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

by dhw, Sunday, February 14, 2021, 15:52 (1379 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Why tell us God has a purpose in creating life (including humans) if you refuse to discuss what that purpose might be?

DAVID: Ad nauseum, His final point of purpose was for humans with big-brained consciousness to appear.

That cannot be a “final point of purpose”! I’m asking what was his purpose in creating life, including humans?

DAVID: No refusal, as you claim. We have discussed viruses as aiding in the process of evolution as one possible 'good' role. Viruses enter DNA as contributing residents.

Your problem is why he created the bad viruses, not the good ones.

DAVID (on E-coli): […] Note my bold that most of the gene transfers are fatal. Gene transfer is an accepted mechanism for adaptation and evolutionary change or advance. I assume it was designed by God. And perhaps, note my bold, He set this circumstance up to control bad gene transfers, or I admit, like the urine infections an accident, or an uncontrolled mistake.

If God designed the system, the bad bacteria and the bad viruses that lead to appalling suffering and death (not to mention urine infections), then there is a problem for those who think of their God as “caring”. I don’t know why you refuse even to consider the possibility that your God did NOT design them all, and did NOT make mistakes, but deliberately created a free-for-all, and your next response simply repeats your own self-contradictions.

dhw: 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?

DAVID: God is above having to create something for self-entertainment, My view of His personality fully differs from your humanizing thoughts.

I have rejected your loaded term “entertainment” and have used your own vocabulary – you are sure your God is “interested” in his creations. You also regard it as possible (previously probable) that your God has patterns of thought and emotions and other attributes similar to ours.

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.

dhw: 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!

We now have a series of responses to the same set of questions arising from different posts.

1 DAVID:No dodge. All steps of evolution to humans to all preceding forms.
2 DAVID: We came through evolution from all those extinct 99% forms and necessary food supply.
3 DAVID: The new organs were part of the necessary advance in complexity to create us.
4 DAVID: Of course God is the designer of life and the steps to humans make humans are all related to human creation.
5 DAVID: Your weirdly illogically chopped up evolution into unrelated segments makes no sense. Evolution is a single process.

1 Meaning not clear. Perhaps you meant from all preceding forms, in which case please explain the connection between sapiens and the brontosaurus (plus a few million others). 2 Same as 1. 3. How were the wings of archaeopteryx necessary for our evolution? 4 Of course the steps to humans made humans. How did the steps to the brontosaurus and the archaeopteryx etc. make humans? 5 Evolution is a single process whereby vast numbers of different life forms descended from bacteria (= common descent). But 99% of those life forms are extinct and had no connection with humans or with their food supply. In your own words: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms” , “extinct life has no role in current time”, and the brontosaurus had no connection with humans, and 99% of past life forms and econiches likewise had no connection with humans. You have agreed that you have no idea why your God would have chosen to design all these other unconnected life forms etc. if his only purpose had been to design humans, and I wish you would leave it at that.

Transposons

dhw: What do you think would have been the main preoccupation of the earliest hominins?

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

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

DAVID: Our brains were far beyond that need, as you well know.

You pooh-poohed the theory that our brain was needed for survival. I suggested that the earliest forms of human from which we have evolved were just as preoccupied with survival as the apes, and so were the earliest sapiens. Hence the long period of stasis before we embarked on the course that has led to our current civilisation – which is still linked primarily to survival but has now extended into a vast range of other activities.