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

by dhw, Saturday, January 30, 2021, 13:27 (1391 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: It is still your gaming ongoing. I've told you I have not idea why He makes his choices of methods of creation. And it is of no matter to me. Why does it bother you?

Inaccurate: you have no idea why He would make the choices of methods of creation you impose on him! There is no point in any of our discussions if you simply keep repeating that your interpretation of evolution is logical, even though you have no idea what that logic might be, and so you reject any alternative explanation, even if you agree that it is logical. We agreed to leave it at that, but back we go again!

dhw: […] 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: God had precise objective as I view Him. You are back to a laisse faire Deity. I repeat evolution works despite the tiny percentage of errors.

The only precise objective you have offered us is that all the errors he tried and failed to correct, and all the “bad” things he directly designed, were part of his goal to evolve humans. But evolution has worked to produce a vast bush of life, 99% of which has died out and had no connection with humans! And you admit that you have no idea why he designed the bad things, but maybe one day it will be explained. Not much precision there. A laissez-faire deity would offer a precise and totally logical theistic explanation of this history, as well as solving the mystery of theodicy. Now please tell us why it DOESN’T explain the history and why it DOESN’T solve the problem of theodicy.
[..]
DAVID: God is too purposeful to want free-for-alls another way of misunderstanding ecosystems and the cbuash of life.

Back we go: you have said yourself that your God is interested in his creations. A free-for-all would be far more interesting than what you called a dull Garden of Eden. Why is it not “purposeful” for God to create something interesting? In your occasional moments of giving your God a purpose for humans, you even have him wanting us to admire his creations. I don’t know what a “cbuash” is, but I do know that ecosystems are necessary for ALL forms of life, and there have been millions of them that had no connection with humans. What is the “misunderstanding”?

Asian weather patterns

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.

dhw: 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?

DAVID: So you interpret triggering as causing a response. Is a response a guaranteed result? Not necessarily.

Of course not. But we are talking about what did happen – namely adaptation and speciation by existing life forms. And I maintain that these happened as a response to environmental changes, not in anticipation of them.

DAVID: And once life began all the organisms that have appeared by evolution are an expected result of the bush expanding, except what you obviously always have to ignore, our most unexpected, unusual brain. That is the difference in how to think about humans, per Adler.

Who “expected” the trilobites, the dinosaurs, the duckbilled platypus etc. etc.? Were you around at the beginning of life, writing in your diary: “I expect trilobites, dinosaurs and platypuses, but I don’t expect H. sapiens”? Yes, we have an unusual brain, but ALL forms of life are unexplained, and nobody knows how cells arrived, or how they combined to form ALL the multicellular species that have come and gone in the last 3.8 billion years!

What does this have to do with your theory that your God designed all changes in ANTICIPATION of new conditions, as opposed to in response? You keep dodging from one muddle to another.