society. One of Bill Gate's points for ending child poverty is that giving people enough food results in smaller families.

A population fat on resources becomes lazy > needs to try less to survive > reverses the rules of natural selection

The bust and boom phenomena makes the point better... a species exceeds it's resources and dies back... it's a natural control. It's how nature works and that's pretty damn cool.

Like I said... dissatisfaction with that makes you a fantasist.

[Rampant.A.I.]

Using "reality checks" like this to completely ignore and dismiss the question of why an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God couldn't create better conditions or simply didn't care to is by far more childish than the question of why the world doesn't seem designed or particularly loved by God, when those are the claims being advanced.

But it's hilarious to see the term "fantasist" used by adult believers in Santa Claus.

[Chas]

That's not how it works. There is no 'built-in propensity' for lower birth rate. The only 'natural population control' is death.

Birth rates are partly a function resources, as is infant mortality.

Populations of animals are often cyclic, boom and bust phenomena.

Lower birth rates are a statistical fact of a developed society. One of Bill Gate's points for ending child poverty is that giving people enough food results in smaller families.

A population fat on resources becomes lazy > needs to try less to survive > reverses the rules of natural selection

The bust and boom phenomena makes the point better... a species exceeds it's resources and dies back... it's a natural control. It's how nature works and that's pretty damn cool.

Like I said... dissatisfaction with that makes you a fantasist.

The lower birth rates of developed societies is explained sociologically, not biologically.

The boom and bust cycles of animal populations has nothing to do with birth rates - it has to do with death rates. It's about resources.

This is well illustrated by predator/prey cycles:


Also well illustrated by disease cycles. An epidemic of disease will kill off enough of a population so that the population density will no longer support the disease transmission. The disease organism population subsides, the victim population rebounds - just like a predator/prey cycle.


Your fantasy is invalid.