A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, January 18, 2022, 08:59 (1039 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I shan’t bother to comment on your silly “humanization” argument, since you have agreed unequivocally that your God may have thought patterns etc. similar to ours.

DAVID: Again God's comparative thought patterns like ours do not make Him in any way human.

If he has thought patterns and emotions and logic like ours, and we mimic him, it is absurd to say that he is not “in any way” human.

DAVID: I'm describing a purposeful God who knows exactly what He is doing, vastly different from the one you describe as you imagine possibilities for some sort of God.

You keep repeating this, and I keep repeating that a God who deliberately creates a free-for-all, or experiments, or tries new things out of interest, knows exactly what he is doing.

DAVID: My God is purposeful with known end points from the beginning. Yours is not based on your description of His actions. Actions define personality. Terms are just descriptions.

dhw: If God exists, of course he must have had a purpose in creating life. Why plural “endpoints”? Your ONLY purpose is the creation of humans plus their food, and you can’t explain why he would have designed the rest. All my alternatives (free-for-all, experimenting, getting new ideas) are purposeful! Finally, actions are not definitions!

DAVID: Wildly diffuse. We can only try to define God's personality by His actions in what He created. And chose purposeful or not.

I answered this yesterday: “ "David’s God designed every species” is an action. How does that define his personality? You’re making a mockery of language. A personality is defined by words that describe it! For example, you think your God is “kindly” and so you dismiss any “unkindly” interpretation of his actions”.

DAVID: All we can know is Chixculub caused a major change in course. It may have been part of His plan.

dhw: But you are now allowing for the possibility that your God did not control all the environmental changes that caused a “major change in course”. In which case, it’s possible that he changed course in response to events that were not planned or under his control.

DAVID: All I am allowing is Schroeder proposed God might have thrown it, and I agree about this one episode.

You wrote: “Chixculub is his doing or accidental, as there is no clear evidence.” You can say the same about every environmental change!

DAVID: The biochemistry of life works in a required soupy state where molecules are free to react improperly. [..]

dhw: So you agree that the molecules are free.

DAVID: Not totally free. They are built to fold and react automatically in a liquid environment in which there cannot be control restraints to monitor every change, because that would slow the necessary speed of the reactions.

dhw: Every species depends on automatic conformity to a pattern. But there has to be a degree of freedom for adaptation to new conditions and the production of new organs and organisms, and this same degree of freedom can lead to all the nasty diseases your all-powerful God did not have the power to control.

DAVID: You didn't respond to my discussion of molecular actions, but side-slipped into theodicy again. God gave us the only system that would work, recognized the probability of errors and added editing which works properly into the trillions of reactions required every nanosecond.

I have repeatedly replied that you cannot possibly know that your all-powerful God was unable to design a system without errors, and I suggest that your all-powerful God designed the system that he WANTED – and what you call errors were not errors but were/are life forms using their freedom to find their own ways of survival.

dhw: I have never claimed to be a biochemist, but I know enough to understand and accept the logic of the design argument. You don’t need to hammer this point home, but I’m happy to keep learning. However, I’m not happy when you try to switch the subject from the illogical flaws in your theistic theory of evolution to the logical use of life's complexity as evidence of your God’s existence. They are two different subjects.

DAVID: God is the designer, as I theorize, and as such designed every new stage of evolution. What is illogical about that?

Nothing. As usual you have left out your belief that every new stage of evolution, including all those that had no connection with humans, was part of his goal of evolving humans plus food. This diversionary strategy of yours has become almost painful. Please stop it.

DAVID: We differ in that my God is purposeful in action, and yours has to experiment, allow free-for-alls and seeks entertainment in very unGodly ways.

How do you know what is “godly”? In all my alternative theories, my God is just as purposeful as yours, but you disapprove of him having thought patterns and emotions like ours, even though you believe he has thought patterns and emotions like ours.