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

by dhw, Saturday, March 27, 2021, 11:47 (1127 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The bolded quotes are proper and true, as they relate to a current time connection, and nothing more as you try to distort them. Evolution is a continuum from bacteria to humans. All stages were used to advance complexity. Ancient events are ancient, obviously.

dhw: Evolution is a continuum from bacteria to ALL species, and the bolded quotes make it clear that although there must be ONE continuous line to humans, 99% of past bushes and past life had no connection with humans. That is why it is illogical to claim as you do that your God designed them all individually as “part of the goal of evolving humans”.

DAVID: Again you ignore the huge bush provides necessary food for all.

How many more times? The bolded quotes were the answer to this silly argument! So here they are again: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms” (D. Turell). And “extinct life has no role in current time” (D. Turell). Therefore it is clearly absurd to claim that every life form, food supply etc. was “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans.”

DAVID: My thoughts about God are as logical or illogical are no different than yours, based as they are for both of us as they start at vast differences in each of our views in God's personality.

dhw: I offer a variety of views, and you agree that they all fit logically into the pattern of life’s history. Only you start out with a fixed view of God’s “personality”, and when I challenge its logic, you dodge the issue, as you have tried to do above by emphasizing one line of descent and ignoring the other 99% which had no role in current time.

DAVID: Your usual distortions: I clearly say we have very different views of God's personality and purposes. Your theories logically fit into type of God you seem to describe.

What distortions? Your clear statement that our views are different does not provide us with a logical explanation of why, if your God’s sole purpose was to design H. sapiens, he designed millions of life forms, food supplies, strategies etc., 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens. My theories logically fit different versions of your God in with the history of life, whereas you attempt to fit the history of life into the only type of God you are prepared to imagine, and then have no idea why he would have chosen your view of his method to fulfil your view of his purpose.

Theodicy
DAVID: I've answered over and over, that free-for-all indicates a weak God who gives up full control of evolution. Not my concept of my God.

dhw: Of course a God who creates a free-for-all is giving up control. I have no idea why you consider that to be “weak”, but that still doesn’t explain why wanting total control is less “human” than not wanting total control. Is dictatorship less "human" than democracy?

DAVID: God is a creator not a dictator. Again your imagined god is nothing like mine. I cannot accept yours.

Dictators want total control. But I am not asking you to accept anything. Your objection to my theodicy theory is that it makes God “human”, and so I’m asking why you consider wanting total control to be less “human” than wanting a free-for-all. […]

DAVID (under “How antibiotic spores spread”): You are the humanizing theorist. Of course there is a constant war at the bacterial level. We observe it, and learn to use it by finding antibiotic molecules. We find what God put out there for us to find. Research to find the good happens all the time and we most likely find good in the 'bad'.

This does not answer my question above, which also applies to your God’s apparently deliberate design of what we consider to be “bad” bugs and viruses. My theory proposes that he did NOT deliberately design them, and so last time I complained that “you still haven’t explained why NOT deliberately creating what we consider to be “bad” makes him more human than deliberately creating “bad” things which you hope will one day turn out to be “good”".

I’d better repeat that I don’t expect you to accept my theory. But just as I dispute the logic of your own theories, I would like to know what logic underlies your attack on mine..