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

by dhw, Monday, March 15, 2021, 11:48 (1139 days ago) @ David Turell

I have rejigged this thread and provided new headings as the previous headings were no longer applicable. The first section repeats arguments from the “pre-planning” thread, and I’ll eventually try to telescope these sections!

David’s Theory of evolution and alternatives

dhw: I offer various theories to cover different aspects of your illogical theory. You have no idea why, if your God’s one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply, he chose to design millions of life forms and food supplies, 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens. (If you do have an idea why, then please tell us at last.)

DAVID: I deleted all the usual history. [dhw: you deleted two of my alternative theories to cover the above problem] Another repeat, God chose to evolve us from bacteria and I have no idea why He chose that method, but it fits known history.

And still you go on editing out what I have bolded! It is not evolution that I am challenging but your insistence that every single life form in the history of life was part of your God’s one and only goal to design humans, although 99% of them had no connection with humans.

dhw: If organisms have the autonomous ability to adapt, how can you be so sure that they do not have the autonomous ability to innovate? […]

DAVID: Hands-on is more efficient than second-hands-on.

But supposing your God wanted a free-for-all? Then he would invent a mechanism that would enable organisms to do their own designing. And wouldn’t that explain the vast diversity of life forms that have come and gone? (See below.)

DAVID: God designs in anticipation of needs.

That is your theory. He changes legs to flippers before pre-whales enter the water (as part of his goal to design humans and their food supply), and he operates on a group of homos to give them a bigger brain 300,000 years before they need it. And you dismiss the theory that organisms change IN RESPONSE to existing conditions, as opposed to anticipation of them. And yet we see examples every day of organisms RESPONDING and adapting to new needs, so why should the process have been reversed for speciation?

DAVID: You obviously don't want God to have any controls, although you give it lip service, which is why I view you as looking for natural methods of speciation.

dhw: “Wanting” is not the point. You obviously “want” your God to be in full control of everything. I believe evolution happened, and what I want is an explanation of how it works. Like Darwin, I begin my quest at Chapter Two of life: how evolution works, not how life and evolution originated. The intelligent cell theory does not omit your God, which is why I don’t like your use of the word “natural”, as I suspect it implies exclusion of God. God is not excluded if it was his choice to give evolution free rein.

DAVID: Free rein means chance events and a natural course for evolution. God running/designing evolution is a full explanation. Obvious complex designs cannot be ignored.

I do not ignore complex designs, but (with my theist’s hat on) I do not consider it to be beyond your God’s capabilities to design a form of intelligence that can do the designing. The history of evolution certainly suggests chance events, since it depends on changing conditions. You have never been quite sure about your God’s control of every single environmental change, local and global, in the history of the world. I would suggest that if he exists, he would deliberately have created a system that would result in ever changing environments. As regards a “natural” course for evolution, I presume you just mean evolution that is not directly controlled by God. Yes indeed, and that provides a “full explanation” of the constantly changing nature of life’s history, in which branches of life’s vast bush have grown and died out, to be replaced by new branches, with humans on the end of just one of those branches. At a stroke, we have eliminated the problem which your own theory can never explain and which I have bolded at the start of this post.

God’s purpose for creating life

DAVID: That God choses to create is all we know. WE can assume He 'likes' doing it, because if He hated it, creation would stop. He doesn't need to do it for self-satisfaction.

You said it was obvious that he likes creating, and you agree that he possibly (probably) has thought patterns similar to ours. You don’t need to change the vocabulary. If he likes doing it, why is it not even feasible that he would do it because he likes doing it?

Theodicy

dhw: Bearing in mind the terrible diseases that are caused by some of the errors, I’m asking why you think he wanted to correct them.

DAVID: He didn't want the diseases to happen, so He added corrections where He could.

You’re coming closer to giving me an answer, so I’ll just try to push you one step further. Why do you think he did not want the diseases to happen?