Back to theodicy and David's theories (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by David Turell , Saturday, January 30, 2021, 14:14 (1176 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] you insist that my free-for-all hypothesis makes God weaker than a God who can’t prevent errors, can’t correct some of them, and creates “bad” things for no apparent reason.

DAVID: God had precise objective as I view Him. You are back to a laisse faire Deity. I repeat evolution works despite the tiny percentage of errors.

dhw: The only precise objective you have offered us is that all the errors he tried and failed to correct, and all the “bad” things he directly designed, were part of his goal to evolve humans. But evolution has worked to produce a vast bush of life, 99% of which has died out and had no connection with humans! And you admit that you have no idea why he designed the bad things, but maybe one day it will be explained. Not much precision there. A laissez-faire deity would offer a precise and totally logical theistic explanation of this history, as well as solving the mystery of theodicy. Now please tell us why it DOESN’T explain the history and why it DOESN’T solve the problem of theodicy.

I admit I have not solved the problem of theodicy, but it is your approach to maximize the minimal error rate to denigrate God.

[..]
DAVID: God is too purposeful to want free-for-alls another way of misunderstanding ecosystems and the bush of life.

dhw: Back we go: you have said yourself that your God is interested in his creations. A free-for-all would be far more interesting than what you called a dull Garden of Eden. Why is it not “purposeful” for God to create something interesting? In your occasional moments of giving your God a purpose for humans, you even have him wanting us to admire his creations. I do know that ecosystems are necessary for ALL forms of life, and there have been millions of them that had no connection with humans. What is the “misunderstanding”?

Back we go to your weird God who has to create interesting things for Him to watch. God is obviously interested in all He creates

Asian weather patterns

DAVID: Environmental conditions allow speciation to happen not cause it!!! Why do you dwell on the past when we are discussing why the present exists? The past led to the present. WE are here against all probability.

dhw: Why have you changed my terminology? I did not say environmental conditions CAUSED speciation, but they triggered it. Organisms RESPOND to new conditions. I dwell on the past, because you keep insisting on - and then trying to divert attention away from – the illogical theory bolded above. We are here against all probability, and so were and are all the other life forms. Or do you think your horses were probable from the moment the first cells appeared on Earth?

DAVID: So you interpret triggering as causing a response. Is a response a guaranteed result? Not necessarily.

dhw: Of course not. But we are talking about what did happen – namely adaptation and speciation by existing life forms. And I maintain that these happened as a response to environmental changes, not in anticipation of them.

DAVID: And once life began all the organisms that have appeared by evolution are an expected result of the bush expanding, except what you obviously always have to ignore, our most unexpected, unusual brain. That is the difference in how to think about humans, per Adler.

dhw: Who “expected” the trilobites, the dinosaurs, the duckbilled platypus etc. etc.? Were you around at the beginning of life, writing in your diary: “I expect trilobites, dinosaurs and platypuses, but I don’t expect H. sapiens”? Yes, we have an unusual brain, but ALL forms of life are unexplained, and nobody knows how cells arrived, or how they combined to form ALL the multicellular species that have come and gone in the last 3.8 billion years!

dhw: What does this have to do with your theory that your God designed all changes in ANTICIPATION of new conditions, as opposed to in response? You keep dodging from one muddle to another.

It is our study of the history of evolution that leads thoughtful folks to recognize how unexplained we are, and therefore unexpected.