Do we really NEED all the diseases in the world that God designed to kill children and crops and cause sorrow and starvation galore?

Or should we mourn the loss of Godʼs carefully designed banquet of diseases, disasters, starvation and disfigurement that God bestowed on humans for almost all of human history? Right up till the late 1800s about half of all children died before reaching the age of eight. And about half of all fertilized human egg cells (called zygotes) either pass out of the body naturally spontaneously without implanting or they perish in the fallopian tubes or uterus naturally. And even after the zygote stage a percentage of embryos and fetuses perish naturally spontaneously (also look up “vanishing twin syndrome” where one twin is absorbed by the other or by the uterine walls—something we hadnʼt noticed until ultra-sound was invented), and women used to perish in childbirth far more often in the past than now. So it looks like modern medicine and engineering is denying us a bounteous blessing of natural suffering that God bestowed on our ancestors for nearly a million years. Yet I bet there were Christians in the past who defended not only the pain and deadliness of childbirth, but even for small pox, malaria, and TB—all of which killed hundreds of millions in their heyday, and continue to kill many today. Though other Christians didnʼt defend such horrors but applauded them by preaching that everyone deserved such painful temporal earthly horrors, or worse—deserved horrific eternal pains—so as to try and induce repentance and increase church membership. Ingenious ad hoc, post hoc, reasoning in both cases. At best one is left with more questions than definitive answers.

Speaking of alleviating Godʼs well designed means of natural suffering, click on Maurice Hilleman and Norman Borlaug, and also, “Miracles” Performed by the Secular Saints of Johns Hopkins. And click here for much more on the problem of pain.

Every animal seems to be able to sense it is in danger, pain, and struggles to escape, even animals with the smallest brains and least number of neurons. While brainless animals like amoeba, can detect, pursue and trap prey by sticking out their pseudopods. Now compare the human brain which is not a single-celled organism like the amoeba but a multi-cellular organ with approximately 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion electro-chemical connections between them--no wonder we react to dangers, pains, and deathly imaginings. Even without immediate threats such imaginings (or memories of past dangers or pains) can cause humans to suffer panic attacks throughout their lives and/or strongly alter their behavior.