Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, September 16, 2021, 11:38 (915 days ago) @ David Turell

Protection from mutations
QUOTE: Also unclear is why—if the mutation is so beneficial—only certain archaea species have it. One possibility: The genetic alteration comes with costs that might outweigh its benefits in less extreme environments. Hot conditions make proteins more prone to misfolding […] (David’s bold)

DAVID: This research can be applied to God's purposes in stopping translation errors. Note my bold. dhw will ask why God didn't do more. The answer is in the paragraph above concerning slowed growth.

So God creates translation errors, and stops them by creating alterations which can cause more errors. May I humbly suggest that the whole process works in reverse: that organisms adapt to their conditions, and an adaptation that works in one environment won’t work in another. If God exists, it’s all part of his great design of a free-for-all.

DAVID: What you have mentioned about my quotes concerning God's thoughts behind his actions are all my guesswork, which you always forget to mention.

dhw: Of course it's guesswork. All your proposals and mine are "guesswork". Do you now wish to tell us that your guesswork and your fixed beliefs and your theories are a load of rubbish because they're guesswork, and we shouldn't discuss them any more?

DAVID: Just remember it is all guesswork when you quote them as supposed truth.

I’ve just agreed that it is all guesswork, but you express your guesses as beliefs (= supposed truth), whereas I present alternative theories, not fixed beliefs. You’ve now resorted to the fact that we can’t know the truth as a means of avoiding discussion of your own fixed beliefs and their illogical implications.

dhw: We cannot know anything about God, including whether he exists. All I have done is take up two of your guesses and suggested that they might reflect his purpose. Why do you dismiss your own guesses? And what do you mean by “not human in any way”, when you have agreed over and over again that he probably/possibly has thought patterns similar to ours, and you are sure that we “mimic” him in many ways?

DAVID: Remember, possible or probable and mimicking are guesses.

Once again: The existence of your God is also a guess, as are all your other fixed beliefs, such as his sole purpose being humans, his individual design of every life form, including all those that had no connection with humans, his good intentions, his omnipotence, his omniscience. How can you have such fixed beliefs when you know they are all guesses? And why do you try to dismiss those of your guesses that I use to formulate images of a possible God’s possible nature and purpose?

DAVID: We are the endpoint of all God has done. We are/were His purpose. We are the only creation that can recognize His existence and what He did.

dhw: And there you go again. His purpose according to you was to create a creature who would recognize His existence and what He did. Why would he want that? And why, yet again, if we were his one and only purpose, did he specially design all the life forms that had no connection with us?

DAVID: Your old problem: God chose to evolve us as history shows.

Your old problem: you can't answer the bolded question, and so you dodge it by leaving out half of your theory (we were his only purpose, and so he designed all those life forms that had no connection with us). This dodge and the dismissal of your own guesses if they don't fit in with your fixed beliefs make it all the more apparent that you cannot find any logic in your own theories of evolution and of theodicy.:-(


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