Return to David's theory of evolution, theodicy and purposes (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, December 01, 2024, 21:53 (2 days ago) @ dhw

Theodicy

dhw: You have constantly reiterated your theory that your God left us to find remedies for the errors he couldn’t avoid or correct.So much for the efficiency of his “editing systems”, which you also call instructions. In the context of theodicy, you wrote: “What is fair is to blame God for natural disasters, earthquakes, terrible storms, and bugs causing diseases.” You followed this up by saying “Blame in sense because they are his true invention”. Please explain why you blame him. (See below for your messy evolution theory.)

The errors that God corrects for in His editing systems is for copying errors, probably effective at a 99.9999999% rate. Earthquakes relate to plate tectonics which gave us the right conditions for life. Bugs started life and are basic components of it. All of these necessary items have side effects.

DAVID: […] The presence of bacteria is a required part of life that God designed. That God created life is amazing within itself. Failures are a tiny portion compared to the overall successes.

dhw: The problem is not the good bacteria but the bad. Yes, life is amazing, but that does not solve the problem of theodicy. The evils of disease, natural disasters, and especially human folly are the focus of theodicy, and if you think they are “tiny” and not worth bothering about, I suggest you take your head out of the sand and look at the world around you.

DAVID: It's out and sees a pleasant world, compared with your doom and gloom approach.

dhw: Yet again you try to minimize the extent of evil as if that exonerated your God from its creation. Clearly you are blissfully unaware of the wars, civil wars, natural catastrophes and rampant diseases that are happening all around you. Awareness of evil does not entail a “doom and gloom approach”. My own approach to life is just as positive as yours. (See under “Stoicism” on the “Miscellany” thread.)

As regards evolution, you have no explanation for his having designed and had to cull 99 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with the one and only purpose you impose on him, and that is why you have labelled him messy, cumbersome and inefficient.

Evolution requires culling organisms or it doesn't work. This is your totally fallacious, invented point.

DAVID (under “immunity system”): You keep uselessly repeating your mantra. Nothing was unnecessarily culled during evolution.

dhw: Another of your crude obfuscations. Of course if your God’s only purpose was us and he designed 99 out of 100 irrelevant species, it was necessary for him to cull them. What was unnecessary and totally inexplicable is that he would have designed them in the first place! That is why you ridicule him as being “inefficient”, rather than acknowledge the possibility that your theory might be wrong.

Again your totally fallacious invention about evolution. To reach an endpoint requires culling in all forms of evolution

Free-for-all

DAVID: A free-for-all, by definition has no direction or purpose. […]

dhw: An atheist, of course, would argue that life has no purpose anyway, apart from whatever purposes we make for ourselves. However, a possible direction and purpose of a God-made evolutionary free-for-all would be to provide him with the enjoyment (purpose) of an ever-changing, unpredictable history, for good or bad. If he gave humans free will (a different kind of free-for-all), his purpose could have been for us to recognize and worship him (puppet-string worship would be meaningless.). Both possibilities allow for a free-for-all with very clear purposes. You have agreed that such “humanizations” are possible and do not mean that your God is a two-legged mammal.

DAVID: As usual you scurry back to a humanized God who must have enjoyment and a purposeless free-for-all.

dhw: No “must”, and possible purposes made crystal clear above. […]

dhw: It is therefore nonsense to “dismiss” your own “humanizing” theories and mine just because they involve your God having human attributes, since we agree that he can have human-like thought patterns and feelings although he is not a human being.

DAVID: Let's leave it at that.

dhw: Thank you. I shall earmark your agreement for future reference.

Next day:

dhw: As usual, you agree, and the next day you scurry back to your silly “humanization” objection.

DAVID: If you stop humanizing I will stop.
And under “negative theology”:
DAVID: Your versions are entirely human as they show us a God with human desires.

dhw: I have quoted YOUR humanizations, and you have agreed that these are possible and none of them mean your God is a two-legged mammal (= "entirely human"). When will you stop contradicting your own statements and agreements?

My proposed ways we might relate to God are all human wishes which God may or may not favor. We do not know what God personally wants, if anything. You constantly picture Him with human desires, as if He is one of us.