What Could God Have Done Differently?

David Hume argued that if he could come up with one improvement to God's purported creation that it would call into question God's goodness. He suggested four things, one of which is that God could've created us with a greater propensity to work (more energy). So let me open this up for discussion. If you were God, what would you reasonably do differently to make this a better world with less suffering?

Let me be the first to suggest an improvement. God could've created human beings by adding a pair of wings to our backs so that we could fly. There would be no more falling to our deaths. We would have better transportation such that there would also be fewer fatalities on our roadways and airways. Such a winged improvement would result in less suffering than our present bodies. We know God could've done this because there are naturally existing birds in this world who fly. So why didn't he?

10 comments:

Francois Tremblay said...

Committing suicide.

Steven Carr said...

God could have created a devleopment system that did not produce so many miscarriages.

That gets us into the whole question of why God allows abortion, and what greater good does abortion serve.

Bruce said...

How about a planet with more equitably distributed natural resources so we don't have to fight over them? And since skin color seems to cause so many problems (even though I personally like the differences), why not make everybody look the same? For that matter, why not just settle the religion question once and for all and let us in on your secret so we can stop killing each other over it (and I'm sure those Muslim suicide bombers would really like to know if they are going to get their virgins).

And why all the genetic mutations? Why does blood not clot in some people? Why are some people missing a chromosome? Are you still experimenting and we are merely your guinea pigs?

And finally, I could go for a good Universal Health Care plan. Surely God could offer up some advice on that one.

Anonymous said...

On a Christian blog they are ridiculing my suggestion of flying human beings. Just because I suggest something that sounds strange means nothing at all to me. Birds can fly. Angels purportedly have wings. Why not humans? There would be a whole lot less suffering with just this one change, but I have dozens of changes that I'll suggest in an upcoming debate on evil...dozens. Any one of which would greatly reduce suffering in our world.

You see, when Christians claim to believe in an omnipotent God and then ridicule the idea that he could've made us with wings, they betray their own beliefs. They either believe God is omnipotent or not. If he is and if we can find things in the natural world that he has done, then he could've done it for us. And had he done that for us we would experience less suffering. So the question for them is why he did not do it. And rather than dealing head on with my suggestion Christian people there would prefer to ridicule me, not fully aware of the fact that what they are ridiculing is their own conception of an omnipotent God. You see, they ridicule it because they cannot conceive of a bigger God than the one who purportedly created this known universe. They are stuck defending the God whom they believe created this world and will obstinately refuse to consider that such a God could have easily done differently. They do so, in my opinion, because of a faith that is blind. For them God is only as omnipotent as this world reveals, even though I can suggest very reasonable changes that an omnipotent God, if omnipotent, could easily do differently. So go ahead. In ridiculing my suggestion you ridicule what you believe your own God could do.

Mike Darus said...

John,
I do not intend to ridicule, but I think you are wrong about your assumption that wings would prevent falls and be only beneficial. My granddaughter is learning to walk. She constantly falls on her butt. It is well-padded and close to the floor. No harm is done. If she had wings, life would be much more complex and hurtful. For adults, little harm is done when one accidently bumps into another on the sidewalk. I am certain this would totally different with wings. I prefer the no-wings-alternative-world, thank you.

►HuntanPeck said...

If God exists, and if the Bible is his message to humanity as most Christians assert, then it seems reasonable to ask why a supposedly all-knowing, all-powerful creator couldn't have left a message that was plain to all and unmistakable in its meaning. Instead we have a collection of various documents, written centuries apart, by various people in widely differing circumstances, riddled with contradictions, inconsistencies and obscure references.

When the Bible as we know it today was being compiled, there was considerable disagreement on which books should be included and which should be left out, and, bypassing the fact of so many vastly different and incompatible beliefs that call themselves "christian", even those within the same denomination cannot seem to agree on what the Bible says regarding various points of doctrine.

Bruce said...

My granddaughter is learning to walk. She constantly falls on her butt. It is well-padded and close to the floor. No harm is done. If she had wings, life would be much more complex and hurtful.

OK, so the wings don't develop until adolescence. Solves both your and John's problem!

I'd love to have wings. Not only would it be fun, but think of the impact it would have on the energy crisis. We'd be paying 25 cents/gallon for gas right now if we had wings.

Unknown said...

John,

I believe that an improvement in engineering living organisms would be to make it so that the respiratory system wasn't connected to the digestive system the way that it is! The passage way leading to our lungs is closed whenever we swallow, allowing for the passage of food.

But think of how many people have died, choked, and have suffocated, even little children because they got something lodged in their throats that blocked the air supply to their lungs. God could've desiged that system better to where the passage to the lungs needn't have to close when food is passing through.

Now Christians will mock skeptics like me and ask how else would God be able to use the respiratory system for speech when the same tools for speech (tounge, teeth, gums, etc) are also used to eat and digest food? Wouldn't it be an easier system if God killed two birds with one stone by designing them so that they fit together?

No, I don't think that it was particularly smart for God to design it this way. There are more efficient plans he couldv'e used. What if, instead, of us having to breathe in air through nasal cavity and, alternatively, the mouth, what if God designed mammals like ourselves to have symbiotic relationships with bacteria that lived in the cells of our skin?

What if, instead of having to rely on air, we supplied nutrients to the bacteria to help the bacteria remain alive while the bacteria generated the necessary oxygen for our blood stream? We wouldn't have to rely on a nasal cavity nor would we have to rely on having the opening to our lungs have to close in our throat every time we swallow food, thereby risking choking or suffocation. Such a symbiotic relationship would be a feat of engineering design on part of any Creator and seems to me to be a lot more sufficent and safer than our current system.

Just my two cents,

Matthew

Edwardtbabinski said...

Can humanity HELP but not consider possible ways to make things "better?"

We are homo "invention-us." And we don't settle for what "is," but have invented tools and ways to use them to build even finer tools, giving us everything from agriculture to better dwellings with plumbing to vaccines to writing enjoyable music and finding new ways to make new sounds, all the way to inventing news ways to examine the cosmos and ourselves, and to communicate with each other and store vast masses of information on tiny chips made out the same elements found in sand. If we ceased inventing new things and put down our tools, and let the first fire burn out, or scrapped the first wheel, and simply lived without nothing more than God gave Adam and Eve, then we'd be aboriginies.

No matter where our inventiveness and technological strivings take us, not many of us wish to turn back to aboriginal ways. So, yes, we CAN imagine things "better than they are," including maybe genetically engineering wings for those who want them (which as stated by someone else would sure help us diminish our use of gas).

Maybe the consequences of all our tool making and inventiveness will lead to ecological disasters, maybe even our extinction, but nature has her own ways of knocking off species on a planet, quite a few of them in fact, from a super-sized stellar flare to asteroid and cometary impacts to stars passing too near our own or going nova near us, to a black hole sucking us in, to our own sun dying out, not to mention more local catastrophies as well, from global warming to ice ages to super volcanoes errupting. And at least we dreamed, we peering into the cosmos as far as we could while we were here. (We also kicked the shite out of each other for reasons both noble and insignificant and confusing and psychotic as one could name.)

Ingersoll summed it up, "Bar me from the garden of Eden if you must, but I am going to bite the apple of knowledge first."

paul said...

God could have created us to be equal to God. If God was lonely, why not create someone who could measure up and provide some real companionship? Why, instead of creating us to look like God, did God not create us to be like God?