Return to David's theory of evolution. Gelernter's view (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, July 19, 2024, 08:09 (51 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It makes no sense to talk of a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God who specially designs an imperfect, slipshod system!

DAVID: But we have to live with it, because that is what occurred. A perfect God picks a system He thinks best and achieved His goal, us.

dhw: We do not have to live with your theory that his only goal was us, and that he chose a “slipshod” method to produce us. There are other theistic theories concerning his possible purpose and perfect method of achieving that purpose. (I shan’t repeat my three alternatives). But you close your mind to them because they entail him having human attributes which – because you and he are schizophrenic – he may have but certainly does not have.

DAVID: God is not schizophrenic, my personal views of Him are as explored and answered in the other thread.

As on the other thread: You believe he is benevolent, and you believe he is not human in any way. This can only mean you believe in two different gods; two different beings in one = Jekyll and Hyde = schizophrenic, or whatever medical term you wish to use to indicate this form of mental disease.

dhw: Thank you for introducing me to a fellow agnostic who also accepts the logic of the case for design, but raises the same problems

DAVID: God is not human in any way. Like a chimp, He may have human attributes.

dhw: Your schizophrenia is embarrassing. If he may have human attributes, then he may be human in one way or another, even though he is still God.

DAVID: I'm not embarrassed at taking two views.

You don’t seem to realize that you are making statements that contradict each other:if it is possible that your God has human attributes, you can’t say that he is not human in any way!

DAVID: Your highly humanized God is like none I have ever met before.

dhw: You have met him partly in deism and partly in process theology and partly in your own answers to my questions, when you have proposed that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations and “would not have enjoyed watching our development if He knew all of it in advance”. May I ask where you met your schizophrenic God?

DAVID: Because of my autodidactic approach. As an agnostic I studied the science of biochemistry, of evolution and its theories. I arrived at accepting design as the evolutionary driver. I purposedly did not use the Bible, just my childhood memories. I read Karen Armstrong's book on the history of God. My God is based on the all-everything personage the Western religions present. And I found Adler to guide me. I view God religiously and philosophically equally. God is not schizophrenic; I am in my approach to Him.

You complained that you had never met a God like mine. Clearly you failed to meet the Gods of deism and of process theology, and equally clearly you have never met a God like the one you now believe in, who is benevolent but not benevolent, wants to be worshipped but can’t want to be worshipped, is a perfect but imperfect designer, probably has human attributes but is not human in any way etc. And to cap it all, these are now your beliefs but they are not your beliefs.