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

by David Turell , Wednesday, January 19, 2022, 15:47 (830 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw:: 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: Off point as usual. His actions producing unexpected humans shows God's purpose (Adler)

dhw: You seem to have forgotten that you were telling me we can only define your God’s PERSONALITY by his actions. Of course you can extrapolate purpose from his actions. In that case, his actions of producing the unexpected brontosaurus and every other unexpected extinct life form that had no connection with humans and their foods show his purpose. So do tell us what that purpose was. (Adler apparently doesn’t cover that.)

Amnesia! Adler uses God's purposeful production of highly unusual humans as a result of evoution to prove God.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: So you ignore mistakes that kill?

dhw: I have said they are not “mistakes” but are merely examples of free organisms designing their own way of surviving. Bacteria or deviant cells that kill us by feeding on us are no different from all the other life forms that survive by killing. Do you see all carnivores as “mistakes” your all-powerful God didn’t want but couldn’t correct?

I'm referring to metabolic errors that can kill, while you remain off that point. God edited to prevent them.

Importance of pathogens

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.

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

DAVID: Look at another change in environmental conditions:

dhw: Why? Your new example does not tell us whether or not your God designs every environmental change or responds to accidents. If accidents can cause your God to “change course”, then it is illogical to claim that he had planned everything in advance and was always in total control. Your diffuse comment at the end does not add anything new to the discussion.

He obviously planned for the great oxygenation event. But some events certainly seem at random like the course of each asteroid now flying around the solar system.