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

by dhw, Friday, January 29, 2021, 10:47 (1392 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Now we are returning to God's personality discussion. I think if Him as highly purposeful with the process of evolution absolutely directed toward the production of humans with big brain consciousness. The broad bush is for econiches to provide food for all and is practical and not higgledy-piggledy. Your failure to see God's purpose muddles your approach.

dhw: There is no way round discussing God’s personality if you want to discuss the problem of theodicy. And so once again you have returned to the theory we agreed to leave unmentioned: that your God’s sole purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, but you have no idea why he would have directly designed millions of earlier non-human life forms and econiches, 99% of which had no connection with humans. Your inability to explain why he would use such a method to fulfil such a purpose should alert you to the possibility that your theory is wrong.

DAVID: Simple: God's choice to evolve is perfect logic.

Must we play this silly dodging game again? It is perfectly logical that if God exists, he chose evolution as his method to create the millions and millions of life forms that have come and gone. But you have no idea why he would have…see the bold above.

dhw: ...you add to the illogicality of your interpretation of evolution with your insistence that a God who designs what he wants to design is weaker than a God who is unable to design what he wants to design, and tries but often fails to correct the errors.

DAVID: Your inverted view of molecular errors fails to recognize the processes are at required very high speed and 3.8 by of evolution refutes your complaint. From single cells extraordinary human are here! Simply, the errors are survivable with Gods' current error correction processes.

Another dodge. The problem is not what works but what does not work. You raised the subject of errors in the first place, and claimed that in some cases your God had tried but failed to correct the errors which he could not prevent. We expanded this to the question of why he would have deliberately created “bad” bacteria (part of the theodicy problem). You have no idea. But you insist that my free-for-all hypothesis makes God weaker than a God who can’t prevent errors, can’t correct some of them, and creates “bad” things for no apparent reason.

DAVID: Back to views of God's personality: yours is not purposeful and so organisms have to work out their own future designs somehow.

You keep flogging the same dead horse. I am the one who proposes a theistic purpose for all the non-human life forms and for all the “good” and “bad” consequences of the system your God designed. You admit that you have no idea what his purpose might have been. All you can think of is how clever humans are.

DAVID: (re "phase separation"): Something works in intracellular soup to keep every process separated and working with very few errors. After all, from the time life appeared, I presume invented by God, over 3.8 billion years lager we are here despite a tiny group of molecular errors along the way. God's cleverness in the working design still alludes us. dhw will continue to point out the molecular errors as a way to denigrate God's power.

This is a disgraceful distortion. Firstly, the fact that we are here is no more relevant to the theodicy problem than the fact that your horses are here. Secondly, I do not denigrate your God’s power. I propose that the “something” in intracellular “soup” which has led to speciation is CELLULAR intelligence (perhaps designed by your God) – as opposed to your 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme, or through your God’s direct dabbles. And you are the one who denigrates your God’s power, by arguing that he could not control the errors that have led to the diseases he tried in vain to prevent. My theistic proposal is that he designed what he WANTED to design (the free-for-all ). How can this be a “denigration” of God’s power?

Asian weather patterns

dhw: And there you have a perfectly clear indication of how environmental conditions trigger speciation. Of course the question for you once more is why, in the course of all the similar environmental changes in the past, your God would have created a vast variety of econiches and species, 99% of which no longer exist and had no connection with humans, if the process of evolution was “absolutely directed toward the production of humans with big brain consciousness”. Off we go again...

DAVID: Environmental conditions allow speciation to happen not cause it!!! Why do you dwell on the past when we are discussing why the present exists? The past led to the present. WE are here against all probability.

Why have you changed my terminology? I did not say environmental conditions CAUSED speciation, but they triggered it. Organisms RESPOND to new conditions. I dwell on the past, because you keep insisting on - and then trying to divert attention away from – the illogical theory bolded above. We are here against all probability, and so were and are all the other life forms. Or do you think your horses were probable from the moment the first cells appeared on Earth?