Female wasps of this species sting a cockroach twice.
It delivers an initial sting to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. Temporary loss of mobility in the roach facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses.

The wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach's abdomen. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with pebbles, more to keep other predators out than to keep the roach in.

With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which maximizes the likelihood that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach's body. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp

The_Barnacle wrote on Oct 4^th, 2018 at 10:23pm:

Female wasps of this species sting a cockroach twice. It delivers an initial sting to mildly and reversibly paralyze the front legs of its victim. Temporary loss of mobility in the roach facilitates the second venomous sting at a precise spot in the victim's head ganglia (brain), in the section that controls the escape reflex. As a result of this sting, the roach will first groom extensively, and then become sluggish and fail to show normal escape responses. The wasp proceeds to chew off half of each of the roach's antennae. The wasp, which is too small to carry the roach, then leads the victim to the wasp's burrow, by pulling one of the roach's antennae in a manner similar to a leash. In the burrow, the wasp lays a white egg, about 2 mm long, on the roach's abdomen. It then exits and proceeds to fill in the burrow entrance with pebbles, more to keep other predators out than to keep the roach in. With its escape reflex disabled, the stung roach simply rests in the burrow as the wasp's egg hatches after about 3 days. The hatched larva lives and feeds for 4–5 days on the roach, then chews its way into its abdomen and proceeds to live as an endoparasitoid. Over a period of 8 days, the wasp larva consumes the roach's internal organs in an order which maximizes the likelihood that the roach will stay alive, at least until the larva enters the pupal stage and forms a cocoon inside the roach's body. Eventually, the fully grown wasp emerges from the roach's body to begin its adult life. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp

Ya gotta love god's handiwork. God is merciful and great.

What does this have to do with Atheism you may ask?

Many people believe that the horrendous life cycle of this wasp is proof that there is no God.

What God would create a creature with such a cruel and nightmarish reproductive cycle? 

The_Barnacle wrote on Oct 4^th, 2018 at 10:29pm:

What does this have to do with Atheism you may ask? Many people believe that the horrendous life cycle of this wasp is proof that there is no God. What God would create a creature with such a cruel and nightmarish reproductive cycle?

No, no, no. God loves the wasps, the heathen unbelieving cockroaches are getting what they deserve. They are converted to do god's will by the grace of god. Praise be to YHWY, Allahu akbar!

Who cares about the dastardly deeds of a god when he is promising me 72 virgins, or a personal paradise in heaven..etc.?

All that I need to do is to deny truth and feather the nests of my controllers here on earth.

When judgement day comes...you'll see  ;D

For some reason, unbeknown to me, humanity seems to divide itself into theists, atheists, and agnostics. Perhaps its just convenient, but it does show how small-minded the bulk of humanity really is. There is at least a fourth perception. Don't ask me to explain it, I am not selling perceptions here.

In the Abrahamic religions, God is not particularly concerned with animal welfare. It is the immortal soul, that He is concerned with, and there is no indication, to my knowledge, that Abrahamics confere such immortality on animals, cockroaches and wasps included.

Why does their God concern himself with the soul of man? Well, it goes like this. Being bored stiff with the oneness of the universe, He created angels, but one of these pissed Him off, by challenging Him. It seems that this bad angel can steal souls. We don't need to go any further. Whether we are talking about nasty creatures or angels, the Abrahmic God phuqed up, and his followers have been covering for him ever since.

Someone please invent, or reveal, a God worthy of the name.

issuevoter wrote on Oct 5^th, 2018 at 10:13am:

In the Abrahamic religions, God is not particularly concerned with animal welfare.

That is very true.
It would reflect man's own attitude towards animals at the time that Abrahamic religions were created.
But even with an indifference to animal welfare you would think that God wouldn't have gone out of her way to create something as horrendous as the Emerald Cockroach wasp, and this is by no means the only abomination in the animal kingdom.

The_Barnacle wrote on Oct 6^th, 2018 at 11:49am:

issuevoter wrote on Oct 5th, 2018 at 10:13am: In the Abrahamic religions, God is not particularly concerned with animal welfare. That is very true. It would reflect man's own attitude towards animals at the time that Abrahamic religions were created. But even with an indifference to animal welfare you would think that God wouldn't have gone out of her way to create something as horrendous as the Emerald Cockroach wasp, and this is by no means the only abomination in the animal kingdom.

I suppose so, but the wasp is only an abomination from a civilised perspective, but that's a pretty thin veneer anyway. God is a cheap way to explain things, but even if such an unlikely entity controlled the universe, there is no reason to assume it cares about civilisation. Tormenting your own creation in Hell for eternity isn't exactly civilised.

This Topic was moved here from Atheism by freediver.