Answering Life's Tuff Questions

Like "why isn't tough spelled like tuff?" That would make too much sense.

If there is a god, why would a universe be required?

What purpose would a universe serve for this god?

What would be the marker for the achievement of this goal?

Why create living things? What is the point?

And why create them with lifespans?

Why create a universe with helminth parasites, hemlock, guinea worms and mosquitoes, all of which can result in the death of other living things?

These things are easy to comprehend if we assume the universe had no direction and evolved to its present state without a purpose in mind. We can accept them readily as 'just the way things are' if no designing agent is conjured as a universal director.
Otherwise they would appear to be the expressions of a diabolical mind.

Guinea worms are ingested by humans when they swallow water containing tiny fleas that have previously ingested the tiny eggs of the guinea worm. The eggs develop in the intestine and achieve a length of about three feet after about a year. Then males mate with females in your digestive tract who must lay the eggs in water. The guinea worm now begins to move by burrowing through your organs on its way to your skin. As they get near your skin they secrete an acid that causes extremely painful blisters on your skin to provide them an exit route. As you treat these blisters with water the guinea worm thanks you by bursting through your skin like spaghetti with a head. Over the course of the next several weeks you will want to pull the guinea worm out of you, inch by inch, in such a way as not to cause the worm to split. This would leave the rest of the worm still inside you where it will calcify under your skin. The worm won't kill you but secondary infections in your blisters such as tetanus will see to your demise. And how did humans discover these things? The universe does not come with an operating manual. We had to learn by trial and error. There was no Microsoft helpline to call to get a solution. No direct line to the director. People died so that others could learn to avoid the danger.

And the point of this lovely creature creation to a loving god? Blank out.

The ascaris worm is an example of a helminth parasite that lives in your intestines and can form clusters larger than a softball that can block your intestinal passages. When these guys migrate within your body they can cause deadly conditions like pneumonia and gangrene.

And the point of this lovely creature creation to a loving god? Blank out.

Hemlock is a poison. It can cause paralysis and seizures depending on the variety.

And the point of this lovely plant creation to a loving god? Blank out.

Mosquitoes are a disease vector and are responsible for the death of over a million people per year. Going back to biblical times the number of people whose lifespans were shortened numbers in the billions. If you were god would you create such a creature? Forgetting for the moment why you would want a universe in the first placewhy would you construct it with creatures that attack, maim and kill the humans that you love? If the universe is fine tuned for the emergence of human life it would also seem to be fine tuned for the development of these and many other nefarious organisms? Hell of a design. With thanks we praise thee for the remarkable pests and poisons that assail our persons.

An operating guide to the universe would be a handy aid to living for ignorant humans.

Unfortunately we had to discover a lot of things by trial and error.

If you were god would you supply a manual to your intelligent creations, to the ones for whom you created the universe?

And why did you create them? What do you need from them?

Do you obtain pleasure from watching someone drink hemlock and succumb to the poison?

Why didn't you warn the first person to 'discover' the hard way that hemlock is not a nutrient?

These and many other 'booby traps' for humans exist in the universe. Why did you create them?

When a plane crashes and there are survivors why do we thank you? Were the ones who perished not worthy of saving?

Or should we think that the ones who perished are the favored ones and that the survivors are reviled because you did not want them with you in paradise?

Why do we value life if the objective is to get to heaven? Babies who die take a shortcut to paradise. Do they grow up there? Will their parents recognize them when they get there?

What is the point for you? Amusement? Judging? Adulation?

For how long? For how many? When is it over for you? When will your goal be achieved?

What is your goal? To attract more people to heaven than Satan can entice into Hell?

What is the prize and when is it won? When is the game over?

All of these questions go away if you do not exist. We just accept the curious nature of the universe in which we find ourselves and seek to suck the most pleasure from our carcasses as we can before we can't. We try to figure out how things work without an operating manual and congratulate ourselves when we solve one problem and then we move on to the next.

The future of the human species seems inevitable. If our expanding sun does not wipe us out then our future collision with the Andromeda Galaxy certainly will. If you were god why would you build in that ending?

If you were god why would you need a universe at all?

Need implies imperfection.

Even god is human.