The Tease ([info]gentlemaitresse) wrote in [info]atheism,
@ 2005-09-28 17:51:00
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Post-dental checkup thoughts:

Why would a loving god have designed us so poorly that most of us are incapable of keeping our teeth all our lives? They start getting cavities in childhood, more often than not. They require care that doesn't seem intuitive; we have to teach our children to brush and floss.

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[info]verrucaria
2005-09-28 10:16 pm UTC (link)
Well, as hunter-gatherers, we'd eat less sugar and have fewer cavities.

Even so, without dental care, small problems could escalate into life-or-death situations. (Westerners definitely take their teeth for granted nowadays.) Once you lost a lot of teeth (remember: there's no dental care and no Ensure), you'd have to spend a lot of time looking for things you could eat and preparing them so that you could eat them (perhaps you'd need to enlist others' help). And if you developed a tooth infection (think of the crap that lives in our mouths), it'd probably spread and end up killing you (unless you were really smart or had a medicine-man or -woman who actually knew their shit).

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[info]verrucaria
2005-09-28 10:29 pm UTC (link)
And if you developed a tooth infection...

I guess I should've said a gum infection.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-28 11:24 pm UTC (link)
We can look at recent aboriginal groups and see that even they have dental problems.

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[info]verrucaria
2005-09-29 04:41 am UTC (link)
Well, of course. I wasn't trying to assault your point.

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[info]ras_sinister
2005-10-01 03:32 am UTC (link)
But are they eating an aboriginal diet, or an industrial junk food diet like us "civilized" folk?

I was blown away by the absurdity of some of the claims of this group and the lack of scientific rigor in the "research" that their namesake conducted as a dentist, but the Weston A. Price Foundation claims that eating a primitive diet that includes lots of organ meats and little to no sugar is the reason that a handful of ancient skulls show no signs of tooth decay. Overall I rate them as whackos, but they make some excellent points about a few topics here and there. So take what they say with a grain of sea salt.

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[info]infinitevoid
2005-09-28 10:23 pm UTC (link)
God is testing us.

Only those with perfect smiles get into heaven!

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[info]sir_gnosis
2005-09-28 10:30 pm UTC (link)
I've never had a cavity in my life. Does that mean I go to heaven?

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[info]roselady
2005-09-28 10:33 pm UTC (link)
Not to mention all four of my impacted wisdom teeth that have to be removed because theyre GROWING INTO my other teeth. "Wisdom" tooth my ass.

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[info]pinstripe_bindi
2005-09-28 11:09 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, what poorly-skilled god would design those? I had surgery to remove mine before they even came in, because they could tell from x-rays they were growing like, sideways.

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...
[info]punkdan
2005-09-28 11:12 pm UTC (link)
God must love me, all 4 of mine are in and doing just fine. :)

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[info]roselady
2005-09-28 11:21 pm UTC (link)
The same one that would come up with a wild plot of creating humans as flawed creatures, then punishing them for it?

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-28 11:25 pm UTC (link)
Ha ha! Exactly!

I love this community. :-)

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Unintelligible Design
[info]tremonius
2005-09-29 12:05 am UTC (link)
Impacted, yes, that's standard. But they can be yanked out, said my dentist a long time ago, because they actually are a mistake. We don't need them. They're like nipples on men. What's that about? And little toes and the appendix. All to be jettisoned in the new model. Merely a design flaw. Like life itself.

I mean, what's the point of all this wonderful development so it can convert to compost?

I'll take my answer in the next life.

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Re: Unintelligible Design
[info]roselady
2005-09-29 12:12 am UTC (link)
The nipples on men thing I get, because supposedly all embryos are female before theyre fertilized with the male chromosone. I agree with you on the rest, humans are evolving after all.

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[info]skorry
2005-09-29 12:15 am UTC (link)
From what I understand, wisdom teeth were designed to come in later in life, after the person had already lost teeth from decay or injury or whatever. This would mean the person would still have some teeth late in life. I've also heard modern humans have smaller jaws but we haven't evolved out of having those extra teeth.

So if early humans (who probably didn't live long into their 30s or 40s) lost most of their teeth, growing out four new molars in their 20s would permit them to keep eating solids.

In any case I'm citing evolution for giving us the extra teeth and eventually making them go away.

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[info]roselady
2005-09-29 12:17 am UTC (link)
The thing that doesnt make sense is that the wisdom teeth are actually the weakest. One of them actualy shattered in my mouth while eating a ham sandwhich, and my dentist made me watch this documentary about how much wisdom teeth suck.

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[info]skorry
2005-09-29 12:22 am UTC (link)
On that point, I'm not so sure. My dentist once told me humans will probably evolve out of wisdom teeth some day. Perhaps wisdom teeth are becoming weak and useless before they disappear altogether?

That's rampant speculation, to be fair.

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[info]roselady
2005-09-29 12:29 am UTC (link)
Either way, I wish mine hadnt grown in, so maybe it's for the best. Though i think it's interesting. Human bodies are starting to loose their fur, but humans keep trying to keep from getting thinning hair on their heads... I wonder how that will evolve.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 12:30 am UTC (link)
What would cause them to disappear?

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[info]skorry
2005-09-29 01:20 am UTC (link)
A lack of space in the jaw, probably. Also, modern dental care usually makes them unnecessary, though I'm not sure if that's an overriding factor in evolution selecting that trait to vanish.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 01:29 am UTC (link)
A lack of space in the jaw simply leads to them being impacted and requiring surgery.

The only way I can see them evolving away is if people like me, who have tiny little wisdom teeth that don't need to be removed, breed with others like me. Then perhaps our children would inherit this trait. If there were some good reason for us to look for that quality in a mate, then maybe in a few thousand years we'd all have tiny wisdom teeth that don't need to be removed.

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[info]skorry
2005-09-29 01:40 am UTC (link)
Fair enough. This all started with speculation on my part, so I will freely suggest I could be wrong. I'm mostly going with what my dentist has said while he's poking about my molars.

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[info]tremonius
2005-09-29 03:09 am UTC (link)
What caused our gills and flippers to disappear?

A superior design appeared quite by accident. Hey, this ballast bag, you can breathe through it! Pretty cool, ey? Now we can dry out.

The appendix had some utility once upon a time.

And you know what? Someone said our brains are bi-cameral, which means two-sided, and that one of them looks as if it's an abandoned office with loose wires where the other one is plugged in. The speculation is, once upon a time, when the prophets said "I will lift up my eyes to the hills, from whence cometh my help," he wasn't speaking figuratively. By that speculation, an actual voice was plugged into the wiring of cro-magnons.

And there is an atavistic ape still among us! Just look at the debates in 2004 with Howdy's humpback wire to Hughes and Rove.

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[info]verrucaria
2005-09-29 05:19 pm UTC (link)
Well, our ancestors started breeding earlier than today's Westerners (and didn't live as long), so by the time their wisdom teeth, they probably did most if not all of their reproduction. That must've made selecting against wisdom teeth more difficult...

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[info]kleios_kiss
2005-09-29 04:13 am UTC (link)
and my dentist made me watch this documentary about how much wisdom teeth suck.

I don't think I can explain how hard I just laughed at that.

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[info]roselady
2005-09-29 04:20 am UTC (link)
lol why thank you. It's nice to be appreciated.

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[info]choc
2005-09-28 11:47 pm UTC (link)
Tooth decay is a result of our sin. We have the choice of whether to maintain healthy teeth or not, based upon our actions.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-28 11:56 pm UTC (link)
I hope you're being facetious, because I've actually heard Christians make that argument. I've heard that all disease is a result of sin. There is even one flake who recommends we all become fruitarians or something because that is the literal commandment from Genesis before the flood.

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[info]tremonius
2005-09-29 12:10 am UTC (link)
The one you heard it from is Mary Baker Eddy, who created Christian Science. All disease is spiritual and not substantial, or physical. Mark Twain reported breaking his leg, and being carried to a Christian Science hospital. They told him his broken leg was `insubstantial,' but the check he intended to use to pay his bill sure better not be.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 12:28 am UTC (link)
No, this is a guy who goes around doing seminars for fundies.

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[info]tremonius
2005-09-29 03:10 am UTC (link)
We'd have a real story had it actually have been Mary Baker, her dying in 1910 and all...

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 12:28 am UTC (link)
I think his website is called "Hallelujah Acres".

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[info]withinspace
2005-09-28 11:58 pm UTC (link)
Thats a good point. I was actually talking about this yesterday. If god created man in his own image or whatever why are our wisdom teeth usless? Not to mention our appendix. It all points to evolution.

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 12:24 am UTC (link)
The appendix is now thought to be something necessary to a fetus.

But wisdom teeth still make no sense.

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[info]weatherguy2000
2005-09-29 12:08 am UTC (link)
Sounds like someone had a not-so-good checkup? :)

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[info]gentlemaitresse
2005-09-29 12:26 am UTC (link)
Mine was so-so. It just got me to thinking.

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[info]inthewoodsalone
2005-09-29 03:39 am UTC (link)
How dare you question God's plan?

Just kidding. I'mma have to shoot myself now.

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[info]lifeisacabaret
2005-09-29 09:14 am UTC (link)
Yeah - and societies where dental care is prohibitively expensive... I can't afford to go and be tortured by a scary person with a tiny, fierce drill, so instead I use the more affordable dental plan of brushing and flossing many times a day. It doesn't really work well, but for now I still have all of my teeth.

Maybe god is both looking out for me byletting me keep my teeth and testing me by making dental care beyond my reach - maybe dentistry is god's plan for my salvation.

Or maybe I am just bloody terrified of dentists. ;^D

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