Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, March 25, 2024, 09:22 (33 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God, as I see Him, always know exactly what He wishes to create and does it by a method of His choice.

dhw: Agreed. And that does not have to be the incomprehensible, inefficient combination of purpose and method that you impose upon him.

DAVID: Evolution occurred and God did it. Nothing incomprehensible about that fact. I view it as a cumbersome method, but as God did it for His own reasons, I'm happy with the result we are alive.

dhw: If God exists, I have no objection whatsoever to the theory that evolution occurred and God did it. (God’s existence is not a fact.) This discussion is solely about your God’s possible purpose and method: it is NOT a fact that his only purpose was to design us, or that he specially designed every single species, let alone that he knowingly and deliberately designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with that single purpose. That is your theory, which you agree is incomprehensible (you don’t know why he would have done that), messy, cumbersome and inefficient. The fact that you are happy to be alive does not depend on the illogical theory of evolution you cling to.

DAVID: I believe the works produced by ID prove beyond a reasonable doubt a designer exists.

No problem.

DAVID: That God designer produced us after a long period of evolution of everything on Earth that humans would need. Perfectly logical!!!

No problem.

DAVID: Adler turns that around by using humans as proof of God the designer, by analyzing it from a Darwinist view of natural evolution.

No problem, and I’m delighted to hear that Adler recognized that Darwinism and God were perfectly compatible, as opposed to your ridiculous assertion that they are alternatives. However, unfortunately all these logical beliefs of yours miss out your immutable belief that your God also designed and culled 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with humans and our needs, and you have no idea why he would have done so. You can only speculate that he did so because he is a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer. There are, however, perfectly logical explanations for the existence of all the organisms and econiches that came and went long before humans appeared on the scene. But you refuse to consider them on the grounds that a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer is more godlike than a designer who deliberately conducts experiments, or wants a free-for-all, and enjoys creating and/or learning new things.

DAVID: Your logic does not equal God's. The God you create is an imaginary form of a human acting as if He were God.

dhw: The God you create is an imaginary form of a god whose messy, inefficient combination of purpose and method makes no sense even to you, and whose desire to be loved, regardless of the suffering his desire may cause, makes him just about as self-centred as any human could possibly be.

DAVID: Back to you concocted view of God which I've criticized in another thread.

dhw: I have not “concocted” a view of God on the Plantinga thread. I have merely pointed out that Plantinga’s view (with which you agree) presents us with a self-centred God whose desire to be freely loved has led to appalling consequences, to which he appears to be indifferent, since he chose to allow such evils as the Holocaust. You have avoided replying to this argument, just as you avoid acknowledging the illogicality of your theory of evolution, with its explicit criticism of your God’s messy inefficiency.

DAVID: Sufficiently answered in the Plantinga thread.

See that thread, on which your “answers” simply ignore my questions.

DAVID: We are not God's puppets. We run the Earth not God, who purposely gave us life and that responsibility. God is not responsible for human failure, we are. As you exemplify, we are free to ignore God. without God's punishment.

If God exists, I accept the above, and I would go even further than you, as one of my theories of evolution is that no organisms are your God’s puppets, but he deliberately created a free-for-all, which would explain why life’s history is one of comings and goings that had no connection with the one and only purpose you allow your God to have (us and our food). But now please tell me 1) how the above proves that God messily and inefficiently designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his one and only purpose, and 2) how the above proves that God loves us, and wants us to love him, and gave us free will and allowed us to commit evil so that he could be sure that we loved him in the right way, and this means he is selfless. (See the Plantinga thread).