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

by dhw, Sunday, April 25, 2021, 09:25 (1098 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Evolution with a giant bush of food energy for an eventual huge human population is fully logical when viewed by a logical mind keeping God's role in mind.

dhw: How can the past “giant bush of food energy” be “for” an eventual huge human population? In your own words, for the umpteenth time: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms.” And “Extinct life has no role in current time.” Please stop pretending that your Alice in Wonderland nonsense about past food bushes being “for” present humans is God’s logic.

DAVID: My quotes above are fully logical.

They certainly are, and they make nonsense of the claim that the past bushes of food were part of the goal of evolving humans.

DAVID: You are muddled about evolution as a continuous process from one level of complexity to the next, constantly building on innovations from the past. The above bold is your nonsense twist of my opinion.

Your usual blatant editing of your own theory. A couple of days ago you were agreeing that evolution is “a huge bush, all branches and twigs in every direction”, i.e. there is NOT one direct line from bacteria to humans. All branches and twigs build on innovations from the past, but you insist that they were all “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans.” Please stop this attempt to gloss over the very parts of your theory which render it illogical. You know I will point them out again every time you do it.

DAVID: It is symbolic of my knowing as I present those personal thoughts of mine about God, they allegorically imply His possible human comparisons, since He is not human and a person like no other person.

dhw: So do you allegorically and symbolically believe that in his own non-human way he had only one purpose, was always in control etc. etc., or don’t you?

DAVID: I am the same. God's purpose was to produce us, and was in control to achieve that goal.

You insist that he only had one purpose and was in total control. I point out the utter illogicality of combining this theory with the theory that he deliberately designed every extinct life form, 99% of which formed the branches and twigs that went in all directions except that of H. sapiens. So what is all this nonsense about allegory and symbolism?

Our personal backgrounds:
dhw: …long, long ago I had discovered that Darwin regarded himself as an agnostic. Certainly Origin was the key to my rejection of atheism, although I also found it impossible to believe in a God. I guess “theodicy” may have played a role in this too.

DAVID: The major background difference in us is first my drifting along until my 50's, as I accepted God without question before medical school and afterward accepted evolution as replacing Him. As I looked into Darwin I found he had nothing but common descent to offer. The second is my biochemical training which made me finally recognize life was/is designed by a magnificent mind. Theodicy is our human criticism of what seems wrong, and as proven over and over may be right. I've offered many examples.

I’m surprised to hear that you accepted evolution as “replacing” God. If you had read Origin, you would have realized that it does no such thing. It does not deal with the origin of life itself, but only excludes the Genesis version of the origin of species. That is why “common descent” was such a huge step forward. But if you were sceptical about random mutations as the mechanism for innovation, I can totally understand it and I share it. As regards theodicy, you have only offered examples of what some folk consider to be bad design which have turned out to be good design. That is nothing like the problem caused by bad bacteria and viruses, which you insist were also specially designed and which cause immeasurable suffering and death. I take these as an example of what we call good and evil, which seem to me to create insurmountable obstacles to belief in a loving, caring God. Even you denounce religions for promoting such an image, though paradoxically you continue to hope for evidence that he had a “good” reason for designing “bad” things, and you try to find evidence that he does care. The problem goes far deeper than this, however. Life continues with its great mixture of sheer beauty and goodness balanced by sheer ugliness and evil, and this throws open the whole question of a possible God’s purpose, method, nature and attitude. Hence all the different theories on the subject and our own interminable discussions. Or there is no God at all, and the great free-for-all that to me is obvious throughout life’s history, was generated by an extraordinary piece of luck arising out of an eternal swirl of energy and matter. I suppose I’d better repeat that I remain agnostic.