God Made the Earth Perfect to Sustain Life - Checkmate!

From Christians of varying denominations I have experienced many iterations of this posts title statement. The latest was in the form of a Jehovah's Witness pamphlet (Was Life Created) that was mailed to me by a Witness. In the chapter titled The Living Planet it discusses planet Earth being “perfect” and “ideal” to support life. It talks about the Earths orbit and axial tilt as well as its distance from the Sun and the Suns ideal light output. It even talks about how the size of the Moon is “tailor-made” for the Earths ability to support life.

From the ICR website (The Institute for Creation Research):
"Our solar system is filled with amazing planets, but none are perfect for life except the earth."
~ and ~
"The utter lifelessness of other planets in our solar system illustrates the fact that earth is unique and specially created for life."
These claims from Christians are quite bold and show an ignorance (willful or not) of what "life" experiences on this "ideal" and "perfect" planet. Let's take a look . . .

~    ~    ~

Volcano’s – Below are a few of the deadliest volcanic eruptions in recent history:
Mount Tambora 1815 - 71,000 to 250,000 dead
Krakatoa 1883 – 36,000 dead
Mt Pelee 1902 – 30,000 dead

Note – In the state of Kansas, here in the US, there are numerous “ash mines” where they dig out existing volcanic ash deposits, estimated to be about 2,000,000 tons mined since they discovered these deposits in the 1920's. It is estimated that there remain another 20,000,000 tons in the 35 existing mines. This begs the question – since there are no volcano’s anywhere "near" Kansas, where did all of this volcanic ash come from?  The answer - the ash likely came from the “super-volcano” that is the Yellowstone Caldera, to the northwest of Kansas in Wyoming, or from the Valles Caldera, to the southwest in New Mexico. More than 20 million tons of ash fell across Kansas, about a million years ago. Just imagine the death toll if that were to happen today. It will likely happen again, since it has erupted three times in the past 2 million years.  

Earthquakes – There are approximately 55 earthquakes every day around the planet – most are minor. I have felt several quakes myself.  From 1998 – 2017 approximately 750,000 people have been killed by earthquakes.

Tsunamis – Giant waves caused by undersea earthquakes or giant landslides. Here are just a couple that the reader will likely remember:
Indian Ocean tsunami of 2004 killed 227,000 people.
Tohoku Japan tsunami of 2011 killed over 15,000 people.

Hurricanes – Before there were modern weather tracking and predicting methods, people had no idea that a hurricane was headed in their direction, as the two examples below can testify.
Galveston TX hurricane of 1900 - killed between 8,000 and 12,000 people.
Great Hurricane of 1780 (Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, Bermuda) - killed between 22,000 and 27,000 people.

Tornado’s – On average in the US there are 1,000 tornado’s reported every year. The storm system that the US recently (Dec. 2021) had in the Midwest killed perhaps 100+ in Kentucky. The deadliest tornado on record was in 1989, in Bangladesh – it killed at least 1,300.

Viral Epidemics / Pandemics – Simple infections from unseen virus's (as we are experiencing now with Covid-19) has killed countless people over the hundreds of thousands of years. Here is a short list of some bad ones:
Bubonic plague – mid 1300's - 75 million – 200 million dead, or approximately 1/3rd of the human population of Europe.  My 11th great grandfather died from the plague in England in 1625 – that year the estimated death count for England was 35,000.

Bubonic plague – mid 1800's - 12 million – 15 million dead.
Spanish Flu – early 1900's – 17 million – 100 million dead.
Smallpox – early 1500's – 5-8 million dead.
Covid-19 – We are finishing our 2nd year with this affliction – world wide, about 5.3 million deaths in two years. As I type this, the US has gone well past 800,000 Covid deaths.

This just barely scratches the surface of how many people have died, and are dying daily due to micro organisms that have plagued humanity through out our entire history on Earth.

Natural parasites – Ticks, fleas, and mosquito's live on one thing – the blood of other creatures, including humans. In the process of feeding on human and animal blood, these parasites spread disease. The Bubonic plague (above illustration) is believed to have been spread by fleas feeding on infected rats. Disease that is spread by mosquito’s kill about 700,000 people every year. Researchers suggest that disease spread by mosquitoes may have killed nearly half of the estimated 108 billion humans who have ever lived across our 200,000+ year existence.

Extreme temperatures – Imagine living in a time when extreme, unexpected temperatures could kill you because you didn't have shelter.
Coldest recorded – July 1983 in Antarctica, -128° F
Hottest recorded – July 1913 in Death Valley, +134° F
I would think that in anyone’s book, these temperatures are not “ideal” or “perfect” for living.

Sun - the global deaths caused by malignant melanoma due to exposure from the sun's ultraviolet radiation is approximately 48,000 deaths each year.

Asteroid / Meteorite impacts – The Earth has been hit numerous times. But for many of these impacts, there were no humans on the planet to experience the resulting catastrophe. Two impact craters, the Chicxulub crater near the Yucatan Peninsula, which is believed to have caused a mass extinction of animals and plants about 66 million years ago, and another in the area of Chesapeake Bay about 35 million years ago.

One such impact resulted in the Barringer Crater in Arizona. 

I visited this impact crater when I was a child. I even have a small iron fragment of the meteor sitting on my shelf.
The crater is ¾ of a mile across and 560 feet deep. It is the result of a meteor of about 160 feet across traveling at a speed of 30,000 – 50,000 mph, striking the earth about 50,000 years ago. There were humans on Earth at that time, but they likely had not migrated to North America until thousands of years later.
The estimated 10 mega-ton power of the explosion when the meteor hit was equivalent to about 650 nuclear bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan in WWII. If such a meteor strike occurred today, the resulting fireball would extend out about 6 miles. Humans as far away as 15 miles would be killed or severely injured. Hurricane force winds would be experienced up to 25 miles from the impact zone. Suffice it to say – if a meteor of the size that created the Barringer Creator were to hit my city right now, likely everyone in the city would be killed instantly, and many, if not most of those who live in the surrounding county would be killed or severely injured, and pretty much every building in the county would be destroyed by the high winds.

And finally:

How much of planet Earth is actually habitable – only about 13%.  

Of the earths surface, 71% is water, that leaves 29% land. Of that 29%, 1/3rd is desert and about 1/4 is steep mountainous land - that leaves about 12-15% of the earth as habitable land.

If God created the Earth with human habitation in mind, why did he give us so little room on this planet to live, and why did he make it so dangerous that we have to be constantly looking over our shoulder for the next catastrophe to occur?

bob
r.u.reasonable@gmail.com