Human Digestion & The Fall

I’ll just say find it interesting you consider eating food to be a defect in design (if indeed we are designed). Personally I enjoy the process and am glad God included it.

I think the OP offers a good question. And for those who might like to try to answer it, here's another; Why did God create man to digest only plant materials, then later tell man that it was okay to consume animal flesh, knowing that this would be a detriment to man's health?

He never claimed anything of the sort.

The question is why an intelligent designer would have to create an entire host of symbiotic species, on which our survival depends.

Here's hoping I can get some honest responses.

Currently, humans rely on a few hundred species of symbiotic bacteria to perform various tasks. One of those is the complete digestion of carbohydrates. Since glucose is by far our primary source of cellular energy, and since obtaining glucose requires completely digesting carbohydrates, it follows that we need these gut bacteria to survive.

Here I will assume that the standard creationist answer to the question, "Why should a well-designed organism need a symbiote to provide it with energy?" is, "Because of the Fall."

So then my question is: What happened? When the Fall removed Adam's ability to digest carbohydrates what did he do? Grab a handful of E. coli from the nearest petri dish and swallow it, hoping they would survive the acid bath in his stomach? Did God install them, thereby replacing the digestive capacity He had just removed? Something else?

Just a little sarcasm to get my point across. It wasn’t meant to be insulting. I’m sorry if it was. BTW I believe sarcasm was prelapsarian also. Oops, did it again. You’re probably hating me about now.

I’ll just say find it interesting you consider eating food to be a defect in design (if indeed we are designed). Personally I enjoy the process and am glad God included it.

It’s almost as if you’re saying anything less that God duplicating Himself would be a defect in design. Any limits to man are bad somehow.

I do remember seeing a thread on another board that began along the following lines:-

"If there was no death before the Fall then did Adam fart?"

I did not follow the thread at all. It did generate some discussion I think.

Your thread starter reminded me of that one.

He actually did. Read his other posts.

"Why should a well-designed organism need a symbiote to provide it with energy?"

You may find it interesting that while the Bible condones meat in does not condone excess meat consumption like we practice today. There are actually passages warning against the gluttonous consumption of meat. The healthiest diets according to the experts I’ve heard are low protein, high complex carbs and veggies. From what I've heard the vegan diets aren't a good idea. And there are many experts that believe the kosher diet saved the Israelites from several diseases their neighboring nations suffered.

The 'eating food' business is a red herring. We can abstract the problem out as far as we like and, as you say, end up at 'Why are we not God-clones' rhetoric.

What I consider bizarre about your carbohydrate digestion apologetic can be summarized as follows:

1) We need to be able to digest carbohydrates in order to obtain glucose.

2) We can not natively digest carbohydrates.

If bacteria symbiosis strikes you as a prefectly intuitive way for an omnipotent being to implement carbohdrate digestion in a clean-slate design, then I do not think you can help me.

As you pointed out above, one could object to the need for carbohydrates themselves.