Biological complexity: misfolded protein problems (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 14, 2017, 13:15 (2627 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why would your God have designed viruses and at the same time designed molecules to fight viruses, especially when his prime purpose was to produce the human brain? Your answer basically seems to be that he had to do whatever he did because it couldn’t be done any other way. So he was always in control except when he wasn’t. I’m sure this will be of great consolation to the victims of viral diseases, pandemics, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and hurricane Irma. But your theistic explanation and mine both make sense: yours, that with his limited powers (though he's sometimes all-powerful) this was the best he could do; mine, he chose to do it this way because perfection would have been boring.

DAVID: There are lots of things we do not know about the origin of life and how speciation works. Viruses may also be good guys and help with speciation. They do add to our DNA. God's limits may be dictated by His goals, as those goals might require the way the universe and Earth work. Perfection may not be the solution.

It is because we don’t know about lots of things that we formulate hypotheses. Yours seem to change from day to day. You now seem to be taking it for granted that God has limits. Not so long ago, he was all-powerful and always in control. Why not acknowledge the possibility (which is all it can be) that what we have IS God’s goal – namely, a massive free-for-all, full of nice and nasty, good and evil, joy and sadness, birth and death, extinction and survival?