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

by dhw, Thursday, April 25, 2024, 12:44 (210 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy and boredom

This thread has spread itself through all our posts, so I am “culling” and juxtaposing in order to clarify the arguments and avoid the multiple repetitions.

dhw: I’m sure you’ll agree that your God, who you believe is interested in his creations, would find puppets pretty boring.

DAVID: Exactly!

dhw: And so he gave us free will because he would have found puppets boring.

You also expressly blame him for natural disasters such as bugs that cause disease.

dhw: A very reasonable theory, which you have confirmed. What’s the problem?

DAVID: Answered, For life to work, free bugs have to exist!!! You are alive, accept it and stop complaining.

dhw: Once more: I am not complaining. You believe that your God created or allowed evil in order to relieve himself and us of boredom.
It fits in with life’s history. But it raises a moral problem. Please tell us if you regard the Holocaust and the 50 million flu victims as secondary and morally justified by the fact that such evil relieves us from being bored.

DAVID: Yes, as a morally sufficient reason to give us free will.

Thank you for this straight answer. In order to relieve his (and our) boredom, he allowed millions of murders and designed bugs which he knew would kill millions of victims. And yet you insist that he is selfless and has no self-interest.

DAVID: God did not allow evil!!! He gave us free will. Humans with free will create evil!!!

In response to Plantinga’s theory of a monstrously egotistical God, you wrote:

DAVID: I particularly accept his statement of God having a ‘morally sufficient reason’to allow evil as a way to mitigate theodicy issue.

It is becoming a regular feature of our discussions that you express your opinion one
day, and a few days later deny having done so.

DAVID: You have conflated a mess of things. The theodicy answer is always proportionality.

The mess is yours. You have “solved” the theodicy problem by proposing that your God created or allowed evil to relieve his and our boredom. And yet you insist that he has no self-interest. Now you want to dodge it, and scuttle back to proportionality, which presumably means you regard your God’s allowing the murder of 6 million Jews, and the death of 50 million people in a single year from a virus whose existence you directly blame on him, as morally justified on the grounds that your God has done more good than harm. Is this really the God you wish for?

DAVID: My direct answer is would you prefer not to be alive?

Your question is totally irrelevant. We are discussing the nature of the God you wish for and believe in, not my love of life!

Guesses and assumptions

DAVID: It is you assumption our guesses about God's personal wishes are REAL!! WE do not know what God really wants, if anything! You invent these conflicts.

dhw: It is my assumption that since nobody knows whether God exists, let alone what he is like, the best we can do is make guesses based on what we know about life and its history. But it is also my assumption that whatever guesses a person makes will make sense to that person. Does it make sense to you that your God wants us to worship him but has no self-interest? That he has only one purpose (us plus food), but proceeds to design 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with us plus food? That he is all good, but is to be blamed for designing bugs which he knows will kill 50 million people in a year?

DAVID: Same old baseless distortion of evolution.

I have just given you three examples of your illogicality. One of them refers directly to your “baseless distortion of evolution”, through which your omniscient, omnipotent God messily and inefficiently designs and culls 99.9 out of 100 species which are irrelevant to the single purpose you impose on him. See below:

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.

dhw: [..] Thank you for confirming their irrelevance to the present, which is the reason why your theory of evolution is so illogical.

(All references to Raup are dealt with on the other thread.)