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

by dhw, Saturday, February 13, 2021, 12:11 (1377 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...] once more [you] avoid the problem of his directly designing Covid-19 et al and your certainty that he is interested in all that’s going on but can’t have wanted to create something that would interest him.

DAVID: Aside from the possibility that the Chinese designed the virus, it probably arose from mutations of any earlier existing corona virus, God not involved. Wanting to create an interesting item is pure humanizing. God has purpose in creation, not to provide interest to avoid boredom. Is He interested in the result? Of course He would be as a secondary effect, not as a primary as you pose it

You have said your God designed all bad bacteria and viruses. Presumably his design allows them to mutate. The question is why he designed them. Why tell us God has a purpose in creating life (including humans) if you refuse to discuss what that purpose might be? And from where do you get your inside information that he’s interested but didn’t create life in order to have something interesting to watch?

dhw: If his only aim was to design humans, why did he design all the extinct life forms that had no connection with humans? You have told us again and again that you have no idea, so why don’t you just leave it at that?

DAVID: As usual you ignore food supply.

ALL forms of life have to have food. How does that mean that the 99% of them that had no connection with humans were part of the goal of evolving humans? Please stop playing this silly dodging game!

Transposons

DAVID: Survival is not a proven theory but Darwin-speak guess work. The apes prove our brain was not needed for survival.

dhw: No they don’t. We have no idea why certain groups of apes descended from the trees, but it is perfectly feasible that local environments made it necessary or more advantageous for them to do so, while elsewhere apes were perfectly fine as they were. What do you think would have been the main preoccupation of the earliest hominins?

DAVID: Food supply and protection from dangers, same as apes.

Thank you. Food supply and protection from dangers = survival.

Insect plasticity

DAVID: You always seem to forget that bacteria are here successfully since the beginning. Their example offers no reason for evolution going any further, does it?

dhw: I never stop reminding you, because they are the living proof that NONE of the later life forms were "needed", and so it is absurd to argue that humans are special because their brain was not "needed". They are special because they have unique qualities.

DAVID: You forgotten to tell me all advances are the result of the need for survival.

I have objected to your insistence that humans are unique because bacteria have survived and so we were not needed. NO multicellular life form was “needed”. Our advances in improving our chances of survival put us streets ahead of other life forms, and our branching out into other activities not directly connected with survival certainly make us unique. But, to re-enter the context of this particular discussion, that does not mean every other life form extant and extinct was “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” – the illogical part of your theory which you are so desperate to avoid even mentioning.

DAVID: Therefore evolution had an advancing guiding force, which is not the Darwinist survival daydream of a theory.

dhw:[…] Multicellularity – i.e. the cooperation of cell communities – clearly provided new means of survival. Or do you think every new organ and strategy and natural wonder came into existence just for the fun of it?

DAVID: For God's purpose. Ah, I knew survival would appear. Still no explanation for the human brain, except Adler's, on the basis of pure survival. Your Darwin steak is showing. I've never accepted the idea.

Why don’t you answer my now bolded question? You yourself have even pointed out that the first sapiens did nothing much except survive until there was an explosion of activity in more recent times. By then we had our brains.

DAVID: […] Now we see DNA was setup for prompt advances. Clever designer at work.

dhw: […] those of us who believe in common descent will of course agree that the first cells must have contained a mechanism that would lead to all the advances! Cellular intelligence (perhaps provided by God) is one theory, Darwin opted for random mutations refined by natural selection, and you opt for a divine 3.8-billion-year-old programme for every undabbled change.

DAVID: I simply posit God speciates.

No you don’t! You posit that your God directly designed every life form, econiche, natural wonder etc., and all of them were designed as “part of the goal of evolving humans” although 99% of them had no connection with humans. Please, please, stop this silly dodging game.