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

by David Turell , Thursday, May 09, 2024, 20:34 (11 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Of course you don’t know him intimately, so your guess that he is selfless and has no particular desires is no more justified than your guess that he self-centredly wants to be worshipped, and he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. They are all “guesses”, and yours directly contradict one another.

Since no one knows the answers. My guesses to your pointed queries will of course contradict myself as you match answers out of context.

dhw: The rule seems to be that your guesses of yesterday (worship, enjoy, interest etc.) must be ignored if they conflict with your “guesses” of today (he is selfless and has no desires).

As I envision God, He is simply a creator who creates with no self-interests involved. The desires we have for His personality will create the illusion He is self-centered as you point out. It is all word games. Just stick with my first sentence, and quite pushing questioning complaints.

Evolution

DAVID: Your distortion of God's evolutionary process denigrates God, whether you mean to or not.

dhw; It is YOUR version of your God’s evolutionary process that YOU denigrate as messy and inefficient. And I have no idea why you think it denigrates God to “guess” that he might have created a free-for-all, or experimented, out of a desire to create something he would be interested in. And to forestall your usual complaint, why is that more “humanizing” than the “guess” that he might want to be recognized and worshipped?

We don't know what God wants. Leave it at that.

dhw […] in post after post on this forum, you turn your back on logic and rely on faith in irrational and confusing theories. You also criticize atheists for precisely the same approach as your own: they first choose a theory they wish to believe in, and the rest follows. It’s what we call double standards.

DAVID: […] I see God as a selfless producer of our reality. My guesses as His thoughts are answers to your constantly probing questions which are purposely posed as being really not answerable.

dhw: If God exists, it is reasonable to assume that he had a purpose for creating life. Nobody “knows” anything, but if you present us with theories, you can hardly expect me to ignore them, or to swallow them whole. You gave honest answers to my questions, and it’s not my fault if you keep contradicting yourself.

DAVID: I don't contradict. You distort the conclusions.

dhw: I’ve given you whole lists of contradictions, including those earlier in this post, and as I wrote yesterday: "Your whole messed-up “theology” is encapsulated by your two statements that he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours, but he is certainly not human in any sense. And the endless contradictions stem from your self-confessed approach to all matters concerning your God’s purpose, method and nature: ”I first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”

I follow the all-everything God of the monotheistic religions, warts and all.

DAVID: You ask me to explain God and ask pointed questions as if I directly represent a known God. I represent my version of my God, a selfless producer of the reality He wishes to produce.

dhw: I do not ask you to explain God. I ask you to explain your theories/guesses about God. We agree that if he exists, he must have had a purpose for creating life. I ask why he had to create the irrelevant 99.9%. You can’t think of a single reason.

It is your crazily distortion of evolutionary statistics that is the problem. Raup simply said all of evolution to the present produced 99.9% extinctions, a natural result of the process. A very purposeful distortion to denigrate God. You would say that if God were not in the picture.