More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, June 23, 2024, 09:36 (151 days ago) @ dhw

Oxidation

DAVID: You don't know how to think about God in true theological ways.

dhw: Please stop pretending that you and you alone know the “true” theological way. Go to any church, synagogue or mosque and inform the vicar, rabbi or imam that God certainly has no human attributes, and therefore certainly doesn’t love us, care for us, or want us to worship him.

Not answered.

dhw: As for evolution, please tell us how many theologians you know who inform us that their God used an imperfect, inefficient method to produce us, having designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 life forms although he could have produced us "de novo".

DAVID: Adler used Darwin's natural theory of evolution explicitly to prove God. He is a world-renowned philosopher of religion. In his mind God designed humans by my described evolution.

We are not talking about proof of God. In the past you have told us that Adler did not even touch on your theory that God designed humans by first designing and then having to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to the one and only purpose you allow him to have. In any case, stop hiding behind Adler. If you can’t defend YOUR theories, then telling us how important Adler is will not boost your case.

Black holes

DAVID: Your humanizing theories of God show your lack of theological instruction in this area of thought.

dhw: As above: If you preached your theories about God’s inefficiency and your certainty that he has no “human” attributes like love, or wanting to be worshipped, you would be laughed out of every church, synagogue and mosque in the world.

DAVID: I don't follow what religions sell. You don't either.

Perhaps you haven’t realized that theology is the study of religion and religious ideas, and the people who run the churches, synagogues and mosques are theologians, so stop telling me that your illogical, self-contradictory opinions about your God (e.g. your selfless God could not possibly want us to worship him) are backed by theologians, and my logical alternatives are due to “lack of theological instruction”.

God’s purposes

DAVID: I think we were His prime purpose.

dhw: Please tell us his other purposes - especially for designing the 99.9% of species unconnected with us.

DAVID: Our food supply created by the 99.9% extinct, and the Earth's mineral resources for our use.

You have agreed that we and our food supply were created by the 0.1% of survivors, but in any case once again you are simply saying that God created everything for our sake. You can't think of any other purposes.

Intelligence

dhw: You agree that solving problems, taking decisions etc. denote autonomous intelligence in our fellow animals. Thank you.

DAVID: I'm sure they have some simple solutions to simple challenges.

dhw: Excellent news: our fellow organisms have autonomous intelligence. So now it’s a matter of the degree of autonomous intelligence. For instance, how about ants?

DAVID: Of course, individuals make decisions based on pheromones they sense.

All decision-making is based on receiving information in whatever form, processing it, and finding a way to use it. Within a community, communication is another essential feature. Bearing these attributes in mind, do you agree that ants are intelligent?

DAVID (under “ant intelligence” which went off subject:): The issue remains, God is unknowable, but we can guess at His purposes from His creations.

dhw: And we can guess at his methods and his nature, and since nobody knows the truth, it is utterly absurd to pontificate that he is certainly not human in any way.

DAVID: I didn't know you knew Him personally.

I offer all my alternatives as theories. I don’t know if any of them are true, and I don’t even know if God exists. It is you who claim personal knowledge when you insist that your God is CERTAINLY not human in any way, which means he can’t possibly love us, enjoy creating etc. – see the other thread for a shortlist of attributes you apparently KNOW he doesn’t have.

Asteroids

DAVID: asteroids are part of the sun's planetary disc, little rocks that didn't become planets. dhw will ask why God allowed this circumstance endangering His favorite humans. The article shows how our God-given brains are solving the problem. Another possible view is God's may have made the decision that life should be challenging, not a Garden of Eden.

How very kind of your God to create all the natural catastrophes (floods, famines, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, crippling and fatal diseases) that cause so much suffering, so that we can have problems to solve. And what do think might have been his purpose for challenging us in this way?