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

by dhw, Thursday, August 22, 2024, 11:20 (25 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Nothing in my thoughts is contradictory.

Herewith two statements made in the same post:

DAVID: I reject deism. God made us. He must care about the results.

DAVID: What you refuse to accept is God is not human in anyway. To attribute any human emotion to God is wishful thinking.

You reject deism because you believe God cares. You do not believe God cares – that is merely wishful thinking. You accept that your beliefs are schizophrenic, but you do not accept that your beliefs are schizophrenic. As regards wishful thinking:

dhw: I asked why you thought he might have wanted specially to create us. One of your very reasonable opinions was that he might want us to recognize him and worship him. […]

You also thought he enjoyed creating. Why is that “wishful thinking”? They were all perfectly rational proposals. Why else would he have gone on creating? But then you say that your own proposals are not possible because your God is selfless:

DAVID: The contradictions are the result of mashing together different bits of discussions. God is perfect, selfless, and in no way has human attributes. He did not create us to satisfy His own needs, because He has none. We humans apply wishful attributes, as you show I have done.

The above attributes were not “wishful”. Just perfectly reasonable explanations for his actions.. Caring is wishful, but you have rejected deism because your God is caring - regardless of your belief that God can’t be caring, because he has no human attributes. You agree that your beliefs are schizophrenic, and just to confirm the sheer blatancy of your self-contradictions, you declare that there are no contradictions, which = there is no schizophrenia.

DAVID: Viewed this way there are no contradictions. I have the right to be critical when I see direct creation in the Cambrian and then all the rest is slow evolution. As you have asked why, so do I.

But you absolutely refuse to consider the possibility that your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method might be wrong, and you reject any alternatives on the grounds that although you believe your God may have human thoughts and emotions, your God cannot possibly have human thoughts and emotions.

Theodicy

dhw: Your first answer is “proportionality”, which means pretending that evil is so minor compared to good that we should simply ignore it.

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

dhw: 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.

DAVID: He gave us brilliant brains. Why not put them to the test?

dhw: Please tell us why you think he would want to test our intelligence by designing or allowing evil?

DAVID: Evil is not designed. It is a byproduct of God's good works.

But your omniscient God knew it would be a consequence of his creation and apparently wanted to test our brilliant brains. Why do you think he wanted to test our brilliant brains?