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

by David Turell , Monday, June 05, 2023, 16:43 (535 days ago) @ dhw

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.

So with your God the same evil exists as we are discussing with my God. But because He experiments, allows free-for-alls, etc. the same evil that appears is not His fault. Somehow He has nothing to do with its appearance? It appears under His watch, He is responsible for it, for allowing it. Just like my God.

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.

dhw: 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?

Not wish for, as He does not need responses.

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.

dhw: 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.

Big difference. My God knows evil will occur and puts in safeguards. Your guy may not anticipate it, but the evil that appears is His responsibility as creator.

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

dhw: 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.

The answer is seen in my God's works. The appearance of evil is unavoidable and must have safeguards in place, and they exist. Since they exist, both Gods must have made them!

DAVID: i love it. An agnostic defending God!

dhw: 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.

And I've shown your God has the same imperfections about evil. Not knowing is no excuse!