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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 23, 2024, 08:55 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The reason for your illogicalities and contradictions is that you offer theories which are so illogical and contradictory that you are constantly forced to admit that only God would be able to understand them because you can’t. Examples: Your all-powerful, all-knowing designer is forced to use a messy, inefficient way of designing the only things he wants to design; your selfless God wants to be recognized and worshipped, and is all-good, although he allows human evil in order to alleviate his boredom. He is also “to blame” (your word) for natural evils, which despite his omnipotence he is powerless to prevent, although he does his best.

DAVID: The usual inventions. God's free will allows human evil. WE can only assume God wants us to recognize him and worship Him. Don't blame Him for our thoughts. Stop blaming me for not knowing God's reasoning for His actions. I know what God did but can only guess as to why.

dhw: I am not blaming him for our thoughts. I am blaming YOU for the illogicality and self-contradictions that are rife in your thoughts. As listed above.

DAVID: My faith dictates my view reality.
And:
DAVID: My views are logically arrived at, but your screwed up views of God constantly confuse you.

Your view that there is a designer God is logically arrived at, but your faith that the God you wish for is the real God is based on your wishes and not on logic, which is why you wrote: “Welcome to faith which does not need rationality.”

DAVID (moved from “More Miscellany”): Stop complaining that I made logical choices in thought that lead to faith. Sorry you can't do it. And then you invent the weirdest definition I've ever seen about double standards, with no choices allowed. You have tied yourself into intellectual knots to defend your inability to consider choices!!!

Stop pretending that your theory of evolution and your contradictory views of God’s purpose and nature are “logical choices”. There is no logic in the belief that your all-powerful, all-knowing God would have to design 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his purpose, or that your God is to blame for murderous bugs but they’re not his fault, or that he wants us to worship him but he has no self-interest. Double standards have nothing to do with allowing choice, but concern your application of a standard to justify your rejection of someone else’s choice while at the same time your own choice also violates the standard you have set them. (Explained several times on the Plantinga thread.)

dhw: How do you know [God] is all-good by your own standards of goodness?

DAVID: I take all-goodness as by definition.

dhw: Since nobody knows God, how can anyone possibly define his attributes with any authority? […] would you regard your God’s desire to relieve his and our boredom as “all-good” moral justification for the millions of people who have died or suffered from the evil he allowed to happen (human evil) or caused to happen (he is to blame for the natural evils)?

DAVID: Ancient Hebrew philosophy of Dayenu, it is enough, is the theodistic answer. […]

dhw:“Dayenu” does not explain why an all-good God would deliberately and knowingly give humans the ability to perform rape, murder, holocausts etc., and deliberately create the murderous bugs and other natural disasters for which you blame him. Stop dodging.

DAVID: No dodge. It means I am satisfied with what God has given us. Not your Scrooge view!

There is no problem concerning your satisfaction with life and the world as they are. The problems arise when you insist on theories concerning his purpose, method and nature that are full of illogicalities and contradictions. For instance, when asked why you think your purposeful God created humans, you offer us a perfectly logical reason: he wants us to recognize and worship him. But a moment later you tell us your God has no self-interest. This combination of theories is a complete contradiction, but your only response is to blame me for pointing it out.

I am moving the following from “More Miscellany” as it once more concerns your wacky theory of evolution:

Under "Giant viruses"

DAVID: It is your cockamamy view of evolution that is at fault. All species produced were relevant in their time.

dhw: Relevant to what? Certainly not to what you believe to have been your God’s one and only purpose (us and our food), since only 0.1% of them led to us and our food.

DAVID: Relevant to current ecosystem of the time in evolution. More distortion of Raup. Cleared up in the other thread, remember.

Your distortion of Raup, whose findings if anything contradict your own conclusions, has indeed been cleared up on the Plantinga thread. Otherwise, I like your response. Every species is relevant to the ecosystem of its time. And 99.9% of them were irrelevant to the ecosystems of our time, and you have no idea why your God created them and then culled them, since we and our food are supposed to have been his one and only purpose and are descended from only 0.1% of them.