A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, June 10, 2021, 13:47 (1260 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolution of the universe(transferred from “Miscellany”)
dhw: I doubt your theory that your God individually preprogrammed or dabbled every innovation etc. in the whole of life’s history, and I find it incompatible with your belief that his only purpose was to create humans. An alternative would be that he wanted and deliberately designed an autonomous system to produce the endless variety of life forms etc. that make up the history of life as we know it. If he gets what he wants, how does that make him weak?

DAVID: As before I've done designs, and secondhand attempts don't work, as in telling the architect what is wanted and getting a mess.

As before, I see no analogy here. God presumably didn’t give you instructions on what to design – he gave you the mechanism to design what you wanted to design, and the independent intelligence to use the mechanism. I propose that if he exists, he did the same for other life forms. They do not have to design what he wants them to design. It’s left to them to decide. There is no “second-hand”! He would have provided both you and other organisms with the mechanism and the independent intelligence to use it (as you agreed earlier, but hurriedly rescinded).

DAVID: Most God-believing folks view Him as all powerful, all knowing, past present and future, all purposeful, etc. You always weaken and modify and make Him amorphous.

dhw: I don’t know why you are kow-towing to “most God-believing folks” when you pride yourself on your rejection of conventional religion, but in any case the image I have offered you above still has him as all-powerful and all purposeful, but deliberately creating something that he does not wish to control (as you accept when you insist that he gave humans free will). And I thought your objections were to the possible “human” thought patterns this image entails, which is the exact opposite of “amorphous”. It’s you who object to solid characteristics – though only when they differ from those you attribute to your God (e.g. he always has good intentions).

DAVID: Our free will is not in any way equivalent to designing de novo forms in evolution.

Dealt with above. As usual you dodge all my main points.

DAVID: God's goal of creating humans is obvious, as argued by Adler.

Yet again: If your God’s only goal was to design H. sapiens (plus food supply), why would he have individually designed millions of life forms plus food supplies, 99% of which had no connection with H. sapiens? You have admitted you cannot explain such “logic”, but it is your fixed belief, and that is why we agreed to drop the subject.

DAVID: Thank you, but you re-raised it.

It is you who constantly re-raise it with your repeated focus on the individual bits and pieces of your theory and your refusal to put them all together and recognize that they do not fit. Hence the bold, and hence your endless dodges. […]

DAVID: Those of us who believe don't think God's works have to be explained, and that results in your conjuring up a God who seems unsure of himself as He experiments with possible advances.

But you DO try to explain God’s works! You explain the great variety of life forms etc. as being individually designed by your God, and the reason you give is that he designed each of them as part of his one and only purpose to design humans, although 99% of them had no connection with humans. What according to you does not have to be explained is the total incompatibility of these premises. As for my alternatives, experimentation is only one of them, and I have no idea why you should think that experimentation and willingness to try out and to learn new things denotes lack of self-confidence. I keep challenging this and other such silly denigrations, but you merely repeat them – presumably as part of your great repertoire of dodges to avoid facing up to the questions you are so reluctant to answer.