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

by dhw, Thursday, June 20, 2024, 11:47 (154 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] I can't think like God. God had his reasons. Why keep repeating this???

dhw: Because you lumber your God with one particular REASON for creating life: us and our food. No, you can’t think like God. But you pretend that you can, and you even go so far as to ridicule him because the REASON for creating life which you impose on him results in his acting in a manner you describe as imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient. Maybe he didn't think: "I only want humans plus food", or "I want to imperfectly and inefficiently design and cull 99.9 out of 100 irrelevant species."

DAVID: Back I go to the human brain, so complex, so unusual, a natural process could not have invented it. It is the key to Adler's proof of God. Adler used pure Darwin theory in 'The Difference of Man and the Difference It Makes'.

Back you go to your usual dodge. WE ARE NOT DISCUSSING PROOF OF GOD! We are discussing the ridiculous theory bolded above.

dhw: And if God’s nature is unknown, it is totally absurd to insist that he is not in any way human! We don’t know! Stop shooting yourself in the foot.[…]

DAVID: My foot is fine. I've purified my Adlerism by pulling out and reviewing the instructions in the instruction book.

And you have come up with your conclusion that although God’s nature is unknowable, you know that he is certainly not human in any way. This means you are certain that he is incapable of all the human-type thought patterns and emotions you once regarded as certain or probable.

DAVID: Since our knowledge of God's personality is unknown, we each have the right to pick or our version, even your distortion of a highly humanized, thinking just-like-us form.

My version is not “highly humanized”. I offer alternatives, and they are no more distorted than your own, which now strictly excludes ALL thought patterns and emotions like ours. So you know that your unknowable God is incapable of love, enjoyment, curiosity, wanting to be worshipped, because he is certainly “not human in any way”.

DAVID: To find God the only way is to analyze His works from a teleological viewpoint. Everything within this universe shows purpose, starting with fine tuning. The evolutionary process, when analyzed, is geared to create complexity and produced the most complex object in the universe, our brain.

If God exists, then of course he would have had a purpose. I have offered you various alternative purposes, but you insist that your perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God’s only purpose was us and our brain and our food – a theory which leads you to ridiculing his method of producing us as imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient.

DAVID: Even you recognize the design, if not accepting the designer. You rail about God's use of evolution, but that is His way of creating: a universe evolving from the Big Bang, an Earth evolving in its galaxy, which also evolved over time. Life is much more complicated than the universe it lives in. So God evolved it from Archaea to us.

If God exists, I do not “rail” against any of this. When will you stop this silly dodging? I rail against your theory of your God’s inefficient method of achieving the one and only purpose you allow him to have.

“Allegory”

Definitions: “A poem, play, picture etc. in which the apparent meaning of the characters and events is used to symbolize a deeper moral or spiritual meaning” (Encarta). “A story, painting etc. in which the events and characters represent ideas or teach a moral lesson” (Longman)

DAVID: Allegorically, God MAY have thought patterns like ours and similar emotions. Nothing is categorical in reference to God.

You never stop contradicting yourself. Here is the astonishing exchange:

dhw: You have accepted that it is not the meaning of the words that is in question. But their applicability to your God.

DAVID: Finally, you understand.

dhw: No, finally YOU understood! And now you simply go back again. There is no “allegory”. God may have thought patterns and emotions like ours. But of course nothing is categorical, so stop telling us categorically that your God can’t possibly have thought patterns and emotions like ours (he is CERTAINLY “not human in any way”.)

Allegory is not about the meaning of words such as “worship”. The word “worship” does not symbolize anything. It means what we, its inventors, mean by it: to show respect, admiration, love etc. So does God wants us to love him etc. or not? Where is the symbolism of “allegory”/.

DAVID: You do understand: "it is not the meaning of the words that is in question. But their applicability to your God." The 'applicability' is the key and thus allegorical is correct. Pure Adler.

There is no “allegory”. Please give us your own definition of "allegory", and explain the difference between "God may want us to worship him" and "Allegorically God may want us to worship him".