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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 16:11 (240 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: No problem […] 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: You always scurry back to your humanized God who basically doesn't know how to evolve us and must experiment to achieve His goal. Ridiculous!

dhw: Why is that more ridiculous and more “humanized” than a God who inexplicably and inefficiently takes the trouble to design and then get rid of 99.9 species out of 100 that have no connection with his one and only purpose? Not to mention a God whose only purpose in creating humans is to make sure they love him of their own free will, regardless of all the harmful consequences of his needs? (See your approval of Plantinga’s theory.)

Plantinga explained in that thread today. You have planted Plantinga's total theology specifically in my brain. Think! I use bits and pieces, as usual for me and for discussion.

DAVID: Sufficiently answered in the Plantinga thread.

dhw: Not answered at all, as exemplified by your next comment:

DAVID: In the other thread I've described the current situation of personal relationships with God that are the basis for individual beliefs. Although I don't follow the Bible, I would note the concept of religious groups (Churches, Synagogues, etc.) is not mentioned. The OT does offer the need for small groups of ten, which is at the fellowship level.

dhw: Totally irrelevant to your illogical theory of evolution and Plantinga’s theodicy and Held’s wild and woolly theory about God’s love.

Presented for viewpoints and discussion.

GIANT ARMORED SPECIES BEFORE DINOSAURS

DAVID: viewed from dhw's perspective, some horrible enemies had to exist to force this guy to require this degree of plate armor to survive.

dhw: Viewed from David’s perspective, God had to specially design the aetosaur, because otherwise he couldn’t have designed us and our food. But David can’t think of a single reason why he would have had to do so.

DAVID: It shouldn't surprise you that I cannot reason at God's level of reasoning that you demand.

dhw: What surprises me is that you THINK you are thinking at God’s level. But maybe God didn’t design the aetosaur, or maybe he had a good reason for designing it, and is not the messy, inefficient designer you denigrate.

DAVID: God's use of evolution means He chose a cumbersome method of evolution.

dhw: No it doesn’t. It is your theory about his use of evolution that makes his method messy, cumbersome and inefficient. And it is your blinkered vision that makes you denigrate his powers in this manner.

DAVID: I don't denigrate His powers as your experimenting God does.

dhw: I’m surprised that you don’t regard “messy”, “cumbersome” and “inefficient” as denigrating, but I’m getting used to your habit of reversing the meaning of words. I don’t regard experimenting, learning, discovering, enjoyment, interest etc. as “denigrating”.

That view of God makes Him humanized and thus lessened.