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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 09, 2021, 19:35 (1145 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: "God loves you" is pure religious thought. God is in the business of creation and enjoys doing it or I think He would stop. I don't know if He loves each individual in the human population or even tries to. Of course He can love if He wants to.

dhw:So God is capable of enjoying creation, but he is incapable of desiring to create something so that he can enjoy it. Why? He is capable of love if he wants it. And how do you know what he wants or doesn’t want? Over and over again, you have conceded that it is possible/probable that he has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours (or let’s put it the other way round, we may have thought patterns and emotions similar to his), but the moment I propose a perfectly logical theory involving such patterns and/or emotions, you complain that they “humanize” him! They are possible, and unless you can find a logical flaw in the argument itself (which you have failed to do), maybe you could take a leaf out of my agnostic book: I recognize the logic of your argument for design, and so I accept that your theory concerning a designer is possible. I don’t dismiss it. That is the hallmark of agnosticism: to keep an open mind. Why can’t you do the same – not about the existence of God but about my theory to explain both theistic evolution and theodicy?

You can't get away from humanizing, while I try to avoid it every way I can, as you note. All I can tell is He obviously wanted us to appear. We can guess as to why, but let us remember it is all guesswork. I accept Him as the creator of reality without giving Him motives, and I am satisfied with that approach. You don't accept Him but want to know his motives. Strange. Does that help you at all in trying to find acceptance?

Viruses

dhw: God hasn’t told us anything about anything. Your efforts to twist life’s history into an illogical interpretation of his purpose and method, and your firm belief that he must have had a good purpose for creating bad bugs and viruses, are examples of your double standards. We mustn’t try to read his mind, but at the same time you can tell us what he wasn’t thinking when he did what you think he did.

DAVID: God does what He did for His reasons, at which we guess from studying His works. Your guesses always humanize Him.

dhw: See above re "humanize". Now please try to find a logical flaw in my “guesses”.

There is a flaw in imagining a very humanized God and then saying your guesses are logical, since the initial premise is to humanize Him.

dhw: Again purely out of interest and while on the subject of viruses, which you think your God designed for some unknown good purpose, do you think he has given Covid-19 instructions for their different mutations, or is their method of finding different ways to survive autonomous?

DAVID: Actually I believe the Chinese invented the virus. However, all viruses, manufactured or natural, come with a mutation ability given by God.

dhw: I like your last sentence. I take the word mutation to mean a change in structure. If your God gave viruses an autonomous ability to change their own structure, why could he not have given the same ability to all life forms?

We know all viruses mutate, but they start with a very simplistic structure in their DNA to make each change qite large.