Plagues/Disease & Benevolence

How does a believer rationalize benevolence in the face of large scale plagues or diseases/viruses? Tuberculosis killed 1 in 7 people who had ever lived by about 1900. We forget with all of our modern vaccines for influenza, polio, etc, how prevalent disease and plague has been throughout human history. And it’s not just the death - but many times, the long and painful suffering until death comes.

If one assumes that there is no god, then plagues make more sense.

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I have heard that half of all the humans that have ever lived died of malaria.

I’m not sure if that’s true.

I dont know either but the amount of people who used to die from diseases that are virtually non existent now is staggering.

The black plague is estimated to have killed half of Europe and over 100,000,000 people in a very short window

Malaria still kills 500,000-1,000,000 people a year.

These days, the bubonic plague kills less than 10 people a year.

(Yes, the plague still exists. But it’s very treatable today)

Nasty stuff.

Consequences of the choice our first parents made.

Sin caused the black plague?

Sin is at the root of all of mankind’s suffering.

Nope. Consequences of a God who told Adam and Eve that he’d kill them if they disobeyed him. Then, instead of killing him, he piles on the vengeance with curses on generations yet unborn who had nothing to do with this “original sin.”

Consequences of getting on the wrong side of a psycho, basically.

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Is sin a “force” outside of human choice? What is the “force” of sin that causes disease? Idk if the question is framed right…si hope you get what I’m asking

Sin caused the downfall and the change of perfect to imperfect and with it the defects that enabled disease.

This is outside of my pay grade, but I’ll do my best to postulate how it may work.

“Sin” is the “living outside of God’s will.”

It’s simple enough that it doesn’t mean anything. “God’s will” is impossible to know, as we cannot know the mind of God, therefore it’s also impossible to know what actually constitutes a sin.

But we’re all sinners. We’re all living outside of God’s will when he created the Earth 6000 years ago (kidding). When Adam and Eve sinned way way way long ago, they set all of mankind on a path of living outside of God’s will for the planet.

We can assume that if there was no “sin” in the world, there would be no death. Adam lived for 930 years, but had he not eaten from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, he would have lived forever. Human lifespans have been shortened tremendously from being immortal, to living 900 years, to living barely 90. We should be able to reasonably conclude this is the result of there being more sin in the world.

Although it’s impossible for us to get back to God’s original plan for humanity (although, I would love to learn how to live forever by being spiritual enough), we are still able to try to live in how we believe God would want us to act. It probably won’t help us live any longer, but it might help the people who we interact with have a slightly better life, and that will probably be reflected onto ourselves in some way.

No he said they would die. So they started dying as soon as they sinned.

In the meantime we are allowed to try and see if we can find a way of life that fixes all our problems.

Ahh you’re saying that sin didnt create the disease so much as it affected our body’s ability to fight it?

Thanks. If sin is a decision to live a certain way, why would it affect our genetic ability to fight off disease?

It’s not about you personally. It’s about mankind’s decision to act a certain way. If mankind acted differently, we would have no wars and would probably have much longer lifespans.

You have to remember. Before sin, people didn’t die. Even though Adam inflicted sin upon the Earth, he still lived for 930 years. Because of all the accumulated sin, we’re barely pushing 90 now.

It would affect how we fight harmful organisms but our entire eco system also changed.

Sin would have changed the biology of man. All it would take is that sin altering mankind on the cellular.

For example in my early 20s I had cancer and one of the drugs I took alot of to fight it was cisplatin. It causes changes at the cellular level and has been shown to increase the rate of aging.

Adams sin apparently affected not only him but the DNA he passed on. So we basically have imperfect or sinful nature or bodies.

Cisplatin causes scarring

There you go.

Scientists should look into that. You might be onto something.