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

by David Turell , Wednesday, February 10, 2021, 14:44 (1173 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Our discoveries about what we thought were 'bad' does mean we may find some good reasons. And remember God made us with the brains to fight these problems which could be purposeful on His part to challenge us. The Garden of Eden is boring, and I know you accept that.

dhw: I’m glad you think there may be some “good” reasons for all the diseases that cause so much suffering. It’s a shame, though, that you can’t think of any, as it somewhat weakens your opposition to the free-for-all hypothesis I have proposed. Well done for accepting that your God might not want to watch a boring creation like the Garden of Eden.

Back to a God who doesn't care about what happens or is OK about directionless events.

DAVID: Again you know God's self-interest in being entertained by spectacle. I view God as being interested in His creations as any inventor would be, but never as a reqjired entertaining spectacle for His enjoyment as you infer.

dhw: I don’t “know” anything – even if God exists. I don’t like and have never used the word “entertain”. I wouldn’t call Beethoven’s 9th, or Shakespeare’s King Lear, or Michelangelo’s David, or the telephone, or computers, or rockets entertaining. Why do you try to cheapen creativity and inventiveness by using such vocabulary? If your God is interested in his own inventions – just like us humans – it is patently illogical to dismiss the hypothesis that he might have created his inventions because he wanted something interesting to do and to watch.

Again a weak humanized God who requires self-entertainment

dhw: I’m pleased to see you speculating on God’s possible human characteristics and on why we are here, but I am not pleased that once again you have completely ignored my request for a logical answer to the question why, if we were his one and only purpose, he directly designed millions and millions of life forms, econiches etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans. THAT is your illogical theory of evolution, and I wish you would stop dodging the issue, accept that the theory is illogical but your faith in it is unshakable, and leave it at that.

I must keep repeating I don't understand your illogical complaint about my logical conclusion God chose to evolve us. You simply describe evolution and complain about it.

Coelacanth

QUOTE: "Horizontal gene transfer fuzzies up the picture of where the transposons came from but we know from other species that it can occur via parasitism," says Yellan.

DAVID: Is gene horizontal transfer an organismal ability, or does God step in and make the changes? Since I think God speciates, I feel He steps in.

dhw: So do you think the coelacanth was “part of the goal of evolving humans”? Sounds more like part of a free-for-all to me, with parasites finding their own means of survival.

For you God is not allowed to control evolution. Our brain just popped up by chance.

Transposons

QUOTE: "Lest we give the impression that the transposon hazard is something we should be better off without, consider that transposons are solely responsible for most, or at least many, of the higher evolutionary refinements we enjoy today." [David's bold]

DAVID: Is this God's supreme method for advancing evolution?

dhw: Do you think God pops in to transfer the genes from one life form to another, or preprogrammed their jumps 3.8 billion years ago? Or is it possible that the whole process is part of a great free-for-all for which he devised the mechanism? (And let’s not forget that the “hazard” can have bad repercussions as well as good.)

Free-floating evolution drifted from bacteria to our brain all by chance!!!! No purposeful drive allowed. Adler and I are aghast at the thought. Reality drifts along and God sits idly by.

Insect plasticity

DAVID: As butterflies enter new environments their brains change:

DAVID: The authors are trying to sell a method of speciation, but what I see is strong evidence of insect brain plasticity, mimicking ours, a strong indication brain plasticity is a property throughout species.

dhw:If the brain changes in order to meet the new requirements of changing conditions, the same process would apply to all species that have brains. This fits in perfectly with the theory that speciation comes about through responses to new conditions – the exact opposite of your theory that your God pops in to perform operations in preparation for new conditions.

I'll stick to brain plasticity is widespread.