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

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 11, 2021, 18:13 (1082 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I do not have a fixed belief, but offer various alternatives, all of which you have acknowledged ARE logical.

DAVID: Logical only if your humanized form of God is recognized.

dhw: And who can possibly know whether your God has thought patterns and emotions and other attributes similar to ours, and what these might be? You think he’s a control freak and a know-all with a one-track mind (single purpose: to design H. sapiens). This leads to the illogical theory below. At least my “humanized” alternatives make sense even to you, whereas you can’t find a logical pattern to explain your own “humanized” theory.

I wish you would repeat my theories honestly. I agree your God theories are logical only if we imagine a very humanized, very weak, namby-pamby God, who wanders around without strict purposes to follow. My strongly determined form of God produced the exact result He wanted if you accept humans are a most unusual result based on your theory (and Darwin) that the drive for survival is the supreme force behind evolution. We are evolved way beyond simple survival needs.

dhw: This dispute is over your own fixed belief that in order to design the only thing he wanted to design (humans and their food supply), your God designed millions of life forms, econiches, food supplies, natural wonders etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans. For reasons I cannot fathom, you keep repeating that you have no idea why your God would have “evolved” (= designed) humans in this way...

DAVID: More illogical complaint, as usual. I cannot know why God chose to evolve us.

dhw: We cannot even “know” whether God exists, but at least if we have a theory about how evolution developed, we should be able to make it logically coherent.

We do. First came Archaea, our direct ancestors. We can trace the bush all the way back by uncoding the genetics of Archaeal Histone processes, simpler than ours but similar.

dhw: …and yet you still continue to insist that it is logical and I am at fault in questioning your logic! I respectfully suggest that unless you have suddenly found a logical explanation for the above theory, we agree that you will not budge from your fixed belief and so we should leave it at that.

DAVID: I won't budge. To leave it don't mention the subject again, and I won't.

dhw: It’s going to be difficult if you keep telling us that your God specially designed every extant life form, econiche, natural wonder, lifestyle etc. (See “Bats”, under “Miscellany”.) How can we separate this fixed belief of yours from the fixed belief that everything was designed as “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans”? One or the other of these fixed beliefs simply has to be modified if it is to make any sense.

I don't have to modify anything to keep a logical theory, which is at its base, the realization that biological designs we see are too complex for chance formation. A designing mind is required. I call it God to be consistent with current monotheistic religions in Western civilization, noting the Eastern religions take a different approach. When you and I discuss how that mind might think and plan we enter a territory where we must use words applied to human thought and that adds to the confusion that occurs in our discussions.