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

by dhw, Tuesday, June 06, 2023, 11:05 (326 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: 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: So with your God the same evil exists as we are discussing with my God.

Of course it does. I have just said so (bolded).

DAVID: 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.

I’m fascinated by your determined efforts to portray your God as inefficient and sadistic! There is a huge difference between a being who deliberately creates evil and one who creates something good, without knowing in advance that it will result in something bad. I gave you a number of examples, which you totally ignored: the motor car, smoking, industrial pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, AI, germ warfare – all these horrors arose from research, discoveries, experiments, inventions which initially were thought to be of huge benefit to us all. Do you blame Sir Walter Raleigh (who is said to have started the craze for smoking in England) for all the cancer deaths? Daimler et al for all the deaths by traffic fumes? But yes, if these folk had been all-knowing and had deliberately designed cancer-producers and lethal toxic fume-makers, of course we would hold them responsible. You simply refuse to recognize the implications of your insisting that your God is all-knowing. However, I agree that there is a problem when we come to the second phase of the process: why does God allow it? Why doesn’t he intervene? But as I keep saying, that is a different question, to which I gave a few possible answers: “Maybe he doesn’t exist, maybe he can’t, maybe he enjoys the show, maybe he’s abandoned it, maybe he’s dead.”

DAVID (under “Neanderthal experimentation"): God did not create evil, His creations did and He knew it would happen and added safeguards. Since present, your God added them also, didn't He?

Since (if he exists) he built our world from scratch, and if he had not preprogrammed his creations (including natural disasters, murderous bacteria and viruses, and humans) to do their dirty deeds, they must have been part of a massive free-for-all, though you say they weren’t because your God is always in control. This is already a mess! And now, despite being all-powerful, you have him adding “safeguards” which unfortunately have done very little to stop the natural disasters, horrific diseases, and us baddies. In answer to your question, no, in none of my versions did he add safeguards, because in none of them did he deliberately create anything to be guarded against.

dhw: (under “apoptosis”) I really don’t see how an all-knowing and all-powerful God can be called “perfect” when he can’t even find a cure for the diseases he has created. It must be a cause of great sorrow to him if he is as humanly sensitive as you think he is.

DAVID: Yes, He knew and added protective mechanisms, but not perfectly which in our only living system available, it is impossible.

So your perfect God invented a system which made natural disasters, horrific diseases, and human wickedness impossible to avoid, and despite his being all-knowing and all-powerful he didn’t have the knowledge or power to provide perfect safeguards against the evil consequences of the system he had invented from scratch.

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: […] 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: Not wish for, as He does not need responses.

So he might want our awareness of him and his works, but he doesn’t wish for it. And there is no contradiction.

The rest of your post simply repeats points already covered.