Let's study ID (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, September 18, 2021, 08:17 (949 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The question is why, if his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, did he design all the extinct life forms that had no connection with our food? You have no answer, and so you advised me to ask God.

DAVID: My answer is unacceptable to you, but entirely logical to me. God chose to evolve us over time.

dhw: It is unacceptable because it does not answer the bolded question!

DAVID: The bolded question is a totally unreasonable request. I can't read God's mind but history is obvious. God evolved us, so He must have chosen to do that for His own unknown reasons.

History tells us that ALL life forms, including humans, evolved. It does not tell us that they were all individually designed, and it does not tell us that even those that had no connection with humans were designed as part of the plan to design humans. You can’t find a reason why he would pursue his single goal by not pursuing his single goal. So maybe we weren’t his single goal, and maybe he didn’t specially design all life forms. And maybe the fact that you can’t think of any reasons is due to the fact that there aren’t any, because your God thinks logically and you don’t!

DAVID: […] you envision a God who starts without purposes.

dhw: I have just given you two purposes, and you say I envision a God without purposes!

DAVID: Experimentation and free-for-all says your imagined God had no specific goals, so where is the purpose in creation? My God has goals to produce.

According to you, your God only had one goal: to produce us and our food, and you’d rather not discuss the purpose of that or of all the other life forms that had no connection with us. My God (one version) could experiment in order to produce a life form that would recognize him, admire his work, have a relationship with him etc., as you have proposed. Have you never heard of inventors who try different experiments to achieve their goal? The purpose of a free-for-all follows your very reasonable guess that your God enjoys creating and watches us with interest. The purpose could therefore be to create something he would enjoy creating and could watch with interest. And don’t forget you are sure that we mimic him over and over again with our own activities.

DAVID: You have trouble reading God's mind and intentions. Your skewed approach shows.

At least my approach makes sense. I don’t know why you call it “skewed”, since you have just admitted under "theodicy" that in the context of your own theories, you can’t read God’s mind, and he did what you think he did “for unknown reasons”.