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

by David Turell , Monday, March 15, 2021, 16:58 (1347 days ago) @ dhw

David’s Theory of evolution and alternatives

dhw: And still you go on editing out what I have bolded! It is not evolution that I am challenging but your insistence that every single life form in the history of life was part of your God’s one and only goal to design humans, although 99% of them had no connection with humans.

Same old illogical complaint. My position: God chose to evolve humans from bacteria. Pure history, and must involve 99% of all extinct species as evolution is a continuous process.

dhw: But supposing your God wanted a free-for-all? Then he would invent a mechanism that would enable organisms to do their own designing. And wouldn’t that explain the vast diversity of life forms that have come and gone? (See below.)

My God prefers tight control of all advances. Yours is namby-pamby. Design require controls

DAVID: God designs in anticipation of needs.

dhw: And you dismiss the theory that organisms change IN RESPONSE to existing conditions, as opposed to anticipation of them. And yet we see examples every day of organisms RESPONDING and adapting to new needs, so why should the process have been reversed for speciation?

The adaptations we see are small changes within species. My view: only God speciates

DAVID: You obviously don't want God to have any controls, although you give it lip service, which is why I view you as looking for natural methods of speciation.

dhw: The intelligent cell theory does not omit your God, which is why I don’t like your use of the word “natural”, as I suspect it implies exclusion of God. God is not excluded if it was his choice to give evolution free rein.[/i]

DAVID: Free rein means chance events and a natural course for evolution. God running/designing evolution is a full explanation. Obvious complex designs cannot be ignored.

dhw: I would suggest that if he exists, he would deliberately have created a system that would result in ever changing environments. As regards a “natural” course for evolution, I presume you just mean evolution that is not directly controlled by God. Yes indeed, and that provides a “full explanation” of the constantly changing nature of life’s history, in which branches of life’s vast bush have grown and died out, to be replaced by new branches, with humans on the end of just one of those branches. At a stroke, we have eliminated the problem which your own theory can never explain and which I have bolded at the start of this post.

My firm totally logical position as above: "My position: God chose to evolve humans from bacteria. Pure history, and must involve 99% of all extinct species as evolution is a continuous process."

God’s purpose for creating life

DAVID: That God choses to create is all we know. WE can assume He 'likes' doing it, because if He hated it, creation would stop. He doesn't need to do it for self-satisfaction.

dhw: ou said it was obvious that he likes creating, and you agree that he possibly (probably) has thought patterns similar to ours. You don’t need to change the vocabulary. If he likes doing it, why is it not even feasible that he would do it because he likes doing it?

More humanizing. God is the creator and is not doing it for self-enjoyment or aggrandizement.

Theodicy

dhw: Bearing in mind the terrible diseases that are caused by some of the errors, I’m asking why you think he wanted to correct them.

DAVID: He didn't want the diseases to happen, so He added corrections where He could.

dhw: You’re coming closer to giving me an answer, so I’ll just try to push you one step further. Why do you think he did not want the diseases to happen?

Why invent forms that get sick? Not on purpose.