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

by dhw, Friday, June 28, 2024, 13:00 (71 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You don’t assimilate the absurdity of your claim that an all-knowing, all-powerful God would choose an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient way to achieve the purpose you impose on him. You say I am out of touch with theology, so please tell us which theologians you know who champion the theory that their God is an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer.

DAVID: You ignore what I write. I have my personal theology built on instructions from a philosopher of religion.

So Adler instructed you to tell us that your God is an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer, did he? Well even if he did, that doesn’t make it true, and it doesn’t make it conform to the views of all theologians.

"Allegory" and Human attributes

DAVID: I am sure Adler knew the meaning of allegorical when he said to use it.

dhw: So please tell us what he meant, and what is the difference between “God may want us to worship him” and “Allegorically God may want us to worship him.” And stop dodging.

DAVID: Simple: Worship at our level may not have the same meaning as applied to God's wishes about worship.

“Worship” means to show respect, love, appreciation, gratitude etc at any level. The question is whether God does or doesn’t want us to do this. And you “accepted that it is not the meaning of the words that is in question, but their applicability to God.” Stop dodging.

DAVID: Of course I reject your humanized God.

dhw: You reject a God who has certain “human-like attributes”. Please tell us […] how many theologians believe that their God – who is “certainly not human in any way” – is incapable of loving us and does not want us to worship him.

DAVID: Of course, they do, and I accept Adler's neutral position.

dhw: If Adler is neutral, then he can hardly inform us that his God is “certainly not human in any way”. Neutrality = God may or may not have human attributes. So do you now wish to jettison your bolded “certainly” comment above – and if you do, would you please stop objecting to my alternatives on the grounds that they entail human attributes.

DAVID: Now twisting the meaning of neutral as I applied it to Adler. Adler is agnostic about God's personality. Neutral=taking neither side.

Precisely, but you have stated that your God is “certainly not human in any way” – which means God has no human attributes, the very opposite of “neutral”! Stop twisting yourself in knots!

God’s purpose

DAVID: [...] God's main purpose was to create us and our resources.
And:
DAVID: We are a most extraordinary result of a natural process; therefore, God designed us. No other explanation fits.

dhw: All life forms are complex enough for you to argue that they must have been designed, but we are not discussing the theory of design! We are discussing the illogical theory that your all-powerful, all-knowing God imperfectly and inefficiently designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with the one and only purpose you allow him. Stop dodging.

DAVID: The dodge is yours to keep dredging up your illogical complaint. Repeat: an omniscient God chose the best system to create humans and it worked. To our human brains it looks cumbersome, but apparently not to God.

You keep insisting that you know your unknowable God started out with the sole intention of creating humans and he decided to choose a messy, inefficient way to do it. Here are two alternatives which are not imperfect, messy, cumbersome or inefficient: God chose the best system to create a free-for-all, and it worked. God chose to experiment with his new invention and see what different forms of life he could create, and it worked. Why do you insist that only your theory of imperfection and inefficiency is the only possible theistic explanation of evolution?

99.9% versus 0.1%

DAVID: Adler would educate you.

dhw: According to you, Adler does not cover your absurd theory.

DAVID: As for the required extinctions, they are the natural result of evolution.

dhw: Normally, when you use the word “natural”, you contrast it with deliberate design by your God. Please clarify: 1) did your God specially design and then have to cull the 696 dinosaur species that left no descendants? 2) Do you think your God deliberately sent the asteroid that killed them, or was the collision a natural event that he was unable to control?

DAVID: Schroeder, an orthodox Jewish theoretical physicist, guessed God used the asteroid. I'll stick with that. God culled the dinosaurs.

A good illustration, then, of your God’s decision to design and then cull 99.9% of species that had no connection with the one and only purpose you impose on him – a choice which YOU consider to be imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient.