Watching asteroids; possible damage (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, March 09, 2017, 12:08 (2605 days ago) @ David Turell

TONY: By barking up the wrong tree, I simply meant that the existence of something dangerous did not imply limitations in power, in and of itself.
dhw: It is David’s hypothesis that his God might perhaps be limited in power (e.g. perhaps he had no choice but to use asteroids, and to design every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder in order to keep life going until he was able to produce homo sapiens). I don’t buy either of these particular limitations, but I don’t have a problem with the idea that God may have deliberately sacrificed control (at least temporarily), and may also have learned from his own experiments, as opposed to knowing everything in advance.
David: My proposal that God might have some limitations is only one interpretation I have offered it as an alternative for discussion. Is God all-everything or are there limits? Since He uses evolutionary processes He may have to work at sequential plans when He discovers limits at a given stage.

If he “discovers limits”, then he is experimenting, which was the second alternative I offered you, i.e. he wanted to produce a being with consciousness like his own, but he didn’t know how to do it (as opposed to his knowing it all in advance, and only dabbling if organisms needed “correcting”). Hence the higgledy-piggledy bush. We are making progress.

DAVID: It has been noted that viruses are possibly used to further evolution itself. Yet viruses can cause disease. Plate tectonics are required for life on Earth. There are plusses and minuses that cannot be avoided. That is obvious, so the bad things are not necessarily intentional on God's part, which you imply. God created humans with free will, so some of them are evil. And you think that is God's intention?

They are pluses and minuses that cannot be avoided if your God – who you believe created everything out of his own energy – is limited by the natural laws he created. If you are now claiming that his production of bad things (I include natural disasters and disease as well as human nastiness under the broad category of “evil”) may have been unintentional, then it rings pretty hollow when you criticize other concepts of God as being un-Godlike (see below). Of course, you have every right to use your human judgement in contemplating your God’s possible powers and nature, and so do I.

Dhw: "natural disasters and diseases that were in place long before humans came on the scene raises questions about his motivation and attitude towards his creations, and also about his own nature."
DAVID: I view that thought as very narrow reasoning.

Why is it narrow reasoning to inquire into God’s possible motives, attitudes and nature, but it is not narrow reasoning to say that he does not have a “smidgen” of evil in him (as if you knew him personally) but he may have been powerless to avoid the evil consequences of his quest to produce humans?

TONY: I see the give and take as a requirement inherent in the grand design, not a limitation. Perhaps the universe and everything in it COULD have been created with and potential for callamity, but in doing so it would removed the possibility for variety, free will, surprises, and any other number of things that make life worth living.

I presume you mean “without the potential”, and this is an approach I find far more rational than that of a God who can create a universe and life, but is at the mercy of his own limitations. It fits in perfectly with the hypothesis that he deliberately created the possibility for variety and surprises etc., and all the ambivalences. I then ask myself why he did so. And one perfectly logical answer is that it produces a fascinating spectacle for him to watch.

DAVID: Looking for spectacles is again describing human entertainment, not very God-like. I would also like to know for sure why he produced humans. I've offered several thoughts.

Even you have suggested that God is watching, so it’s certainly no less “God-like” than a God who wants to produce humans and unintentionally produces a system which indiscriminately causes incalculable suffering just because he can’t find another way of doing it. And yes, you have offered some thoughts as to why he produced humans: 1) he wanted a relationship with us (but keeps himself hidden from us and doesn’t have any human attributes for us to relate to); 2) he wants to watch us solve the problems he couldn’t solve himself (but we mustn’t call that a spectacle). What else have you offered?

DAVID: … We are looking at my developed faith against your groundless applying of human motives to God's activities.
dhw: I don’t know why you call your faith in your evolutionary scenario “developed” when you admit that you wander all over the place in trying to justify it,
DAVID: On the contrary I've firmly stated God uses evolutionary processes to create.

But you wander all over the place (your own expression) when you try to explain why he had to design every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder extant and extinct to keep life going until he was able to dabble with the pre-human brain, or pre-humans were able to switch on his 3.8-billion-year-old programme for brain enlargement.

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