DAVID: Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, October 02, 2023, 21:10 (416 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Right. No facts. All beliefs based on the original step to have faith in God's existence. That step was based on proof beyond a reasonable doubt of the evidence for design. Thus a designer called God. You are right on the cusp, as an agnostic who recognizes design.

dhw: As usual, you dodge the issue here, which is not the existence of God but the nature, purposes and methods of God if he exists. You insist that your God’s only purpose was us plus food, and so he deliberately designed 99.9% of species that had no connection with his one and only purpose – a method you yourself ridicule as messy, cumbersome and inefficient, and yet you cling to the theory as if it were a God-given fact.

As usual you have no idea of how to believe in God. Once accepting His existence, theistic discussions must be based on experts in the field. I have done just that. When presented your constant response is 'how do they know'? We have agreed no one knows. But their deep philosophical thinking is all we have other than our own thoughts. What I present here is an amalgam of readings and my own analysis as a believer. What I present is fact for me. And you sit looking from the outside, uncomfortable with what is presented. As for your usual cook-book complaint, it comes from ignoring the starting point that what is here is what God created. Evolution happened as a result of God's, unknown to us, decisions. Humans are an amazing, surprising result. Try on that viewpoint. But you can't. You strongly feel humans should not be accepted as exceptional, when we are. Are you afraid of the sin of pride? Your hero, Darwin, touted the white race as best!!!

DAVID: The real question is are our thoughts are in any way comparable to His?

dhw: You have said you believe he enjoys creating, and is selfless and all-powerful, so please answer the two questions bolded above: dhw: […] If you believe that he takes pleasure in creating, how can he possibly do so without a self which is conscious of the enjoyment? If he is all-powerful, how can he possibly be incapable of preventing the evil that apparently he hates? >

"Self" is consciousness in a material brain. God is immaterial brain. His motives are all in His purposes. God's enjoyment is His alone and may not be equivalent to ours. As for evil, it is a necessary byproduct of God's good works. Simply, you can't have one without the other.

dhw: If he exists, then obviously he is not intervening. That does not help us to understand why, if he is all-good, all-powerful and therefore only creates what he wants to create, and hates evil – as you believe he does – he created a system which he knew would result in evil, and does nothing to prevent it.

DAVID: We must assume God does not wish to intervene now.

dhw; Obviously (if he exists). But that that does not help us to understand what I have now bolded above. Stop dodging.

I've given you 'understanding' you refuse to accept.

DAVID: I don't dodge. Theodicy is a matter of perceived proportionality. You intensely magnify all the bad in the world, when it is mostly very good.

dhw: Theodicy has nothing whatsoever to do with your made-up percentages of proportionality. Do you deny that there is such a thing as evil? If you accept that evil exists, then regardless of percentages, why and how could an all-good God produce it?

dhw: Wikipedia describes theodicy as: an argument that attempts to resolve the problem of evil that arises when omnipotence, omnibenevolence, and omniscience are all simultaneously ascribed to God.[1]
Your attempt to resolve the problem is to pretend that evil is so minor that there is no problem to resolve.

If you really tried to discover theodicy thought, read it. You won't accept my interpretation of it. The answers are all about proportionality.