Is COVID-19 Created or Designed?

Consider COVID-19 with Behe. If God created all things, then in this sense He designed us all. Still, creation is not design and design is not creation.

1 Like

I’d just like to add that there’s zero evidence viruses were designed by anyone or anything. Nor created.

2 Likes

@Rumraket

Naturally, Christians on this list are free to ignore this viewpoint as fundamentally irreligious.

But completely scientific.

1 Like

Ignoring viewpoints because they’re irreligious strikes me a recipe for believing nonsense. I’d rather believe something because it’s true than because it’s religious.

5 Likes

@glipsnort

Ahhhh… but notice the converse of my statement is most certainly false … as you rightly observe!

We are here because Creationists think 6 days of creation is ABUNDANTLY RELIGIOUS … and they invest abundantly in the notion.

My statement, while aggravating to most Atheists, is practically a rule of thumb for English-speaking Teinitarians! - - which I will paraphrase thusly:

“dismissing design because it is a religious view is the wrong approach”.

@swamidass has frequently discussed “id, no caps”, as compared to the politicized science movement we know as “I.D.”

@swamidass, let me try to understand this. You’re saying that God created viruses in the sense that he created the evolutionary processes that eventually resulted in them? That some becoming human pathogens is an unintended consequence?

Are you not arguing against a nonexistent viewpoint here? Who has dismissed design because it’s religious? I’ve seen people dismiss design because there is no evidence for it and because it assumes entities for which there is no evidence. But that isn’t the same, is it?

3 Likes

Can someone please explain what “God uses evolution” actually means?

4 Likes

I am saying that is a possibility, in which pathogenic viruses are created but not designed.

That God accomplish some intended purposes through evolutionary mechanisms or common descent.

I’m sorry, but your answers to all three of those questions clarified little. Could your answer to the first two questions have been a simple “yes”? And your answer to the third just rephrases the quoted statement without adding any meaning to it.

1 Like

In a possible world, yes to the first two questions.

1 Like

I think @gbrooks9 was referring to the viewpoint that there’s “zero evidence” that anything is designed nor created. As you know I don’t think there’s evidence for design in an ID sense, but as a Christian I absolutely believe that God created all things. And I’m pretty sure that I don’t need to adopt @Rumraket’s scientistic philosophy that says we need scientific evidence before concluding that God created all things.

3 Likes

What sort of diabolical evil being would take away March Madness???!!! :rage: :rage: :rage:

4 Likes

The viewpoint is NOT fundamentally irreligious. It is scientific which is neither religious or irreligious.

Your beliefs have nothing to do with whether something is true or not.

1 Like

Hard to tell what he refers to, most of the time. Anyway, you are free to believe anything through faith, and I don’t think anyone will challenge you on that. But is faith evidence? That’s where you will get argument.

I have a flight booked and tickets bought for opening day in Phoenix to watch the Braves. Just waiting for the moment when that gets cancelled as well. But I do really appreciate Bama hoops being responsible and sitting out the NCAA tournament this year…

@Patrick

Ill ponder that.

Anddddd it’s cancelled.

2 Likes

I bought tickets for the NCAAs in Cleveland back in November. :sob: