Alzheimer's Illness, God and Science: Who Get's the Credit for a Cure?

Shygetz does it again. Here he is in top form responding to a Christian named Leslie F Massucco (LFM), who attempted to share why God allows Alzheimer's:

LFM: Maybe this disease was everyone’s lesson on how much we can learn to be patient, kind, and use our ability to stretch our capacity of love and except and embrace our love ones, even if they changed into different people.

The person suffering from the disease doesn't get to learn this lovely lesson. So God is making that person suffer because you needed to learn how to be nice. Is that justice from your just God?

LFM: Happy can be relative in any form, and when he was ready, and our souls grew, he took them home.

Sure, happiness is relative, but what does that have to do with anything? You're saying that God made your father ill so you could learn to be more happy than when he first got the illness, but still less happy than before he got sick? And that's a good thing? And that lesson was worth your father's suffering? Wow. Just, wow.

According to your Bible, when Jesus walked the Earth, he cured people of disease rather than let them learn their lesson from God. Sometimes He did it reluctantly (Matthew 15:21-28), apparently changing His mind during the process--if Christ had wanted to show His glory or some such, why would he be reluctant? Why shouldn't God want to show His glory by healing the AD patients? Where was your father's miracle cure?

You don't think, somewhere in your darkest heart of hearts, that this is just a terribly transparent post hoc rationalization of a tragic event? I mean, seriously, how ornate a shape are you willing to twist into to avoid coming to the obvious conclusion; there is no lesson that could be learned this way that an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God could not teach you more kindly in some other manner. Hell, he could make Alzheimer's curable by love--therefore, once you learned your "lesson", you father would be well again. But Alzheimer's is not curable by love. It is fatal, both directly and indirectly, and currently incurable. Here endeth the lesson.

If and when the cure comes, I guarantee you it won't be from the prayers of the faithful or the wisdom of the Church. It will be from the hard work of scientists and medical doctors, most of whom will either be non-believers or believers in the "wrong" religion, well-funded by charitable people and government. Next time you drop your tithe into the tray at church, think about that. They promise you miracles; we are the only ones actually bringing in the results.

And when that cure finally comes down, you and those like you will fall to your knees and humbly thank a God who sat on high for millennia and did nothing about it while multitudes of families were destroyed, both emotionally and financially, by this disease. Yet you will not hold Him accountable for his millenia of inaction, but merely give Him credit for His invisible, inaudible, and completely indetectable role in finding the cure now. Meanwhile, you won't be able to even name a single scientist who actually did the work to bring the cure about.

All the while, some of you will continue to struggle long and hard to ensure that the next generation of scientists are unable to ever find cures like that because they were never able to learn the foundations of biological science, being as they are in conflict with the more literal interpretations of the Bible.

Sometimes in my darker moments, I think that there should be an "opt-out" contract presented to people before they go in for evidence-based medical care. Either you're in the Enlightenment, or you can go down the street to the barber and have him bleed you with leeches. You can't have both.

20 comments:

Jamie Steele said...

God never no where promised to heal everyone.
Jesus didn't heal everyone in the Bible.
The Bible says sickness comes to the just and the unjust.
Jesus said "In this world you will have tribulation."

You guys still portray God as Joel Osteens Grandpaw.
Sitting in his rocking chair handing out suckers to his children.

Sorry that god is not in the Bible.

15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion.”[f] 16 So then it is not of him who wills, nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”[g] 18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens.
19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who has resisted His will?” 20 But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” 21 Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
Romans 9
-This is the God of the Bible.

Rich said...

So you are saying, Jamie, that God picks and chooses who he will save and who he won't, he shapes us like pottery to either honor or dishonor him? What then is the purpose of religion if we have no say in how we are shaped? I believe this is the very view of god that countless posts on this site alone are questioning. I'm not sure that from this passage alone i understand what kind of god you are saying the God of the bible is, because this seems to be pointing to a God who doesn't allow free will, but rather picks and chooses those he will save on some sort of whim.

Spontaneous Order said...

That was well said Shygetz. Nice job.

Jamie, I think the writer is suggesting that should be the god of the Bible.

I always consider it kind of ironic, that the God who gave us the parable of the good samaritan doesn't seem to practice the moral implicit there. Though with being all powerful it wouldn't even be the blink of an eye.

I for one would be willing to trade some of the more distant solar systems for say no infant mortality if it is a question of heavenly resources. Maybe a little less effort on counting the hairs on my head and watching each sparrow fall from the sky.

Barry

Jamie Steele said...

the God who gave us the parable of the good samaritan doesn't seem to practice the moral implicit there.

-God practiced the moral implicit by sending his Son to die for their sins.
But those people rejected Him so they are responsible for their sins.....

Can't have it both ways..

Shygetz said...

You guys still portray God as Joel Osteens Grandpaw.
Sitting in his rocking chair handing out suckers to his children.


No, Christians portray Him as such--it's the "omnibenevolent" part of the tri-omni God. Heck, read the post that incited this response; it's claiming that God made her dad sick to graciously teach someone some kind of lesson. This delusion is the Christians' sickness, not ours. I agree with you--the God of the Bible is a dick.

-God practiced the moral implicit by sending his Son to die for their sins.

Let's say I believe you. So you're saying for roughly 100,000 years, God sat back and did nothing while the human race suffered, struggled, and died in terrible agony. Then, he finally decided to get off His behind and do something about the pain and suffering. So, He sends His son to a dusty part of a backwards region of a huge empire in a larger world, has him cure only a handfull of people, then puts His son in the hands of His religious fanatics to be knowingly killed, then blames the whole world, including generations unborn, for the death He knew would occur from the very beginning of time? And since God did this great and loving act, the entire world, including generations unborn, deserves all of this suffering? That is benevolence? That is justice?!? I think not. (hat tip to C. Hitchens).

Jamie Steele said...

(hat tip to C. Hitchens).
No wonder you think like you do.

Sad, Sad.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

-apparently you are not -the whoever...

And that is your choice you are responsible for. Good luck with it.

Shygetz said...

Wow jamie, that was stunning logic supported by well-sourced, airtight evidence that completely eviscerated my argument.

How about you address the argument rather than ignore it? You might find more success that way. The fact that I got it from Hitchens in no way alters its validity, positively or negatively.

Oh, wait, you put in an irrelevant Bible passage. I guess that does count as an argument in your circles. Sorry, but this ain't your Sunday School class; argumentum ad Bible beatium garners no respect here.

Jamie Steele said...

you put in an irrelevant Bible passage

That is your opinion and you are vastly in the minority on it...

I guess I could have listed some science myth and you would accept that as fact...........

goprairie said...

Pastor Steele and other christians also like to wrap up a discussion with vague threats of hell and damnation like this: "And that is your choice you are responsible for. Good luck with it." Endearing, isn't it? Scared you right back to Jesus?

Anonymous said...

Jamie, stay focused and on topic, okay?

A minority opinion says nothing about the truth. And when it comes to the Bible Don't Quote Homer to me!

When it comes to some science "myth," what could you possibly mean? You yourself rely on science every single day. You yourself are skeptical about miraculous claims and you use your own scientific mindset to reject them. If you had heard of Balaam's tale you would not believe him unless you personally heard his ass speak! Just think about how that story got into the Bible. Someone had to believe him. But why should he?

You'll say because God told someone in a vision to include it, but why should anyone but the person who saw such a vision believe that God did? And aren't visions subjective? Don't you know of Pentecostals who claim God spoke to them. Even other Pentecostals don't believe every such claim, and you probably deny most of them.

Evan said...

the God who gave us the parable of the good samaritan doesn't seem to practice the moral implicit there.

The parable of the good Samaritan is not present in the earliest copies of the Gospel of Luke. When did God give us this parable?

you put in an irrelevant Bible passage

So you referenced a passage that's not even in the Bible ... how's that?

Jamie Steele said...

When it comes to some science "myth," what could you possibly mean?

-Hate to get off topic John
But answer me this?
Where did matter come from?
Where did energy come from?
Where did .....come from?
Just fill in the blanks and take a leap of faith and you have what this board calls facts.

You men and women have a lot of FAITH.
-We are not that much different after all.

Michael Ejercito said...

Can anyone explain why the Lord of Lords and King of Kings should stop Alzheimer's?

What is He, a doctor or something?

Michael Ejercito said...


I always consider it kind of ironic, that the God who gave us the parable of the good samaritan doesn't seem to practice the moral implicit there.

He is of a superior nature to us, so that Good samritan stuff does not apply to Him.

Michael Ejercito said...


No, Christians portray Him as such--it's the "omnibenevolent" part of the tri-omni God.

Then they are wrong.

God is Lord of Lords and King of Kings. Submit or be tormented forever in the lake of fire.

kilo papa said...

michael ejercito said:
"God is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.Submit or be tormented forever in the lake of fire."
Can I hear a "Praise Jeezuus!!!"?
Man,that JesusLove sure is sweet!

goprairie said...

The unrelenting Pastor Steele asks:
"But answer me this?
Where did matter come from?
Where did energy come from?
Where did .....come from?"
I don't think science has answered this yet. We have bits and peicesw but not the whole answer to origins. So you want us to throw up our hands and say "Oh, all right, God!" But there is no evidence for God now or in the past that stands up to reasonable tests for existence. I would rather be content to answer "I don't know" to those questions than to attribute them to a god for which there has been no other evidence since. Science might have answers some day, but your god will never show his face because he does not exist and never did.

Evan said...

"But answer me this?
Where did matter come from?
Where did energy come from?
Where did .....come from?"


One is reminded of the infinite "why" regress of a 3 year old.

Jamie Steele said...

One is reminded of the infinite "why" regress of a 3 year old.

I other words you don't know but you place your faith in it.

I had rather have my religion than yours!

Evan said...

I had rather have my religion than yours!

Once again you insult and put words in my mouth. I don't have a religion. You can't handle that and try to pretend that everyone is like you.

But we're not.

Secondly, I would rather believe that there is a wonderful world where there is no suffering and war and everybody loves one another. But even you would agree that just because I wanted the world to be that way, it wouldn't make it so.

I'm so tired of you putting words in my mouth Jamie.

Please stick to your own beliefs. If you wish to assert that I have a belief, assert it with evidence. You have faith in something you have no evidence for. I don't. You have a religion, I don't.

It is fine with me that you have a religion and faith. All my family and friends are religious people with faith and we get along fine. But none of them try to tell me I'm like them, they know me well enough to know I'm not.