Francisco J. Ayala: The Christian Man’s Nonsense

He has stories and examples at the ready, even a shock tactic or two at his fingertips. One out of five pregnancies ends in spontaneous miscarriage, he often reminds audiences. Next he will pointedly ask, as in an interview with U.S. Catholic magazine last year, “If God explicitly designed the human reproductive system, is God the biggest abortionist of them all?” Through such examples, he explains, “I want to turn around their arguments”

1- God explicitly Created Adam and Eve’s reproductive system. All others are replicated from that first Creation.
2- The Fall from Grace
3- No one said that God's creations had to be perfect
4- And even if it started out perfect no one is saying it had to remain that way

The article goes on to say:

Nature is poorly designed- with oddities such as blind spots built into the human eye an excess of teeth jammed into our jaws.

The "claim" that "nature is poorly designed" is nothing but a bald assertion.

Those "blind spots" do not stop us from playing sports that count on hand-eye coordination. And I have NEVER heard of an accident that was caused by said blindspots.

My wisdom teeth came in OK.

And if these people think they can do better than let thjem have at it or shut up.

Natural selection can explain the ruthlessness of nature, Ayala argues, and remove the "evil"- requiring an intentional act of free will- from the living world

Natural selection doesn't explain anything. We see as much cooperation in the living world as we do the alleged cruelty of predators.

Evil and suffering are God's way to judge us- that iwe are judged by the way we handle evil and suffering.

Now for an oxymoron:

He refers to science-savy Christian theologians who present a God that is continuously engaged in the creative process through unguided natural selection.

If God is using NS to create then it isn't unguided.

And if God did us blind, unguided processes then there isn't any difference between that God and no God at all.

The bottom line is if you are a Christian the odds are that you are so because of the Bible. You cannot pick and choose which parts of the Bible you choose to believe. And the Fall is one of those items that Ayala seems to have forgotten.

Hopefully I will get to hear this guy speak. Then I will turn his strawmen around on him and see how he reacts.