Theodicy: the 'good' view of viruses (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, October 27, 2021, 12:02 (1121 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: The 20% is total cases. My own personal two were totally easily eradicated.

dhw: Lucky you. Do you then deny that cancer causes a great deal of suffering, as do the diseases resulting from what you believe is your God’s direct design of “bad” bacteria and viruses? And do you deny that the whole problem of theodicy arises from the fact that “bad” exists, and believers try to find an explanation for the existence of “bad” if the creator of life himself is all good?

DAVID: I don't view God as good or loving. That is pure religious PR. My God simply designs the best He can.

“The best he can” clearly limits the powers of your all-powerful God. I can’t find the exact quote about good intentions, but I referred to it on September 1:
dhw: When you said that God has good intentions, what did you mean if you did not mean God has good intentions?
DAVID: Again God’s good intentions may not mean exactly what we mean about ourselves.

A couple more gems for you:

“The bad are not purposeful against us. God wouldn’t do that.” (quoted by me on this thread, July 11). “All God’s works are for the good.” (quoted in my post of April 30 under “Back to theodicy”) And a very sweet one from March 24: “God certainly does not want/like the errors […] and wishes they didn’t exist.”

Please stop trying to kid us that you don’t view God as “good”.

Transposons
QUOTE: “Transposons have the capacity to generate a lot of gene regulatory diversity and could help us to understand species-specific differences in the world.”

dhw: Do you know who first proposed the existence of transposons? One Barbara McClintock, a Nobel-prize-winning scientist who was a firm believer in cellular intelligence.

DAVID: Widely known fact. So?

dhw: I mention it because of your absurd argument that her championship of cellular intelligence is somehow out of date just because she proposed it many years ago.

DAVID: Only Shapiro, her follower championed it, none since.

Please stop kidding yourself. You have just reproduced an article supporting the concept. If you google the subject, you will find loads and loads of articles supporting the theory. For example:
Cellular Intelligence – Jon Lieff, MD
https://jonlieffmd.com/category/blog/cellular-intelligence-blog
(PDF) Cellular intelligence: Microphenomenology and the ...
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319307539_Cellular_intelligence_Micro...
Cellular Intelligence | The Artful Science of True Love
https://eglorimer.wordpress.com/.../cellular-intelligence
Cellular Intelligence Video | Advanced Therapy Institute ...
https://www.advancedtherapyinstitute.net/cellularintelligencemedia.html
Microbial intelligence - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence

dhw: The problem of theodicy is why – according to you – he also designed bad viruses and bacteria! Your answer so far has been that we don’t know, but one day we shall find out what were his good intentions, so let’s ignore all the nasty diseases that are caused by the “baddies”.

DAVID: As an MD I treated them, and they are discussed because I introduced the issue.

dhw: And now presumably you wish you hadn’t, because all you want to talk about is God’s goodness.

DAVID: Wrong. It must be discussed.

Then please stop telling us to focus on the good, when the whole point is to discuss reasons for the bad.

Theodicy: the good view of viruses
dhw: So viruses can be creative as well as destructive. If your God created them, and they “dabbled” both creatively and destructively, it would seem that he gave them the freedom to do their own thing. Thank you for supporting my theoretical explanation of theodicy.

DAVID: I view it as God using them as tools in common design.

dhw: I hope we’re not going to have “common design” thrust down our throats as the new answer to everything. Now please let us have your explanation for the destructive viruses.

DAVID: Why are you afraid of common design?? I view viruses like I do bacteria, very largely good, but doing bad if in the wrong place.

There is nothing to fear from “common design”, which simply denotes common descent as designed by your God. I have objected because it is irrelevant to my request for an explanation of the bad, which is the whole point of the theodicy debate.