Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, April 26, 2024, 11:35 (11 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy and boredom

I have again juxtaposed some comments in order to clarify arguments and avoid repetition.

dhw: I’m sure you’ll agree that your God, who you believe is interested in his creations, would find puppets pretty boring.

DAVID: Exactly!

dhw: And so he gave us free will because he would have found puppets boring.[...]
You also expressly blame him for natural disasters such as bugs that cause disease.

DAVID: It is honest.

It is indeed, and it makes your subsequent arguments all the more contradictory.

dhw: It (the boredom theory) fits in with life’s history. But it raises a moral problem. Please tell us if you regard the Holocaust and the 50 million flu victims as secondary and morally justified by the fact that such evil relieves us from being bored.

DAVID: Yes, as a morally sufficient reason to give us free will.

dhw: Thank you for this straight answer. In order to relieve his (and our) boredom, he allowed millions of murders and designed bugs which he knew would kill millions of victims. And yet you insist that he is selfless and has no self-interest.

DAVID: Same answer. Proportionality is absent in your complaint. Life entails these problems.

It is no defence of evil to say that there is more good than evil. We know life entails evil, and the question is why an all-good God would allow human evil and deliberately create the natural evils for which you blame him.

DAVID: Humans killed six million, not God. God gave us free will which I prefer to have, don't you?

Your latest theory is that your God gave us free will, knowing that we would commit evil, because puppets would have been boring. And you consider that relieving his own boredom morally justifies his allowing the human slaughter of six million, and the divine slaughter of 50 million (for which you blame him). And this is the God you tell us is selfless and without self-interest.

DAVID: My direct answer is would you prefer not to be alive?

dhw: Your question is totally irrelevant. We are discussing the nature of the God you wish for and believe in, not my love of life!

DAVID: So you are glad to be alive to complain.

I am not complaining about being alive. I am complaining about your dodges and contradictions.

Under "Giant viruses"

DAVID: It is your cockamamy view of evolution that is at fault. All species produced were relevant in their time.

dhw: Relevant to what? Certainly not to what you believe to have been your God’s one and only purpose (us and our food), since only 0.1% of them led to us and our food.

DAVID: Relevant to current ecosystems of the time in evolution.

dhw: [..] Thank you for confirming their irrelevance to the present, which is the reason why your theory of evolution is so illogical.

DAVID: One gets to the present through past stages of evolution! Amazing isn't it.

You have explicitly agreed that the present is “descended” from 0.1% of past stages of evolution, which means that 99.9% of them were irrelevant to what you claim was your God’s sole purpose. Stop dodging.