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

by David Turell , Friday, July 02, 2021, 16:47 (1238 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We are not attack dogs. You have your vision of God and I have mine.

dhw: I do not have one vision of God – I offer alternatives.

DAVID: Which are always weak and humanized. We will never agree on who God is.

dhw: It’s as if our correspondence concerning “weak” and “humanized” had never taken place. I see nothing weak, for instance, in a God who deliberately creates a self-generating bush of life forms which he can watch with interest. I do not know why this should be regarded as more “humanized” than your God, who deliberately controls every development in evolution, which he watches with interest.

Just shows you do not understand my humanizing argument. Our correspondence never cleared that up. Simply a God who gives up control is a humanized God. God always knows what He wants to achieve and does it. That is the God I believe in.

dhw: We are not talking about archaea and viruses! This comment is part of your constant obfuscation, as you dodge the question of why, if his only goal was humans plus lunch, he specially designed all the past life forms and lunches that had no connection with humans.

DAVID: And my constant response is God evolved us from Archaea, which, if you accepted that concept, would remove all your objections. I can't answer why He chose that method as answered ad nauseum.

dhw: And that is the nub of the whole debate! We both accept that ALL life forms descended from Archaea, but you claim that he specially designed ALL life forms (plus lunch), although he only wanted one (plus lunch). It is this latter part of your theory – the one you can’t explain – which I object to, and the objection is not removed by our agreement that all forms of life are descended from Archaea.

The bold is your constant confusion about my view. God had a goal of producing humans, and understood how to do it as shown in the history of evolution as He DESIGNED it. I believe in a DESIGNER. THAT is my EXPLANATION. What is not explained?

DAVID: It is my theory, not obfuscation, which I would note implies I am not debating honestly.

Time and again, you focus on common descent – which we agree on – and leave out the rest of your theory (you “can’t answer” the question why he would choose your method to achieve your interpretation of his purpose). I don’t know why you persist in doing so. Once you accept that your fixed belief in your theory provides you with an insoluble problem of logic, we can move on. Your objections to my logical alternatives are irrelevant to the illogicality of your theory.

Answered directly above. We are now arguing about who is Really illogical. I pick you.

Back to theodicy and David’s theories: Using good viruses

dhw: You hope that science will one day prove that your God’s special design of what we believe to be bad will turn out to be good. However, your last comment is excellent news. If it is possible that he is just creating for the sake of creating, it must also be possible that he is creating because – as you have said before – he enjoys doing so and is interested in his creations. Since no one knows his nature, thoughts and purposes, it must therefore also be possible that his reason for creating is to provide himself with an activity he enjoys as well as developments and events that he will find interesting.

DAVID: Again, back to a really human form of a God, all pure guesswork ignoring the magnitude of His creations.

dhw: Absolutely nothing to do with the magnitude of his creations, which is all the more reason to believe that he must enjoy creating, and enjoyment of creation might therefore be his motive for creating the process of evolution.

God does not have to be in a position of 'must enjoy'. Why humanize Him?

BACK TO THEODICY
DAVID: We continue to learn that bacteria, the starters of life, are still here to help.

dhw: Some bacteria are here to help, while other bacteria are here to destroy. That epitomizes the problem of theodicy. The article also raises the whole question of the extent to which the emotions and behaviour of any organism, including ourselves, is affected by factors beyond our control.

Yes.