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

by dhw, Saturday, May 22, 2021, 11:18 (1279 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: But as usual you have left out the next part of your theory, which is that in order to achieve his goal of creating humans, he first created “de novo” (an additional twist to your tale) millions of life forms, econiches, food supplies, strategies, lifestyles, natural wonders etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans. Your reply to this is:

DAVID: I don't know God's reasons for evolving us in the way He chose. But I accept that He did and the current bush of life can be explained logically. Just study history as God's works.

dhw: You admit that you can find no logical reason for your God evolving us in the way YOU choose. You do not accept that he did, you accept your own theory that that is what he did. We both regard it as history that humans evolved. But even if we accept the theory that God exists, it is NOT history that he designed every life form etc. “de novo”, and it is NOT history that every life form etc. that he specially designed was bb“part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans.” You have agreed that the current bush of life has nothing to do with the past bushes of life, which again your God specially designed. Thank you for admitting that you can find no reasons why your God would have fulfilled his one and only purpose the way you think he did. Why won’t you leave it at that?

DAVID: The bold is one of the distortions you use to continue the discussion. The current bush is in a different time period, so the only lack of relationship is the time periods. You constantly slice and dice evolution into separate segments.

First dodge: Your theory is not “history”, so please stop pretending that it is. Second dodge: how can every life form have been part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing”] humans if 99% of life forms had no connection with humans? As for segments etc., I keep repeating that evolution is a continuum from the first cells, but the bush of life has diversified into thousands and thousands of different branches or lines, only one of which has led to humans. You agree: “Of course one line becomes humans”. The other 99% of lines had no connection with humans, and their food supplies had no connection with human food supplies. Time is also a continuum, but humans have divided it into “periods” for convenience in order to write history. This is irrelevant to the question of why your God would have specially designed every species that has ever existed in order to specially design humans and our food supply. You don’t know why he would have chosen this method of designing humans, but you have a fixed belief that this is what he wanted and did. Why do you continue to pretend it is logical while at the same time admitting that you can’t explain it logically? I suggest we leave it at that.

Under: “Introducing the brain”
DAVID: Why do humans guess at God's designs before they have the full story?

dhw: I have taken this remark out of its limited context because it is so appropriate to this discussion. We do not have the “full story”, and so we theorize. And then we test the logic of the theories we have proposed. Why do we do it? Because we long to know the truth. And so you offer us your guess, but you “accept” (which should be "believe" - see above) that your guess is the truth, even though you have “no idea” why your God would have chosen the method you attribute to him in order to achieve the purpose you attribute to him.

DAVID: My declaration as to what I believe is arrived upon by my logic and reading expert thought as a basis.

So your logic tells you that your God designed every life form “de novo”, 99% of them had no connection with humans, but humans were his only goal and this was his way of designing them. I wonder how many “experts” agree with you.