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

by dhw, Thursday, March 11, 2021, 09:28 (1143 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

dhw: If he exists, he obviously wanted the whole vast bush of life forms to appear.

DAVID: 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?

dhw: You don’t accept him without giving him motives, and that is the problem with your theory of evolution. Yes, it is all guesswork, and your guess is that he directly designed every single life form “AS PART OF THE GOAL OF EVOLVING [= designing] HUMANS”. A goal is a motive! That makes no sense, if 99% of life forms and their food supplies had no connection with humans. Then you harp on about your God’s purposefulness, but when asked what may have been his purpose in designing humans, you no longer want to discuss purposefulness. See below for more.

DAVID: Motives and purpose are reasons for action, and we have been guessing at them for going on 13 years. Nothing new has turned up except the knowledge of the biochemistry of life is becoming increasingly complex, demanding a designer.

I know what motives and purpose are. The case for design is not new, and I have accepted it for the sake of discussing your illogical theory above. You insist on your God having only one purpose, I have challenged your theory, and then you claim you don’t give him any purpose. I wish you would repeat the fact that you have no idea why your God would have chosen your version of his method to achieve your version of his purpose, and leave it at that.

Viruses

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”.

DAVID: 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: How can you discuss your God’s purpose for creating life and evolution, or the problem of theodicy, without attributing human thought patterns to him, and why do you find it illogical that a God who you think created us with all our human attributes should have none of those attributes himself, even though according to you he probably/possibly does have them? At other moments, you have speculated that he may want a relationship with us, and may want us to admire his works. Why are you now so coy about making such guesses, and yet so bold as to guess that he must have had “good” reasons for designing “bad” viruses and bacteria? And if you are certain that he enjoys creating, why is it illogical to suggest that he might create things in order to have something to enjoy? The diagnosis is double standards, Dr Turell, and the cure is a dose of open-minded logic.

DAVID: You have covered our history and the bold is pure humanizing. Our views of God are totally different.

Why is it OK for you to humanize him by telling us you are sure he enjoys creating and watches us with interest, but it is not OK for me to use the same terms to provide a possible motive for his actions? Double standards again.

Placenta

QUOTE: It was fascinating to observe how such a serious genetic flaw as a chromosomal copy number error was ironed out by the baby but not by the placenta.

DAVID: Here again we see God saw need for error corrections and provided a mechanism.

And who created the errors in the first place? I know - you think your all-powerful, always-in-control God couldn’t design a system that would avoid such errors, including all those for which he did not provide a corrective mechanism. While we’re on the subject, why do you think he would have provided mechanisms for error correction?

DAVID: […] However, all viruses, manufactured or natural, come with a mutation ability given by God. […]

dhw: So if your God gave them the autonomous ability to change their simple structure, why could he not possiblY have given the same ability to less simple life forms?

DAVID: No difference in our views. Every complex organism can make simple adaptations.

So your God gave even complex organisms the autonomous ability to change their structure. How does that make it impossible for him to have given them the ability to make complex adaptations, even amounting to innovations (e.g. legs adapting themselves to life in the water and becoming flippers)?