Theodicy: solution lies in definition of God (Introduction)

by David Turell @, Sunday, September 19, 2021, 16:10 (912 days ago) @ dhw

Protection from mutations

DAVID: Same distorted take. God tried to protect the system from errors. Your bold means God knew errors were coming, but the only system He could invent had to allow them. Often unsuccessfully ( in red) shows how much you misunderstand how living biochemistry works. Extremely rare errors build up over time to give the appearance of common.

dhw: According to you, your all-powerful God tried, but in some cases failed, and these extremely rare errors led to such common diseases as cancer. Why is your all-powerful God so fallible? Here’s an alternative: he wanted what you call the errors. See below for a possible reason.

DAVID: Conclusion: God wanted a controlled system. You would not be your age if your body ran by free-for-all.

dhw: Millions of people fail to reach my age, and in any case, unless I am killed by accident or by an irate contributor to this website, my death will eventually be due to some kind of “error” in the system. So maybe your God designed the system to ensure that I did not live for ever as the handsome, dashing young man I wish I had once been!

dhw: And maybe the errors were essential to ensure that history would mean constant change, on an individual as well as a general basis.

You are ignoring the huge gaps in all fossil series, per Gould. There is no constant change in the record and our lifespans are too short to see major changes.


DAVID: Guesswork about God is just that, guesses as to His real reasons.

dhw: Yes indeed, and I have quoted your guesses and logically linked them to his purposes, whereupon you try to dismiss your own guesses because you don’t like their logical implications.

DAVID: Guesswork does not make logic.

dhw: What do you mean by “make” logic? What do you find illogical in the hypothesis that your God wants to create a creature that will recognize and admire his works and have a relationship with him (and to provide it with food), and so he experiments with different life forms before finally producing the creature he wants. Compare that with the hypothesis that your all-powerful God wants to create the above creature (plus food), but deliberately designs countless creatures that have no connection with that one creature (plus food). Where is the logic in that?

Why can't you logically see that evolution is a continuous process? It is logical to assume God chose to evolve us.


DAVID: Why can't you accept that point that God chose to evolve us from bacteria over a long time. It is entirely logical to me. Your illogical complaint escapes me.

dhw: What you desperately try to escape from is your fixed belief that your God deliberately designed the “evolution” of ALL life forms from bacteria, including countless life forms that had no connection with humans (plus food), although his one and only purpose was to design humans (plus food). Please stop editing your theory in order to leave out its illogical components.

DAVID: Nothing is edited in the statement God chose to evolve us from bacteria over time.

dhw: But you have left out the bolded part of your theory which makes you theory illogical!

Repeated: Why can't you logically see that evolution is a continuous process? It is logical to assume God chose to evolve us. Your complaining view obviously implies why didn't God just directly create us? And then you complain about my next answer, I don't know why God made that choice.


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