Scurvy is a disease that most animals cannot catch. It’s caused by a nutritional deficiency of ascorbic acid (aka Vitamin C). Other animals, besides primates, can make their own ascorbic acid within their own bodies using only glucose, because they have a particular gene which codes for an enzyme called L-gulonolactone oxidase.
This gene can also be found in the human genome, except that it’s broken, and doesn’t code for anything. It’s not even parsed when assembling proteins in the cell.
Consult image:
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7052/gulo.png
If you believe that your god created humanity, how do you justify the fact that the human genome contains a broken copy of the gene we’d need to avoid catching scurvy, and which most other mammals possess a working copy of? Why would your god deny humans resistance to a disease that almost all other animals are resistant to?
If you believe it is because of sin, then why do even people who have been absolved of all sin have this genetic deficiency, PLUS then who do some non-humans have the same deficiency when only humans can sin?
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religions aren’t medicines, they’re beliefs.
No amount of science, logic or reasoning will replace the GAWD’s sexy and powerful magiks!
Scurvy is the FSM’s only plague on Mankind.
Here come a mass amount of illogical answers from silly christians.
With pirates.
oh me oh my, ill tell you when i get one
God is a big fan of oranges.
Do you know many people who get scurvy. What does it matter that we have that broken gene as you say? We have a way to combat this disease and that is vitamin C which God does give us. Plus I don’t have to justify anything. I am not one to question my Creator.
I understand your question and I realize the implications. This isn’t the only inconsistency with a “loving God” that I’ve found, but I assure you that you’ll get no satisfactory answer. I’ll tell you right now, it’s because “God has a divine purpose for everything that our human minds cannot understand.”
First, as we saw in the previous article, there must be a radical change in the present system. And God promised that there will be! He purposes to change our “earth,” completely removing all present kingdoms, or governments. He will accomplish this by means of his own government, as the Bible says: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be brought to ruin. And the kingdom . . . will crush and put an end to all [the existing] kingdoms, and it itself will stand to times indefinite.”—Dan. 2:44.
But how can a change of government rid our bodies of the pains that so often afflict them? It can do so because of the wisdom and power of the one that God has chosen to head his government, Jesus Christ. Of him, a Bible prophecy says: “The government shall be upon his shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end.” (Isa. 9:6, 7, Authorized Version) A person with such authority can use his knowledge of the needs of the human body to prevent painful diseases.
An experience of the British fleet in the eighteenth century illustrates how this may come about. The dreaded ‘scurvy infection’ ravaged the seamen, killing thousands yearly. Their gums would swell and bleed, their teeth would become loose, soreness and stiffness would develop in their joints and lower extremities. But then it was discovered that something vital was missing from their diet—foods containing vitamin C. So when lemon juice, and later lime juice, was made part of the regulation diet of British seamen, no longer did they suffer and die of scurvy.
The story is similar regarding the painful, deadly disease beriberi. It was discovered some years ago that among people who depend largely on a rice diet, those who ate polished rice developed beriberi, while those who ate unrefined rice did not. Thus the knowledge that rice hulls contain a vital substance, more recently identified as thiamine, made possible the control of painful, and often fatal, beriberi.
But the knowledge and wisdom of Jesus Christ, now resurrected in heaven, is far greater than that of any earthly physician. He fully understands the workings of our physical bodies, as he has proven. While he was a man on earth over 1,900 years ago he cured the worst of diseases and afflictions, thus demonstrating what he will do on a larger scale as ruler of God’s kingdom. Of one instance, the Bible says:
“Then great crowds approached him, having along with them people that were lame, maimed, blind, dumb, and many otherwise, and they fairly threw them at his feet, and he cured them; so that the crowd felt amazement as they saw the dumb speaking and the lame walking and the blind seeing.”—Matt. 15:30, 31.
Greeting. Raphaël.
Luckily you seem smart enough to know where to find Vitamin C so you don’t get scurvy….if not, let me know I can help you with that. Luckily my poor dog doesn’t have a Vitamin C deficiency because I know he doesn’t know where to find it. I know this answer will be mocked, but I’m just going to say it anyway, even if you don’t care. I don’t know why God would have made us susceptible to this disease…but there’s a lot of things about God I don’t know. I believe that disease is just part of humanity and that there are millions of diseases we can catch…it’s just part of being human. Call me naive but I believe this life is a test, and part of that test is getting sick and having to deal with that and not losing faith in God or Christ when we do. I don’t think we get sick just because we sin…we’re human, our bodies aren’t perfect…but at the same time they are just amazing enough to make me believe they were created by a God who knew what he was doing. I just think that God loves us and there is a purpose to everything…even if we don’t know why now, we will someday.
Other animals haven’t been given the ability to reason, and have a limited source of nutrition.
Too much vitaminc can cause other problems.
We have the ability to balance that. If all we have to do is use the reasoning that God gave us to prevent it then we haven’t been denied the resistance.
What we have been denied is the likelihood of ending up with another problem due to too much vitaminc because it’s designed to be a part of our regular diet- like gastritis diahrrea and gastro intestinal bleeding