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

by dhw, Saturday, June 26, 2021, 08:09 (1245 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Yes, I use design and evolve interchangeably. It is all the same to me. I don't have to know why God chose to design an evolutionary process.

dhw: Since this discussion is about a possible God’s possible nature etc. I am accepting the premise of God’s existence. I also accept evolution, so the question raised […] is not why he chose to design an evolutionary process, but why you think he chose specially to design millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc, if his only purpose was to design humans and their lunch. Please stop dodging!

DAVID: Not a dodge. My theory is God chose to evolve us from bacteria. Why are you so puzzled by that idea? He did what He had to do along the way.

I am not in the least puzzled by that idea. I am puzzled by your refusal to recognize that if he exists, he must also have chosen to evolve every other life form, and even you are puzzled (since you have no explanation) by the idea that he “had to” specially design millions of now extinct life forms, econiches, lifestyles etc. along the way, although 99% of them had no connection with humans or our lunch.

DAVID: […] The facts of history are simply that we are here, a highly unusual result of chance evolution. Adler can explain it to you. My interpretation is logically taken directly from historical facts. That it differs from yours is not surprising.

dhw: The facts of history are that we are here, our lunch is here, lots of non-human-lunch life forms are also here, and millions of life forms and lunches used to be here – according to you ALL specially designed by your God, although we plus lunch were his only purpose, and yet the only connection they had to us was that they had DNA.

DAVID: Current lunch is necessary, as you usually forget. God created evolution to produce us from bacteria and provided life's necessary energy to be eaten

I never forget my lunch, but every lunch is necessary for every life form. That does not mean that every extinct life form and its lunch was necessary for humans and our lunch. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: The inconsistencies are only your illogical thinking. If God is the Creator, He creates what He wishes in any way HE wishes. And that is what I accept as what happened.

dhw: Precisely. But that does not mean that he created what you think he wished in the way that you think he wished. The inconsistency lies in the bold, which you continue to dodge.

DAVID: I can't dislodge any of my thoughtful conclusions about God. I can't be brainwashed by your illogical complaints.

Your thoughtful conclusion is that you have no idea why your God would have chosen the combined purpose and method you believe in, you keep admitting it, but you can’t face the fact that it might mean that at least part of your theory must be wrong.

dhw: (re David’s inconsistencies, apart from his theory of evolution): So your all-powerful, always-in-control God invented a system which contained errors that he could not control, designed editing systems which sometimes work but sometimes don’t, [I’d better specify that despite his good intentions he also designed murderous viruses and bacteria] , and your explanation for the "dark side" (= the problem of theodicy) is that we should be thankful for the bright side.

DAVID: Your view is to list a series of problems human thinking describes as bad results from God's creating ability. Many so-called mistakes of bad design have be en shown to be the best way to go. I'm the optimist about God, you the pessimist.

You agree that there are errors, you yourself insist that your God designed the murderous bacteria and viruses, and it was you who raised the problem of theodicy in the first place. Your solution to all these problems is to look on the bright side. If we pretend these problems aren’t there, then they won’t be there. This is a wonderful new branch of philosophy, already embraced by some of our politicians. It needs a name. How about headinsandism, or blinkerism, or…perish the thought…turellism?