Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, May 10, 2024, 09:17 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Of course you don’t know him intimately, so your guess that he is selfless and has no particular desires is no more justified than your guess that he self-centredly wants to be worshipped, and he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. They are all “guesses”, and yours directly contradict one another.

DAVID: Since no one knows the answers. My guesses to your pointed queries will of course contradict myself as you match answers out of context.

There is no “out of context”. If I ask you why you think your God specially created us, and you “guess” that he wanted us to recognize his work and worship him, you simply contradict yourself when you insist that he has no self-interest.

dhw: The rule seems to be that your guesses of yesterday (worship, enjoy, interest etc.) must be ignored if they conflict with your “guesses” of today (he is selfless and has no desires).

DAVID: As I envision God, He is simply a creator who creates with no self-interests involved. The desires we have for His personality will create the illusion He is self-centered as you point out. It is all word games. Just stick with my first sentence, and quite pushing questioning complaints.

It’s not word games! You guess that he has no self-interest. But if you also guess that he wants us to worship him, then he has self-interest. There is no “illusion” – simply a contradiction between your two guesses. So one of them must be wrong.

Evolution

DAVID: Your distortion of God's evolutionary process denigrates God, whether you mean to or not.

dhw: It is YOUR version of your God’s evolutionary process that YOU denigrate as messy and inefficient. And I have no idea why you think it denigrates God to “guess” that he might have created a free-for-all, or experimented, out of a desire to create something he would be interested in. And to forestall your usual complaint, why is that more “humanizing” than the “guess” that he might want to be recognized and worshipped?

DAVID: We don't know what God wants. Leave it at that.

It is you who denigrate your God (messy and inefficient), and you have not answered my question. Even if we believe God exists, we don’t know what he wants or what he’s like, but YOU guess that he only wanted us and our food, and YOU guess that he is selfless and certainly not human in any sense, although YOU believe that he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. And you’d rather I didn’t point out your contradictions.

DAVID: I don't contradict. You distort the conclusions.

dhw: I’ve given you whole lists of contradictions, including those earlier in this post, and as I wrote yesterday: "Your whole messed-up “theology” is encapsulated by your two statements that he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours, but he is certainly not human in any sense. And the endless contradictions stem from your self-confessed approach to all matters concerning your God’s purpose, method and nature: ”I first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”

DAVID: I follow the all-everything God of the monotheistic religions, warts and all.

On the “More miscellany" thread, you dismissed my comment that unpredictability was more interesting than a puppet show, because “this is no recognizable form of theism.” I listed some of your theories (boredom, inefficiency, might-not-want to be worshipped etc.) that have no place in the monotheistic religions you claim to follow “warts and all"...
dhw: But you have always prided yourself on choosing your own form of God.

DAVID: Why not? I can think freely.
And:
DAVID: I start with their God. The rest is my personal analysis, and I ignore your purposeful distortion of evolutionary statistics as Raup presented.

One moment you follow these religions and dismiss my comment because it is not to be found in any of them, and the next minute you pride yourself on your free thinking, with your “personal analysis” which encompasses a list of attributes that are “no recognizable form of theism”. Back to your double standards you go. See below on Raup.

DAVID: It is your crazily distortion of evolutionary statistics that is the problem. Raup simply said all of evolution to the present produced 99.9% extinctions, a natural result of the process. A very purposeful distortion to denigrate God. You would say that if God were not in the picture.

Raup never mentions God! He merely states what is now a generally accepted statistic. But you don’t believe in what you call “natural evolution”. You believe your God controlled it, and you believe his sole purpose was us and our food, but only 0.1% were the ancestors of current species, and so you believe your God deliberately designed and culled the other 99.9%, but you don’t know why. Stop dragging Raup into it. The bold is your illogical denigration of your God – ridiculing his messy, cumbersome inefficiency.