Natures wonders: seabirds food finding flight patterns (Introduction)

by David Turell , Sunday, April 19, 2020, 20:05 (1677 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: “It might well be” has now changed to “I strongly doubt”. Perhaps you hadn’t realized that trial and error was an admission of intelligence. So the next step is to change your opinion and then to point out that we don’t know the origin of strategies that are now instinctive.

You are quite correct. At times I don't think as deeply as i should. Trial and error does imply intellectual analysis of experience. I don't think the birds are capable of that. You insist upon intelligence everywhere, when it may be an appearance of intelligence, and nothing more, as in cellular functions

DAVID: Again they are your illogicalities: Real interpretation: God knows some organisms may test us, but we have been given the big brain to figure out how to fight them, while we can create many useful immaterial concepts to better our lives. We are again at the problem of evil, and you have simply repeated the atheist's anthem, as I've noted before. Your problem, not mine.

dhw: Theodicy is a problem for the religious who believe that their God is all powerful and all good. However, I emphasized that my focus was NOT on that, but on the illogicalities and contradictions arising from your personal and “exact” beliefs regarding God’s actions and motives. You state unequivocally that your all-powerful God designed the bad viruses, and he did so in order to test us. How do you know either of these claims, and why would he want to test us? Nothing to do with atheism.

Difference in interpretation as usual. My view is God knew bad viruses would appear as a result of His evolutionary process, and our big brain would provide ways to solve the problems that might arise. 'Decided to test us' is your view of what I have just written.

dhw: Here’s another theory for you: God set up all the mechanisms for life and for evolution of life, and then let those mechanisms do their own thing. No “humanizing” at all here, so you’ll have to abandon that escape route, and no intellectual knot-tying trying to find a reason why he specially designed the baddies. Can you find any logical weakness in it when you compare it to the actual history of life?

Our views of God differ widely, no surprise. Now you've reintroduce your loosey-goosey God who gives up total control. My God is too purposeful to give up total control. Both God's fit history. You are correct, not a humanizing issue at this level of discussion. Your humanizing occurs when you apply human motives to God.

DAVID: A casual reader might interpret this discussion differently: you want me to make up excuses for what you perceive as God's errors based on what you think your god might think. You and I are really debating two different Gods, which confuses the real issues.

dhw: I have not suggested that God made any errors! It is you who make exact statements about your God’s nature (omniscient and all-controlling), purposes (designing humans and testing them) and methods (spending 3.X billion years not designing the only thing he wants to design). At least one of these beliefs only makes sense if your God made errors! So let me inform the casual reader that in the first instance I am challenging the logic of these exact statements in relation both to the history of evolution and to the nature of God. In the second instance, I offer different alternative views of both, which even David admits are logical.

You see God's actions as creating errors. I see it as God recognizing potential problems for us in how He developed evolution, so we are given a giant brain to solve issues. Why didn't the 'all-powerful God' you constantly refer to, just give us a cushy problem-free existence? Apparently not His plan. Would a non-challenged life be really enjoyable, or shouldn't we struggle a bit to have the enjoyment of discovery and reaching solutions?