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

by dhw, Monday, May 03, 2021, 13:09 (1090 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The dodge is your blinkered emphasis on what we both accept – namely, that we evolved from bacteria – while you keep omitting your acceptance that all the other life forms also evolved from bacteria, 99% of them had no connection with humans, and yet you go on insisting that all of them were “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans.”

DAVID: The connection is the necessary food supply. I fully understand the line of inheritance we followed. There is more than one aspect to the process of evolving humans who then dominate the Earth with a huge population which must eat to survive. Take off your blinkers. […] Fully and logically explained above. A specially designed food supply cannot be denied.

What I deny is that there is one iota of logic in your belief that God specially designed food supplies for every single extinct form of life for the sole purpose of specially designing a food supply for H. sapiens. And you agreed when you wrote that “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.” Why do you continue to trot out the same attempts at justification of your illogical theory that you yourself have already demolished. Please let’s move on.

dhw: We both agree that if God exists, he must have had a purpose for creating life. I have dealt with your own theory above, and I have drawn attention to all the “humanizing” aspects of your “version of God’s personality” (purposeful, always in control, knowing what he’s doing, doing it all for “the good” etc.), which fit in with your earlier acknowledgement that he probably/possibly has thought patterns and emotions similar to ours. Nobody knows the truth, but you have agreed that all my (theistic) alternatives fit in logically with the history of life as we know it. And so I have no idea why this discussion is still going on.

DAVID: Your use of my terms in a human sense simply confuses the issue. The God I envision is not human, does not do 'humanizing' actions although His actions and purposes must be defined in human terms, as in the bold you quoted. His thought patterns and emotions are sheer guess work and again must be described in human terms.

Yes, your vision of God is pure guesswork and is defined in human terms. There is no other way we can discuss the subject. So do you or do you not believe that he is purposeful, always in control, knows what he is doing, does it all for "the good" etc.? If you do, why do you consider it to be more “humanizing” to suggest that although he is purposeful, he may not always be in control or even want to be in control, might enjoy experimenting, might not be doing it all for the good? Indeed why should he even have such concepts as “good” and “bad”? Your whole approach reeks of double standards. It’s OK for you to guess at a “humanized” vision of your God, despite its illogicalities, but it’s not OK for me to guess at logical alternatives, because these are all “humanized”, just like yours.

DAVID: You have never understood how your free-for-all loving, experimenting God is weak and purposeless and not acceptable to me as a valid view of God. We will never agree on it.

Of course I understand that my alternatives are not acceptable to you because you already have a fixed vision of your God. I do not understand why you think you have a monopoly on “humanizing” guesswork, and I do not understand why you should consider alternative purposes as “purposeless”! And why should I accept your highly personal judgement that allowing freedom of choice, or experimenting, or learning new things constitute weakness – especially when you agree that all of these fit in logically with the history of life as we know it?

DAVID: My thought that God chose to evolve us is a valid explanation you refuse to accept.

Same old dodge. By evolve you mean specially design, and you cannot explain why, if humans were his only purpose, he specially designed millions of life forms etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans. Your only reason appears to be that he specially designed all past food supplies for us, although they too had no connection with our food supplies. And this is supposed to be a logical explanation.

DAVID: The logic is I see God as the creator in charge of our reality, so what we see is what He wanted and did. Your theories allow for a strange humanized form of God.

I have no doubt that if God exists, what we see is what he wanted and did. Your one theory allows for a particular “humanized” form of God who pursued the illogical course bolded above, and you have no idea why. All my own “humanized” forms of God offer descriptions of what he may have wanted, and you agree that every one of them fits logically into the history of what he did. Just stick to your fixed belief, and let's leave it at that, shall we?