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

by dhw, Sunday, May 12, 2024, 08:57 (193 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You always use the word “need”, and I keep telling you that want and need are not the same thing. We need food, and without it, we'll die. I do not for one moment imagine your God saying he can’t go on without my worshipping him. I asked why you thought he specially created us? YOU suggested that he wanted recognition and worship. So why are you trying to blame me for your own answer to my question? He has no self-interest is just as much a guess as he wants us to worship him. So you are arguing against yourself, not me.

DAVID: I have very specific beliefs, and you are correct we don't know, but I see God as selfless despite the guesses I made for you.

It is your very specific beliefs that make you want to shut out alternatives – that is the danger of first choosing what you wish to believe in, and then trying to make the rest follow. You wish to believe in a selfless God, but you have realized that it is perfectly possible for him to want to be recognized and worshipped; you wish to believe that your God is all-knowing and all-powerful, and that we and our food were his only purpose, but you realize that this makes a mockery of your belief that he also designed vast numbers of species that had no connection with his purpose (you even label him as “inefficient”); and your wish that he should be all-good leaves you with the unanswerable question of why he had to allow/create the forces of evil.

dhw: What is the point of your polite guesses if you now tell us that you know they are totally wrong? Why should I “remove any human trace” after you have agreed that he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours? Why would a purposeful God want to create us in the first place if what we did was of no interest or consequence to him?

DAVID: Right!! We don't know the true answers to any of that.

And that is why your “very specific beliefs” lead you to innumerable contradictions. You know there are alternative explanations, but you wish to believe only one.

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.”

DAVID: I follow the all-everything God of the monotheistic religions, warts and all.
But a moment later:
DAVID: I make my own considered theism.

dhw: So you follow the all-everything God of the monotheistic religions, warts and all, but you don’t, because you pride yourself on making your own theism.

DAVID: On the contrary, I start with the God I described, and my critical thoughts about God logically follow. Evolution is not a direct way to create all living organisms.

What is “on the contrary”? You don’t follow the monotheistic religions although you say you do, or you pride yourself on inventing your own theology although you say you follow the monotheistic religions? Of course evolution is not direct: what has that got to do with all the contradictions listed above?

dhw: There is no reason whatsoever to assume that your God does not have thought patterns and emotions like ours. Indeed you wrote that he probably does.

DAVID: I won't moan about your humanized God you have aptly described. We do not know what God, having produced us, wants or needs from us. Briefly, does God have motives of any sort? We humans can invent all sorts of possibilities like you invent for your humanized guy. God may have none like my selfless guy.

I’m glad you’ve stopped moaning about my “humanizations”, which of course are no more human than your own – the God who certainly enjoyed and was interested, who wanted to be recognized and worshipped, who messed up his method of achieving the purpose you gave him, and who probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. And I like this new approach, in which you acknowledge that all your inventions, which you call your “very specific beliefs”, could be totally wrong, and one or other of my alternative inventions could be right. We are making progress, though sadly it only lasts until the “More miscellany” thread.