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

by dhw, Tuesday, March 23, 2021, 11:47 (1131 days ago) @ David Turell

David’s theory of evolution and alternatives

DAVID: […] God chose to evolve us from initial bacteria, and provided the huge bush of life to feed all, especially the huge present human population. A major tenet of mine: God designs in anticipation of need.

dhw: God, if he exists, chose to evolve ALL forms of life from bacteria, though you say he directly designed them all, and again you omit to mention that 99% of extinct organisms had no connection with us or our food supply, although according to you, we and our food supply were his one and only purpose. The huge bush of life fed ALL 99% of the unconnected extinct organisms – not just “especially the huge present human population”. Your major tenet does not explain the bold above. Please stop this silly dodging game.

DAVID: Your conjured up strawman complaint is silly as usual. Yours is the dodge. My belief above stands.

What straw man? What am I dodging? Question: if God’s one and only purpose was to design humans and their food supply, why did he directly design millions of now dead life forms, strategies etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans? And your answer is….?

DAVID: We use allegorical words to define God, and you use the words as distinctly human in meaning.

dhw: I cannot for the life of me see how words like “desire”, “like” and “enjoy” can be “allegorical”. Please explain what they symbolize, and in what way your God’s desire to design humans is allegorical.

DAVID: That desire is not allegorical, but words that describe God Himself or His person attributes must be allegorical.

Transferred from “Miscellany”: just over a month ago you wrote: “His thought patterns and emotions are possibly similar, but that possibility cannot be used to give Him human desires” [...] "He seems to me to be full of purposeful activity to create what he desires to create with no other motive than the creations themselves." I can well imagine him desiring to create, and have no idea why - even though you are certain that he has that desire - he could not possibly have done his creating BECAUSE he had the desire to create.

DAVID: I'm glad you alone have the ability to find my old quotes so easily.

dhw: So should I ignore what you write today because in a month’s time you’ll have changed your mind?

DAVID: I have to respond to how you twist my words out of current context.

Please explain what possible context your words could have apart from what you believe your God may be like?

DAVID: I can't allow you to change my image of God or challenge my logic. Please try to remember we have no common ground when it comes to thinking abut God's personality.

dhw: I’m not sure what image you have of your God, but you are certain that he is purposeful and likes/enjoys creating, and this can be regarded as common ground between us. And so I have no idea why you refuse to accept his desire to create as a possible purpose for his creating things he likes/enjoys creating. Please explain.

DAVID: God is the Creator. Just stop at that point, and try to not dig further which proves nothing.

Why should I stop at this point, when you are constantly telling us what your God wants and doesn’t want, and what he does and doesn't do? And I keep having to repeat ad nauseam, nothing is proven – not even your God’s existence. If you want proof, we might as well end all discussion.

Theodicy
DAVID: Yes you theory is logical for fully humanized God.

dhw: The God I offer as an alternative deliberately designs a free-for-all which results in “good” things as well as “bad” things. What makes your God less “human” than the one I am proposing? […]

DAVID: Word play game. Free-for-all is uncontrolled advances.

I know what free-for-all means. Why do you consider that to be more “human” than a God who wants full control of everything?

DAVID: God cannot control nor did He invent 'evil' in humans. They did. As for evil bugs, it is our interpretation and they may have a rational use, which we will discover. Alternatively they are a challenge to be solved by our God-given brilliant brains.

dhw: May I suggest that […] he could have controlled them if he wanted to, but he preferred to give them free rein. Everything we say about God […] is our “interpretation”. Your vague “may have” is no more likely than my concrete proposal. Out of interest, why do you think your God would want to set us a challenge? [...]

DAVID: [..] Covered before: the system from God is feely-acting molecules to create necessary speed of reactions. He did add editing programs knowing errors would occur and knew our brains could provide some corrections.

That is a repetition of your beliefs, but you said that he gave us our giant brains so that we could correct the errors he hadn’t corrected. Why do you think he wanted us to correct the errors?