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

by dhw, Thursday, May 13, 2021, 10:19 (1080 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 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.

dhw: “I wish you would repeat my theories honestly.” In none of my alternatives does God wander around without a strict purpose. Creation for enjoyment is a purpose in itself, and I don’t know why you regard that as weak or namby-pamby, or any more humanized than your know-all control freak. And I do not see it as weakness for an alternative God to experiment or learn as he goes along and to open himself up to new experiences.

DAVID: The usual view of God is that He knows all, as evidenced by the universe He has created, the life He started, no small feats. You have again described the kind of God I characterized above. My know-it-all is exactly that, and your derisive remarks indicate you have no idea how to think about God as believers do.

The derisive remarks were meant to match the tone of your own derisive remarks – “very weak…..namby-pamby…wanders around” – in your attempt to discredit what even you regard as logical theories that fit in with the history of life. I do not regard the creation of life as a “small feat”, and I wonder how many believers share your view that your God specially designed every life form, econiche, lifestyle, natural wonder etc. for the sole purpose of designing humans, although 99% of them had no connection with humans.

DAVID: I came to believe based only upon the complexity of living biochemistry, the supreme complexity of which you obviously don't understand.

I obviously do understand, since I keep telling you over and over again that I accept the design argument because of the complexity of living biochemistry, and it is one of two factors that prevent me from embracing atheism. The reason why you keep bringing this up is that you think it will enable you to dodge the issue of your illogical theory of evolution, as in the following exchange:

dhw: The design argument, the name “God”, and the use of human terms are not the problem, and you know it! The problem, for the thousandth time, is the illogicality of your claim that your God designed every single life form, econiche etc. as “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans”, although 99% of those life forms etc, had no connection with humans.

DAVID: Same old tired response. 99% had to be discarded as evolution progressed. Would you like to live with herds of dinosaurs? God knows exactly what He was doing as He evolved all presently living organisms. I'm sorry you can't believe reasonable statements about God.

The question is why he would have specially designed the dinosaurs plus all the other life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans, if his one and only aim was to design humans. I have no doubt that if God exists, the history of life is the product of what he wanted to do, and so of course he knew what he was doing. And so I suggest that what he was doing would not have been designing things that had no connection with what he wanted to do. I’m sorry you can’t believe reasonable statements about your theory of evolution, even though you agree that you have no idea why your God would have acted the way you say he acted.

(Taken from “Miscellany”): Seals
DAVID: My understanding of evolutionary gaps is there must be a designer.

dhw: […] this comment of yours raises the problem of common descent, which you claim to believe in. No wonder you have no idea why your God chose to evolve H. sapiens, since you now appear to be a full-blooded Creationist.

DAVID: God is the Creator.

Your response was wrongly attributed to me, and of course it totally misses the point. You claim to believe in common descent, but you believe in creation de novo. If he could design all these other creatures de novo, why couldn’t he do the same with the only one he wanted to design? (And no, I’m not challenging God. I’m challenging your theory.) And for good measure, you claim that all the life forms your Creationist God specially designed were “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” although 99% had no connection with humans.

Theodicy
Needle design

QUOTE: Many bacterial pathogens rely on virulent type III secretion systems (T3SSs) or injectisomes to translocate effector proteins in order to establish infection.

DAVID: Read these paragraphs slowly as your eyes roll back. Extreme complexity shown beautifully in the diagrams which should be seen to appreciate this DID NOT happen by natural chance events.

My eyes roll back at the thought of your God – who according to you does everything for “the good” – deliberately designing these beautiful pathogens so that they can inflict these horrible diseases on us.