Theodicy: bad bacteria seen differently (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, July 19, 2021, 20:59 (1221 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: It seems God did not plan some of them:
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-bacterial-parasites-super-bugs.html

DAVID: Right, your God is not in control, so He can't be blamed. Wow, what a solution!!! God who created the universe fine-tuned-for-life, guided the formation of our galaxy and our special Earth that allows life, started life, and did it all by free-for-all. Your analysis about God limps.

dhw: I have never said that fine-tuning etc. was done by free-for-all! If God exists, I accept that he would have designed the conditions for life and the first forms of life. The free-for-all concerns EVOLUTION! And yes, WOW, it provides a solution to the problem of theodicy. If organisms were given the means to design their own ways to survive, God is not responsible for the means that they designed. […] Now instead of misrepresenting my proposal, please tell us what faults you can find in its logic.

dhw: Your reply is to repeat your earlier response – that God had to control evolution in order to produce us. That only reproduces your own illogical theory of evolution. Please indicate any logical flaws in my own proposal.

You consider my theory that God chose to evolve us as illogical. I don't and we cannot cross that moat and agree.

DAVID: You love to bring up the 99% gone. They have to be gone to make room, but also because they were no longer needed as stages of invention.

dhw: Stages of invention of what? The question is not why they have gone, but why your God designed them in the first place if his only purpose was us. See “A possible God...”

His purpose was to design us by the method of evolving us from bacteria. Simple theory.

DAVID: Your 99% is pure strawman, an empty point.

dhw: Then why can’t you explain the logic behind your God’s deliberately designing them when his only purpose was to design us plus lunch? See “A possible God…”

We go 'round and 'round. I can only repeat, etc.

DAVID: It seems you cannot think from a purpose standpoint as you try to be a theist. I start with a very purposeful God, you don't, a good summary of our difference.

dhw: All my theories start out from a purpose, and one of them (experimentation) even adopts your version of that purpose. The free-for-all starts out from your own certainty that your God enjoys creating and watches his creations with interest, which suggests that maybe his purpose in creating life was to provide himself with the enjoyment of creation, with the added interest of the unpredictable (free-for-all instead of puppet show). That is when you dodge from the fallacy of purposelessness to the self-contradiction of moaning about humanization even though you are certain that we mimic God in many ways.

The bold is your usual distortion. I have guessed that the bold might be true, but admitted I have no solid idea. I have always said 'guesses'.