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

by dhw, Monday, June 05, 2023, 11:55 (535 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […]: Maybe you’re right. Maybe your God is an inefficient and sadistic designer who enjoys watching the catastrophic misdeeds of his creations, and all the suffering they cause. I’m just a little surprised that you have such a view of him and that you emphatically reject any less critical alternatives.

DAVID: You are overbalancing evil against the good God produced. Doesn't evil exist in the same amount with your God?

I wonder what you told your patients who were dying of cancer: “Why are you complaining when so many other people are enjoying life?” There are millions and millions of people suffering from diseases, natural disasters, and human-made disasters – all of which I subsume under “evil”, and all of which your all-knowing God apparently knew right from the start would happen as a result of his inefficient designs. And you may be right – if he went ahead, maybe that is what he wanted. Hence sadism. Yes, the same amount of evil exists with my three alternative scenarios. But in none of them does he deliberately create evil. Your objection: that makes him human. In all honesty, I would prefer a humanized God who didn’t want to create evil – but that’s just a personal preference. By all means stick to your inefficient sadist.

DAVID: He might want our awareness of Him and His works.
And:
DAVID: God creates in His own selfless way. He creates without wishes for human responses, but expects they will happen.

dhw: Please explain how he can want us to be aware but not wish for us to respond. How would he know we were aware if we did not respond?

DAVID: An all-powerful, all-knowing God knows our thoughts and our writings.

Fine, so he gets the human responses to himself and his works, as he wanted (self-interest), though you say he didn’t wish for human responses to himself and his works (no self-interest). And you can’t see a possible contradiction?

DAVID: Of course your not-all-knowing God would not expect evil in free-will humans He created. Part of the contradictions is a God who can create life and thinking humans with free-will and doesn't 'know' in advance the obvious result, evil humans will appear, as simple logical thinking. Your un-knowing God is basically illogical in His thinking.

dhw: I can’t follow your logic. You say of course a not all-knowing God would not expect evil, and this somehow contradicts the fact that a not all-knowing God doesn’t know in advance that evil will obviously appear! Do you really think experimenters already know all the possible side effects of their experiments? bbb [...] There is no contradiction!

DAVID: Illogical. Free-will humans have the ability to create evil.

Agreed.

DAVID: Would your know-nothing experimenting God anticipate that?

dhw: Not “know-nothing”. He is not all-knowing. I’ve already answered you in the bold above.

DAVID: An all-knowing God expects the results of experimenting. He does not experiment.

In my alternative versions he is NOT all-knowing. Hence the bold above, to which your only objection is that it “humanizes” him. So stick to your inefficient sadist.

dhw: […] 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: We agree. What is here is what God wanted. What is here is also what your God wanted, isn't it.

You simply refuse to differentiate between his possible “wants”, and you refuse to acknowledge the possibility that he is not all-knowing! In my three versions he gets what he wants: 1) humans, through experimentation; 2) exploring the potential of his invention through experimentation; 3) the same, but through a free-for-all. He does NOT know in advance that his experiments will lead to evil. Hence the comparison I gave you with human inventions, and the emphasis I lay on your own certainty that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. He does not deliberately create evil.

DAVID: Evil is here. God either allowed it or couldn't avoid it. Your God allowed evil also.

Why have you missed out the fact that your God created everything from scratch and knew in advance that his creation would lead to evil but went ahead all the same, i.e. that he deliberately created evil? You are right, however, that my God does not intervene when he sees that his experiments have led to evil – but that is the second question: why doesn’t he intervene? We can’t answer, though I have given you a list of possible answers.

DAVID: i love it. An agnostic defending God!

I’m glad you love it. What you don’t love, however, is to be shown the massive contradictions in your arguments, which one can summarize through your sheer mockery of language; your messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer is a “brilliant” designer. His purpose contains no self-interest, but he wants us to be aware of and to respond to him and his work though he doesn’t wish us to do so. He invents all life from scratch, knows his invention will lead to untold suffering, but goes ahead all the same, but he is “perfection”.

The rest of your post simply repeats points already covered.