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

by dhw, Monday, July 22, 2024, 08:58 (48 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The whole point of these discussions is to exchange ideas and to test their feasibility. Your theory that a perfect, omnipotent, omniscient God would choose a purpose and method which, in combination, you regard as imperfect and inefficient seems to me to be illogical and self-contradictory.

DAVID: You still do not see the view of believers. Whatever God chooses is correct.

Of course it is. How does that prove that your God’s “choice” of purpose was us plus food, and his “choice” of method was to design and cull 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to his choice of purpose? If God chose a free-for-all, or to experiment, then a free-for-all or experimentation would be correct!

DAVID: Free-for-alls which entertain and experimentation produce a so-called God weak in purpose.
And:
DAVID: I can ridicule your namby-pamby God any way I wish.

dhw: Of course you can ridicule my alternatives as “namby-pamby”, but if for example we consider the free-for-all hypothesis, you have said that your God gave humans free will because “he would not have enjoyed watching our development if he knew it all in advance”.

DAVID: How much 'enjoyment' does a God require? An unknown quatity, unanswerable question.

We are not measuring degrees of enjoyment. You said he enjoyed creating, and you said he would not have enjoyed watching what he already knew. Both of your statements provide a strong basis for the argument that he created a free-for-all for his own enjoyment.

dhw: […] I have no idea why you would ridicule this as “namby-pamby” and “weak in purpose”, or why you dismiss the human attribute of enjoyment in relation to evolutionary development, but embrace it in relation to human development. These objections are as self-contradictory as your theistic theory of evolution.

DAVID: All allegorical guesses about God, whose personage is not like ours. He may not wish to care about us at all, with Adler at 50/50, neutral.

You have not told us why you accept enjoyment as a motive for free will but reject it as a motive for evolution. Of course he can’t be a person like us, and I agree with Adler’s neutrality, whereas you have opted for divine schizophrenia!.

dhw: [If you accept 50/50 neutrality] then there is no schizophrenia in you or in God. What a pity you made all those other statements, in which you called God benevolent and agreed that he probably has other human attributes but at the same time told us that he certainly “is not human in any sense,” which would mean that he could not be benevolent or have any other human attributes.
These contradictory statements are what you yourself confess to be schizophrenic views of your God because they are NOT neutral!

DAVID: That God I've met is Adler's, in His philosophy of God.

dhw: I’m surprised that Adler ridicules God as a messy, inefficient designer, and that he views God schizophrenically as benevolent but not benevolent, wanting but not wanting recognition etc. as above, although apparently Adler himself says such attributes are 50/50. Since you follow him, are you saying that his views are schizophrenic?

DAVID: Adler solves the yes or no problem by bringing us the concept of allegorical attributes, much like Schrodinger's dead and alive cat. All you ascribe above to Adler are my thoughts, not Adler's.

dhw: So please stop making these constant claims that you follow Adler, and are “perfectly with Adler”, when your theory of evolution and your schizophrenic views of God – the subjects of all these disagreements – are yours and not his. As I said earlier, he’d probably be turning in his grave if he thought you were using him as back-up!

DAVID: I follow his principles of how to think about God. You assume I'm quoting Adler. My conclusions are my own.

Thank you for confirming that your conclusions have nothing whatsoever to do with Adler. So please stop referring to him as if his “principles” justify your view of God as an inefficient and schizophrenic designer.