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

by dhw, Tuesday, August 20, 2024, 11:20 (27 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Nothing in my thoughts is contradictory.

dhw: I have just listed the contradictions, and YOU have called your own views “schizophrenic”! Your denial is yet another example of your schizophrenia.

DAVID: See next:

DAVID: God, as our deity, is a totally unknown type of personality. I accept religion's view that He is perfect and all-everything. I reject deism. He is present but has paused His active creationism. Attributes of a relationship with us are all wishful thinking on our part. Yes, I mentioned them in that context. As for purpose what is more obvious than a thinking creature, the only one in the universe, and as the endpoint of evolution?

dhw: He is totally unknown, so you start out with your wishes for what he might be, lumber him with an inefficient design, propose that he has human attributes and emotions, deny that he has human attributes and emotions, and tell us to turn a blind eye to the question how and why an all-good, omniscient God can deliberately create or allow evil.

DAVID: Yes, He is unknown, except that we can look at His works. Humans are the terminal result, able to think in some small way similar to God's thinking. God must allow for bad results or there could be no good. As the song says, 'you can't have one without the other'.

None of this answers the point that your thoughts are contradictory and schizophrenic, as I listed. You are merely repeating your beliefs in your God’s imperfect and inefficient method of achieving the purpose you impose on him, and his all-goodness despite his creation or allowance of evil. It might help if you tell us why you have labelled your own views “schizophrenic”.

DAVID: Theodicy issue answered previously as accepting proportionality of so much good with little of bad side effects.

dhw: So let’s ignore the deaths and sufferings of millions of humans and animals that have been victims of your omnipotent and omniscient God’s deliberate creation of murderous bacteria and viruses, natural disasters, and human beings whose evil he knew of in advance.

DAVID: Not ignore. Use our human brains and ingenuity to help the problems.

This is your other answer to theodicy: God has created evil in order to challenge us. How does that prove he is all good, and do please give us your views on WHY he wants to challenge us.

dhw: As regards the “endpoint”:
We have no idea what evolution will produce in the next billion years. But if God exists, I have no doubt that he has used and will use evolution for his own purpose(s) – if he’s still interested! These may include his own enjoyment, his interest in new discoveries, his creation of beings that might appreciate and worship him...You schizophrenically agree and disagree.

DAVID: Wild and woolly rambling. Again, describing a humanized God. Evolution producing major changes is over, unless we find out how to edit DNA into a new species.

dhw: And there I was, thinking you believed it was your God who edited DNA into new species. Since you purport to know your God’s views, and you also reject deism (a God who merely watches but does not intervene), what do you reckon he’s doing now, if he has no further plans for life on Earth?

DAVID: I don't know but I expect He can be active.

According to you, he’s fulfilled his one and only purpose: to create us and our food. But he’s not the deist God, who is simply watching us. And evolution is over unless we humans start producing new species. And according to your Mr Hyde, he has absolutely no human attributes (“not human in any way”), so he couldn’t care less about what happens here. He might just as well not exist.

DAVID: {...] the power of the appearance of design returned you from atheism to agnosticism. Happened to me also but I made the other logical step to see design needs a designer. I found one.

dhw: I have no objections to the logic of your conclusion. It is the total confusion of your illogical, contradictory, schizophrenic views on your God’s nature, purpose and methods that I criticize.

DAVID: You forgot to mention you have no idea how to approach a designer issue.

dhw: Do you really think the model approach is to impose an inefficient combination of purpose and method on your designer, to propose possible human attributes and then argue that the possible attributes are impossible, and to view him as all-powerful and all-good, although he is responsible for evil and/or powerless to stop it?

Glossed over by you, except for repeating your non-answer to the theodicy question (see above).

DAVID: Not glossed over if you have read my previous writings over the many years. No need to repeat.

I have read them, and I agree with your conclusion: that your views are schizophrenic, which means they are full of contradictions. And this means that the correct approach to a designer is to keep contradicting yourself.