Return to David's theory of evolution PART TWO (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, June 04, 2023, 11:15 (536 days ago) @ dhw

PART TWO

DAVID: At the level of evolution, He is a complete stupid dud.

dhw: In your version he is messy, cumbersome, inefficient and sadistic. In mine, he conducts successful experiments (every living form is a success) or he creates a free-for-all. In none of these scenarios does he deliberately and knowingly create evil. Why does that make him a stupid dud?

DAVID: any thinking person realizes free will can lead to evil.

Of course, but you seem to have forgotten that your all-powerful, all-knowing God is supposed to have created everything from scratch. If he had wanted Nature and animals and bacteria and humans to function in pure, unselfish harmony, then that’s what he could and would have created. And so we ask ourselves why he didn’t. I offer you three possible explanations, but you prefer your own mixture of inefficiency and sadism. You may be right.

DAVID: Your dud is a know-nothing GoD who has no goals, just experiments along, not knowing the results until they happen. He, lucky for us, stumbles into humans.

He is not know-nothing if he was able to create the universe and life! My version is that he is not all-knowing. If he is all-powerful and all-knowing, we should assume that evolution produced exactly what he wanted to produce (i.e. he wanted all the goodies and all the baddies). And that may indeed be the case. At a stroke, that makes him a very efficient designer, but it also reveals what you and I would regard as sadism, since all the bad things lead to so much suffering, which being all-knowing, he knew would happen. Your version retains the sadism, but as you think humans were his only goal, you label him inefficient as a designer because you can’t explain the 99 out of 100 irrelevant desgins. Again, you may be right. I am simply pointing out the implications of your rigid adherence to these beliefs, and am proposing alternatives that are less destructive to his reputation. There is no point in my repeating them here.

DAVID: (under “Gut biome”) Critics of God (note dhw)see Him as cruel and sadistic. God cannot create a perfect form of life where there is no illness or cancer or other health disasters.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! I keep telling you that I am criticizing your theories, which make him sadistic. And your second sentence contradicts your belief that he is all-powerful and all knowing. You make him unable to avoid creating evil.

DAVID: Be thankful for all the good God created. Dayenu! An old Hebrew word meaning it is enough.

I share your philosophy, whether God exists or not. I love life. It is only your absurd, illogical and destructive theories about your God that I disagree with.

DAVID: how does your guy handle the arrival of evil?

dhw: He doesn’t. He has not stepped in. And I gave you a list of possible reasons, which you obviously didn’t read: “Maybe he doesn’t exist, maybe he can’t, maybe he enjoys the show, maybe he’s abandoned it, maybe he’s dead.”

DAVID: I read them as your confused approach to understanding God. There is no answer.

You asked the question, and I answered it.

DAVID: How did your God invent the universe, the perfect Earth fit for life, and make life itself, if He didn't know the consequences of His designs.

dhw: In the same way as humans (he and we have thought patterns in common, remember?) come up with wonderful inventions and discoveries, and then become aware of later effects they never dreamt of. Think of the motor car, smoking, industrial pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, AI, germ warfare etc. But you insist that your God is all-powerful and all-knowing. So perhaps you will tell us why he carried on if he already knew the consequences in advance?

DAVID: He did carry on letting us survive and deal with the consequences of our actions.

Agreed. This suggests he wanted a free-for-all.

DAVID: A free-for-all form of evolution has no goals. Another example of your aimless dud of a God.

A free-for-all suggests that he enjoys watching all the astonishing products of his astonishing invention – life. You agree that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that just like the humans he created, he might do things because he enjoys doing them and is interested in what he has done. (And you even suggest that he might want our recognition.) That is a goal which explains the whole history of evolution, including all the 99% of organisms that had no connection with what you insist was his one and only goal.

The remainder of your post is a repetition of points already dealt with.