# How does a Creationist explain disease? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 9, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238 "2010-01-09T02:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/1 "2010-01-09T02:26:32Z")
If Sin brought in death and disease, then how does creationists explain the existance of infectious diseases? Did Tuberculosis, HIV, Ringworm, Malaria and prions existed before or after the fall? ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/2 "2010-01-09T02:30:30Z")
There’s a catch all for any sort of religious question that’s hard to answer: God works in mysterous ways. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/3 "2010-01-09T02:38:40Z")
There aren’t many creationists who post in the forum, but maybe you’ll be lucky and one of the few will pop in with an answer. I hope you’re not expecting to debate someone out of his beliefs by posing this question, because it won’t happen. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/4 "2010-01-09T02:52:27Z")
The thing is if you ask why god did something or other, you get the answer that we cannot know the mind of god, that god thinks in mysterious ways, etc. But that doesn’t stop the religious folk from certaintly that god hates homosexuality, premarital sex, abortion, etc. and loves capital punishment (even though murderers have been permitted to murder by an omniscient being). Don’t expect a coherent answer to your question. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/5 "2010-01-09T02:55:17Z")
I believe the answer that they’d give is that pathogens lived in some sort of symbiotic relationship with us (even viruses) prior to the Fall. God’s original purpose for viruses was just to support horizontal gene transfer or something (they’re quite vague about exactly why this is necessary and why god couldn’t achieve the same thing using safer methods, but what do you expect). I regularly visit _Answers in Genesis_ for a laugh, but I think the joke is on me because my brain is cluttered with useless Creationist nonsense. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/6 "2010-01-09T03:19:02Z")
I’ve always understood that they consider disease and all other forms of suffering as punishment for the Fall in the Garden of Eden and/or our later collective sins. God is something of a terrorist. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/7 "2010-01-09T03:53:16Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve always understood that they consider disease and all other forms of suffering as punishment for the Fall in the Garden of Eden and/or our later collective sins. God is something of a terrorist. _Everything_ bad in life is just Yahweh punising us for Adam & Eve’s disobedience and/or testing our faith in him. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/8 "2010-01-09T04:14:54Z")
Learning about parasites is something that really tested Darwin’s faith in God. [http://www.darwin-literature.com/l\_quotes.html](http://www.darwin-literature.com/l_quotes.html) “I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created parasitic wasps with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of Caterpillars” So my assumption is they have no answer. Most creationists I’ve met aren’t creationists because they’ve examined the issue and think it offers real answers, it is more the fall back, de facto answer people of a certain faith and lifestyle tend to give. I doubt they have put much serious thought into the validity of creationism or why/how something like disease would factor. Now the more serious creationists (the ones who not only believe it, but research it) might give a different answer. But I have no idea what. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/9 "2010-01-09T04:42:30Z")
> [@BluePitbull](#): > > If Sin brought in death and disease, then how does creationists explain the existance of infectious diseases? Did Tuberculosis, HIV, Ringworm, Malaria and prions existed before or after the fall? I suggest the book The Genesis of Germs, by Dr Allen Gillen, for a Creationist position. I believe his premise is that not only are pathogens the result of sin and the Curse; they also point to Creationism itself and Intelligent Design. I have not read the book. I might also suggest Answers in Genesis: [http://www.answersingenesis.org/](http://www.answersingenesis.org/) for a quick resource if you are interested in the Creationist position on various topics. And [Microbe Forum at AiG—the first meeting of creation microbiologist | Answers in Genesis](http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/08/14/microbe-forum-at-aig) e.g. On a slightly related topic, I’m not sure what the Creationist position is on carnivores, pre-Fall. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/10 "2010-01-09T04:50:10Z")
One more Creationist effort to address this: **Creation Microbiology and the Origin of Disease** Joseph W. Francis, The Master’s College, Santa Clarita, California \*"Many pathogenic microbes appear to be altered when compared to non-disease-causing microbes. Creationists suggest that this alteration may have occurred as a result of the Fall. However, some microbes may cause disease not because they are altered in some fashion (through genetic changes) but because they have spread to a location which allows them to invade an organism they were not created to interact with. Consider, for instance, the cholera-causing bacterium Vibrio cholera. This bacterium secretes several factors which are involved in virulence. However, some of these same virulence factors have been show to promote growth of V. cholera on chitin. Chitin is the most abundant polysaccharide in the ocean because it is a major component of many exosekeleton-bearing sea creatures like shrimp, lobster, and crabs. V. cholera and other Vibrio species appear to be intricately involved in the degratory cycle of chitin and appear more fit for this environment than other locations in which they are found. The Vibrio cholera–induced breakdown of chitin promotes a major influx of carbon into the ocean environment. Several events must occur to move V. cholera from the chitin-rich environment into a location whereby they cause disease in humans. For instance, V. cholera is found off the coasts of many countries but cholera occurs as an epidemic in only a few locations. In addition, epidemics tend to take place after the occurrence of certain extreme weather conditions. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that cholera toxin, which causes major loss of salts from the human body, may promote life-sustaining salt metabolism changes in sea creatures which move from fresh water to salt water environments. From a creation view, it appears, then, that the origin of microbial based disease has at least two primary causes, (1) post-Fall genetic alteration of the original good microbe and/or (2) post-Fall displacement or movement of the microbe from the site where it performed its beneficial function. This work was first presented at the fifth annual meeting of the Creation Biology Study Group (Francis 2006)."\* (emphasis mine) > **[Proceedings of the Microbe Forum, June 2007](https://answersresearchjournal.org/microbe-forum-june-2007/)** > > For many years the roles of microbes as part of God’s wonderful design have been neglected. Perhaps it is because many people associate microbes as the cause of death, disease, and suffering. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/11 "2010-01-09T05:03:34Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > On a slightly related topic, I’m not sure what the Creationist position is on carnivores, pre-Fall. I’ve always heard it claimed they ate plants; googling, I find [this:](http://www.answersincreation.org/teeth.htm) > [@](#): > > In the garden of Eden, man and beast were given plants to eat as their food. This is critical to the belief of a young earth creationist. If carnivores were given plants to eat, then they must have eaten only plants. This is why they believe there was no death before the Fall of man, because even the carnivores were plant-eaters. > > ``` > I agree, the Bible clearly states that all animals were given the plants of the earth to eat. However, the interpretation of this verse to mean that "all animals" did in fact eat nothing but grass causes a huge problem for the young-earth creationist. The problem it raises is this…if all the animals were created as plant-eaters, then there must have been lions, tigers, etc., that had molar teeth for chewing plants. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/12 "2010-01-09T05:05:05Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > On a slightly related topic, I’m not sure what the Creationist position is on carnivores, pre-Fall. As has been pointed out, most Creationists don’t think about such things. But the _rationalisation_ by those that (non-objectively) think about it, is: “There were no carnivores in the garden of eden. Sure, tyrannosaurus rex had big teeth, but they were used for eating carrots or whatever. The Fall made animals eat one another”. One of the “proofs” has been the recent find of an “almost vegetarian” spider (spiders were thought to all be carnivorous). So…erm, there you have it: proof. **On edit:** I see I was beaten to the punch. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/13 "2010-01-09T05:26:09Z")
You could fill an entire book or website up with questions like this. And people have. How does a creationist explain… - domesticated forms differing from their wild ancestors in some cases so as to be almost unrecognizable - vestigial organs - seemingly bad design in humans and animals that only makes sense because evolution has to fiddle with relics from the past - molecular DNA evidence - fossils arranged as if evolution were true - the geographic distribution of animals in both the present and the past - the blatant evolution in the fossil record of birds, horses, whales, humans, fish/amphibians…is God playing a trick on us? - the waste and suffering in natural ecosystems, forget about man’s suffering since apparently the rib woman is to blame, but why is nature so amoral and insanely competitive? - what’s the point of the designer making ecosystems that man will never touch or care about 99% of the time? Like deep sea volcanic vents or single celled organisms living a mile underground? Why is most of life microscopic? Why are there are so many beetles? etc. Have you ever seen a YEC try to argue against the wealth of cosmological and geographic evidence that the universe is ancient? High comedy. Heck, 6000 years? This is after the invention of agriculture! Or the domestication of the dog and cat. Don’t tree rings go back at least 10K years? Sheesh. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/14 "2010-01-09T05:32:54Z")
Last geographic should’ve been geologic. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/15 "2010-01-09T06:03:59Z")
The same way they explain everything: With nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/16 "2010-01-09T17:07:22Z")
I’ve always felt natural disasters like earthquakes and hurricanes are a more problematic thing for Creationists to explain than disease ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/17 "2010-01-09T17:17:30Z")
God’s a sick fuck? Especially for the parasitic wasps. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/18 "2010-01-09T19:21:06Z")
> [@Mijin](#): > > I believe the answer that they’d give is that pathogens lived in some sort of symbiotic relationship with us (even viruses) prior to the Fall. It’s not in the evolutionary interests of a microbe to harm its host. I’m not a young earth creationist, but I often play one in arguments for the simple reason that self-important arrogant little darwinists get right on my wick. I’m a Vedic man myself, but I’ve spent enough time listening to creationists to have some of the arguments down, and this isn’t a strong anti-creatonist argument. Not like fossils, anyway. Creationists hate fossils. But yeah, the creationist explanation of pathogens is extremely similar to that of evolutionists: once-nice microbes gone bad, mostly infecting humans from other species as a result of domestication. Evolutionists see it as the filling of a gap in the gene market, creationists as random mutation causing an inevitable degradation of the original perfect creation. ---
**Author:** ![blindboyard](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blindboyard/32/2833_2.png) [@blindboyard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blindboyard)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/19 "2010-01-09T19:25:58Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I’ve always understood that they consider disease and all other forms of suffering as punishment for the Fall in the Garden of Eden and/or our later collective sins. God is something of a terrorist. Is god a terrorist because he makes your head hurt when you repeatedly bang it on a brick wall? I’m a Christian but I don’t buy all that “God’s omnipotent” rubbish. He’s set the universe going, not in my view in the last six thousand years, but at some point, and has set some rules for it. The clockwork notion. Obviously he’s omniscient, so this goes a long way, but he’s not omnipotent in the “making something so heavy even he can’t lift it” sense. So if humans do something stupid it stands to reason he wouldn’t be intervening. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2010, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238/20 "2010-01-09T19:27:59Z")
> [@blindboyard](#): > > It’s not in the evolutionary interests of a microbe to harm its host. Not true at all. If the microbe can survive and reproduce and spread more efficiently by killing its host, then doing so is in its evolutionary interests. > [@blindboyard](#): > > I’m not a young earth creationist, but I often play one in arguments for the simple reason that self-important arrogant little darwinists get right on my wick. And what exactly does that even mean? > [@blindboyard](#): > > But yeah, the creationist explanation of pathogens is extremely similar to that of evolutionists: once-nice microbes gone bad, mostly infecting humans from other species as a result of domestication. But that’s not the “evolutionist” explanation. Rather the opposite; “nice” microbes are considered more likely to have started out dangerous. And “evolutionist” is a creationist term, by the way. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-does-a-creationist-explain-disease/524238.md?page=2)