Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS ONE & TWO (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, June 01, 2023, 12:05 (539 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Of course He wanted what he created.

dhw: If your God is all-knowing, of course he knew all about the problems I raise: as the creator of all things, he therefore knew that what he was creating would result in every disease, sin, evil act, disaster etc. throughout life’s history. If “He wanted what He created”, he must have wanted all of that. […]Your God is not only an inefficient designer, but he is also a sadist.

DAVID: For His own reasons He had to include viruses and bacteria, some of which go bad. Again theodicy. He gave us free will obviously realizing some of us would create evil. I accept that He did all that. Are you inferring your unknown stupe of a God didn't realize what would happen. […]

You might as well say that for his own reasons he created all the”evils” I’ve listed. Not much of an explanation, is it? (See below for my “inferences”.)

DAVID: Your experimenting, goalless God is like none I recognize.

dhw: In none of my theories is he goalless. How many folk do you think would recognize your inefficient sadist?

DAVID: No one would listen to your distortion of my God.

Once again, as above: You believe your God is all-powerful and all-knowing. As first cause, he created everything that exists, and you say he created what he wanted to create. He created “evil”. Therefore he wanted to create evil, and knew from the very beginning all the evil that would result from his creations. Now please tell me what I have distorted.

DAVID: He creates the same cumbersome evolution as mine, but because He is not all-knowing suddenly His evolution is OK.

dhw: It is because his experiments are successful that two of my versions are OK, and the third is OK because in a free-for-all, the enjoyment lies precisely in NOT knowing what will happen next.

DAVID: Weird. By wandering into an endpoint of humans, that makes it all correct. Both our God's are all-knowing enough to create life, but then yours loses some of His mental ability. God is continuously the same but yours varies in mental ability as He progresses.

dhw: There is no “correctness” if he began his experiments as a voyage of discovery, learning, inventing new things. The “voyage” would have been what he wanted. When you learn something new, is that synonymous with losing some of your mental ability? (See “Neanderthal experimentation” in “Miscellany PART TWO”.)

DAVID: Again a purely humanized God, with a purpose to enjoy Himself.

Please tell us what you regard as his purpose for the creation of humans and every other life form that ever existed. And please tell us why a God who, in your own words, enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, could not set out with the purpose of enjoying creating things that he would find interesting.

DAVID: See Wiki on the subject:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_paradox

QUOTE: "The conclusion is that the statement "God can do anything" needs to be qualified. By this logic God cannot do both of two things that are mutually contradictory. C. S. Lewis says that logical contradictions are not a "thing". Rather they are nonsense. […]

dhw: A good description of your non-sense theory: An all-knowing, all-powerful God who invented an inefficient method that forced him to design 99 out of 100 species that had nothing do with his one and only purpose (sapiens plus food) is a piece of non-sense which “makes sense only to God” (i.e. not to you). Similarly there is no sense in claiming that your God is the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of all things, and then claiming that he is not responsible for all the bad things he alone must have created. Now please tell me what "mutually contradictory" things you have found in my alternatives.

DAVID: I have never heard how your God handles bad bacteria, viruses, evil, molecular mistakes, etc.

I ask you to tell me what “mutually contradictory” things you have found in my theories, and you obviously can’t find any, so you set me a task! When I answer, I expect you will again try to divert attention away from your non-sense by claiming that my answer “humanizes” God – itself a piece of non-sense, since you acknowledge that the Creator might well have endowed humans with some of his own thought patterns and emotions.

However, I will repeat the answer I keep giving you. If God exists and performed experiments (first two theories), just like the humans he created in his own image, he would not have known all the possible effects of his experiments. (I doubt if the first AI experimenters would have envisaged the now terrifying prospect that their inventions could lead to the end of the human species.) The third theory, the free-for-all, has his original invention creating its own goods and bads, again without his foreknowledge. In none of these theories does he set out knowingly to create evil. A different question might be: why doesn’t he stop the carnage? I have no idea. Maybe he doesn't exist, maybe he can’t, maybe he enjoys the show, maybe he’s abandoned it, maybe he’s dead. Our dispute is over why he created it in the first place. Now please tell us what “mutual contradictions” you have found in my alternative theories.