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

by dhw, Sunday, July 04, 2021, 09:35 (1237 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] 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: If I believed in God (but I do not disbelieve in him), I would also believe that he knows what he wants to achieve and does it. One of my theories is that he wanted to create the ever changing bush of life, […] and that in order to do so, he gave cells the intelligence to design all the life forms and behaviours which make them so interesting both to us and to him. […] in view of your own certainty that we mimic him, it is patently absurd to dismiss a theory that fits in logically with the history of life, merely on the grounds that it involves thought patterns and emotions similar to our own.

DAVID: You have repeated, as expected, your humanized view of God.

And you have repeated, most disappointingly, your refusal to consider any “human thought patterns and emotions” other than those which you believe your God might possess, regardless of how they fit in with the history of life.

dhw: You claim that he specially designed ALL life forms (plus lunch), although he only wanted one (plus lunch) […]

You responded: “I can’t answer why he chose that method.”

DAVID: 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?

dhw: What is not explained is precisely what you have just admitted you can’t explain: namely, his “method” of designing humans plus lunch by first designing millions of life forms and lunches that had nothing to do with humans plus lunch. The alternatives I have offered you all involve a DESIGNER, and you have agreed that all of them logically cover the part of your theory that you cannot explain.

DAVID: The point is I don't have to explain why God chose to evolve us. It is/was His choice. Your logical thoughts all come from the desires of a humanized God. 'Round and 'round. we will never agree.

We go round and round because you continue to leave out the point that you admit you can’t explain, which is not “why he chose to evolve us”, but why- if his only aim was to design us and our lunch - he chose to specially design millions of life forms, natural wonders etc. that had no connection with us.

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

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

dhw: "Must" here is a deduction, not a compulsion, and why not? See “Miscellany”.

Privileged planet
DAVID: For life fine-tuning is one requirement, but a special Earth orbiting a special star is just as important. It doesn't answer dhw's strange concern as to why God made the universe so huge and filled with so many weird processes if He only wanted humans. His same concern applies to why the bush of evolved life is so big. My view is God knew what had to be created to achieve His goals. dhw somehow knows better.

Why “strange” concern? If God exists, I agree that he would have known precisely what had to be created to achieve his goal(s). (I don’t know why you revert to plural goals, when you insist that there was only one: humans plus lunch). And the zillions of extinct and extant stars and planets, and the vast bush of extinct life forms etc. do not logically support the claim that his one and only goal was to design humans plus lunch.The billions of galaxies that have nothing to do with us or with any life suggest either that there is no design and no God, and our one privileged planet among zillions is the product of a stroke of luck, or – if your all-knowing, all-powerful God exists - he had more in mind than only creating humans plus lunch. I do not "know better". I admit to having no knowledge at all, which is why I propose different theories. However, you reject them all and adhere rigidly to just one – as if you knew better.