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

by dhw, Monday, May 24, 2021, 11:11 (1277 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: First dodge: Your theory is not “history”, so please stop pretending that it is.

DAVID: My theory is based on belief in God creating our reality.

dhw: It is based on your belief in your interpretation of your God’s one and only purpose – to design humans – and your interpretation of his method of achieving that purpose, which entailed designing thousands of species “de novo” plus all their food supplies, 99% of which had no connection with humans.

I am now going to quote your replies to the rest of my post, all of which represent the same dodge that you have used over and over again. Our disagreement has nothing whatsoever to do with your belief in God's existence. It is your illogical theory of evolution, as summarized above, that is the issue.

DAVID: That is your strange distorted version of what I think. I believe in God as the force that is first cause. His final creation was humans. He may have done this and over in His past.

That does not make your theory of evolution (bolded above) logical.

DAVID: My beliefs are based on a history we both know.

The history is the bush of life itself. Your belief that your God designed every life form etc., and they were all “part of the goal of evolving [= specially designing] humans” plus our food supply is not history, and since 99% of them had no connection with humans, even you cannot find a logical reason why your God would have chosen such a method to achieve such a goal.

DAVID: To a person like me, your attempts at theism give an obvious impression of humanizing God. I might ask you to stop dodging, but your rigid thought pattern cannot change. You simply do not understand the view of theism, God, I have.

It is your theory of evolution (bolded above) that I am challenging, and you yourself admit that you cannot explain it. I do not ask you to believe any of my alternative theistic theories, and none of them represent a "rigid thought pattern", but you agree that they are all logical.

DAVID: How do you dare to tell me I was so tunnel-visioned I only considered one alternative when I was first studying the issue of God? I have reached my conclusions that God exists and creates, based on a mass of reading.

The issue between us is not the existence of God, but your theory of evolution (bolded above).

DAVID: About 150+ estimate of books starting in the 1980's. In contrast to you I ended up with a firm belief in God.

Not the issue. My question concerning the experts was quite explicitly whether they agreed with your theory (bolded above) that “your God’s method of designing the one and only life form he wanted to design (humans plus food supply) was to design millions of life forms plus food supplies that had no connection with humans.”

And under “Gamma rays”:
DAVID: God is obviously in the role of creator. We are here. Therefore God created us. We evolved, so that was the method He used. Your approach is why any God at all? You question, I've stopped. We even interpret the process of evolution very differently.

My approach is not “Why any God at all?” It is your interpretation of evolution (bolded above) that I have challenged here. The other issue is theodicy, which is based entirely on the premise that your God exists. There is simply no need for any of these digressions or misrepresentations of what is at issue. You have agreed that you cannot explain why your God would have “evolved” [= designed] us and our food supply by “evolving” [= designing] all those other unconnected life forms and food supplies if we were his only “goal”. But that is your belief. I must accept that you will not budge. I have presented my theistic alternatives which you have rejected. The discussion is over. So let’s leave it at that.