If God exists, why did he create life? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Monday, December 20, 2010, 04:28 (5086 days ago) @ dhw

If "most" of the natural catastrophes that have indiscriminately killed or maimed millions of people through the ages are necessary for life, then a God powerful enough to create a universe must have been incapable of creating life without indiscriminate slaughter. If that comforts and satisfies you, so be it. What about the catastrophes that are not necessary?
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> I ended my post by asking: "Why did God create a world in which helpless humans could be destroyed at a moment's notice by forces beyond their control? But to avoid the conventional theological digressions, please focus your attention on natural catastrophes and diseases, and on the time before humans even knew the causes of those diseases." 
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> You have answered with: 
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> As for blaming humans for not escaping, perhaps you think our ancient ancestors should have jumped into their luxury cruisers when God sent down the Great Flood. (I'm using that as a symbol for all such natural disasters and for the helplessness of their victims).
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> I respect your faith, and I acknowledge that my attempts to solve the problem of God's apparent indifference to human suffering are hampered by the limitations of my powers of reason. However, I'm afraid I just can't go along with your exclusive focus on those modern diseases that may have been the fault of humans, and your belief that throughout human history the billions of human deaths caused by "most" of God's floods, earthquakes etc. were necessary for the survival of humans. This sounds to me rather like a lawyer defending his client against the charge of burgling House No. 1 on the grounds that someone else burgled House No. 2, and in any case crime is necessary for the survival of the police force, so who cares about the victims?
> -Ok, so lets back up a couple of thousand years or so, and ask some necessary questions.-1)Did God(s), or some other higher being force people to live in an Earthquake riddled part of the Mediterranean? -2)Did God(s), or some other higher being force people to live within the kill zone of an active volcano? (And for the sake of brevity, let us just apply this question to all areas prone to natural disasters, i.e. flood planes, Hurricane and tornado alleys, etc)-3)Do all such natural disasters provide some form of warning before they strike, that under most circumstances would allow people to evacuate the area, on foot if need be? -Bear in mind that natural disasters have a very limited range, normally of less than 100 miles, which from experience I can testify can be crossed, on foot, with at least 80lbs of goods on your back, in a matter of about 4 days. The effective killing range of most natural disasters is actually MUCH less than that(A mile can clear you from a tornado, 5 miles from a hurricane and less for most other natural disasters. A fleeing human carrying nothing with them can exceed the 25 mile per day mark quite easily. -4)Are there simple and effective ways to survive?-Many natural disasters only require a bit of brains to survive, i.e. cover your mouth and nose if you are in the ash cloud radius of a volcano, try to be outside and away from buildings for major earthquakes. Don't put your house at the bottom of the hill next to the river if you don't want to get flooded, and if you do live next to the river, have a boat, canoe, log raft, reed bundle, or some other floaty thing nearby for emergencies. And our ancient ancestors were clever, they knew the dangers, in fact they worshiped most of these events because they were dangerous. (Egyptian's and the Nile flooding for example)-
As for ancient viruses, the most effective countermeasures we have today, was known by at least 900 BCE. We know this because several of those counter measures were written about in the Torah,(See the list of directions for setting up the Israelites camp as they wandered the desert for 40 years) and included things like proper sanitation and bathing(also huge in the Roman and Egyptian civilizations), latrines being away from your eating and living spaces(Reference ). The major sources of plague could be avoided in a couple of easy steps. First, by not congregating in major cities, and second again with cleanliness(this time avoiding rats and flies, the carriers for two types of plague). It is hard to argue about the possible viruses that were around then, because many have mutated, but truth be told, you don't hear about many viral outbreaks in ancient history. You hear about Plague which is transmitted from rats or flies depending on the type, and then spread from person to person.