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

by dhw, Thursday, March 18, 2021, 11:16 (1136 days ago) @ David Turell

David’s theory of evolution and alternatives

DAVID: I'll stick with God designing the entire history of evolution with a goal of humans as the endpoint. Logical since I believe God designed evolution from the beginning.

dhw: Since you believe that your God designed evolution from the beginning with humans as his goal, you will stick with your belief that your God designed evolution from the beginning with humans as his goal. Yes, that is logical. It is only your belief, as explained above, that is illogical.

DAVID: Totally confusing. My statement above has always been my position, so what specifically do you find illogical in your mind?

Yes, you have always stated your belief, and so it is logical that this is what you believe. What I find “specifically illogical” – as if you didn’t know – is the belief itself: namely, that although your God’s one and only purpose was to specifically design H. sapiens, he deliberately designed millions of now extinct life forms, 99% of which had no connection with humans.

DAVID: We will always disagree on God's personality, as you humanize Him constantly.

dhw: Why is deliberately giving free rein more “humanizing” than exercising tight control?

DAVID: Tight control is not necessarily humanizing. A purposeful God (His personality) would necessarily keep tight controls. You have never understood my compliant of humanizing. God is never a human person in any aspect of His thoughts or desires.

I have never said he was a human person. I simply agree wholeheartedly with you when you say that it is possible (previously probable) that he has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours. I fully accept that if he exists, he would have had a purpose for creating life – which includes all those life forms that had no connection with humans. If his purpose was to create an ever changing bush of life by designing a mechanism enabling life forms to design their own ways of survival, he would “necessarily” have given them free rein. That does not mean he is a human person. Furthermore, a month or so ago you wrote: “He seems to me full of purposeful activity to create what He desires to create with no other motive that the creations themselves”, which allied to the recent statements concerning how obvious it is that he “likes” creating, suggests to me that a possible purpose for his creation of life might be that he desired to create something he liked creating. Hence the question I asked you yesterday:

dhw: Why is it not humanizing to say he enjoys/likes creating, but it is humanizing to deduce from this obvious certainty that he might possibly create because he enjoys/likes creating?

DAVID: God must be approached at all times allegorically. His 'enjoyment' may not be like ours.

Please tell us how God communicated this "must" to you. However, we can happily let him have his own form of “enjoyment”. So now we have God enjoying creating in his own way, and therefore it is possible that his purpose in creating life was to create something he could enjoy in his own way. Why is that deduction to be dismissed as “humanizing” whereas his enjoyment of creation in his own way is not “humanizing”. Your opposition to this theory is based on one long quibble.

Theodicy

DAVID: You are ignoring or not remembering my previous answers. Bad bugs and viruses are our current interpretations, but further research may show beneficial purposes.

dhw: Not ignoring or forgetting, but I simply put it differently above: “it might explain why you are hoping so desperately that one day someone might discover a “good” reason why he directly designed “bad” bacteria and viruses”. Dawkins’ has the same approach to all the flaws in his logic: “If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural”. The two of you have a great deal in common in your methods of defending your credos!

DAVID: Except I can give you oodles of examples in our bodies now seen as proper: appendix, backward retina, etc. Discovery for what seems improper to proper takes research time. Our current impressions should never be writ in stone.

I agree, and I do wish the two of you would acknowledge the fact that your basic credos (currently written so firmly in stone that you call each other delusional) are based on hope and not on science. This point is repeated under “Bacterial intelligence”, so we needn’t go into it again.