My Thoughts on Diseases

Before the Fall of Man, Adam and Eve literally lived in paradise.  God gave them everything: food, shelter, the whole world.  But one tree they could not and should not have eaten from, they ate the fruit from that tree.  Planet earth started to spiral from that point to what we have today.

Ebola and Other Diseases

Ebola has devastated West Africa for much of 2014.  So far, about 3000 people have died since the beginning of this year.  And many more will die from this.  But this is not the only disease that has threatened and killed people.  There has been polio, small pox, the bubonic plague, and even the flu virus.  Why are there so many diseases?

Let's start from the beginning.  Adam and Eve were just two people.  I bet the plants were not grown in crops and animals were running freely in fields.  No diseases exist yet.  Then they ate from the tree and all things fell apart.  They are to eventually die and return to the earth.  

Women are to give birth in pain, men are to toil the soil to grow their crops.

Then civilization happened.  People started to live in close quarters, in towns and cities, forming counties, states, countries, kingdoms.

People ate the crops they grew, and the animals they raised in farms.

Then diseases began to pop up.  You see this throughout the Old Testament.

It is a far cry from the paradise that God had initially given us.  People were spread out.  I am sure they were vegetarians too.  Here is an excerpt from Genesis 1:

God blessed them; and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. (Genesis 1:28-31 NASB)

Notice God didn't say, "I have given you animals as food."  Just plants.  And the animals are to eat the plants too.

I have this thought for sometime that while diseases originated from the fall of man, it is people living closely together that has accelerated the spread of disease.  People have to farm the land and raise animals as food, depending on each other.  As it is evident in West Africa, diseases can spread very quickly if people live close together.  Raising livestock can also pose an issue as animals can carry diseases that can leap to people.

If people live in the forest again and just live off the natural land, I wonder if this will slow down diseases?  You can see also in history that Native American had little diseases as they often live more spread apart before the Europeans came.  Europe was termed more advanced in civilization but also carry a lot of diseases.  

Conclusion: I am going to find an island far far away...