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

by dhw, Friday, December 06, 2024, 13:43 (16 days ago) @ David Turell

Theodicy

DAVID: Our Congressional study group now blames nasty Chinese for Covid's invention.

dhw: That has been mooted for years and is the reason why my example was the flu that killed 50 million people in 1918/19, which you have now managed to omit.

DAVID: Not mooted. Results of investigation just published. 50,000,000 is an estimate of the 1919 deaths. I don't know if God could have stopped it since the virus mutates on its own.

You deliberately changed my example. Covid is irrelevant. Of course 50 million is an estimate. Does that mean you can ignore the deaths because there may only have been 49.9 million? Yes, your God created viruses that can mutate on their own. That is one of the problems of theodicy for which you have no answer and therefore wish to turn a blind eye to it.

dhw: The problem is his creation of evil, not his creation of good!

DAVID: Again, think of proportions. I see it as God's great good against small bad.

You only see what you wish to see. I asked you to take your head out of the sand and see the wars, civil wars, natural catastrophes and rampant diseases all around you, and you replied: “It’s out and sees a pleasant world, compared with your doom and gloom approach.” Not an approach. These evils exist, but you’d rather not acknowledge them as evils allowed by or even directly created by your God.

DAVID: I am assigning the source of the events. Of course God did them.

dhw: So your God is at fault, which can only mean that either you do not regard him as all-good, or you blame him for his incompetence, which knocks out his omnipotence and his omniscience.

DAVID: My approach as side effects preserves His powers.

You have just said you don’t know if God could have stopped the flu that killed millions since the virus mutates on its own. How does that preserve his powers?

Your God's purposes

dhw: You agree that YOUR “humanizing” proposals (enjoyment, interest, desire for worship etc.) are possible and do not make your God a human being, but next moment your God cannot have the “humanizing” thoughts and emotions YOU propose, because these would make him a human being! Stop disagreeing with yourself!

DAVID: No disagreement!!! What I propose for God are our human wishes for a relationship, not His wishes. We can't know those in this one-sided discussion.

You insist that you do know he created life because he wished to create us humans. When asked why you thought he wished to create us humans, you provided your thoughts about HIS potential wishes: they included enjoyment, interest, and a desire for a relationship, recognition and worship. And you have consistently agreed that all are possible and do NOT turn God into a human, but in the same post you argue that he cannot have had these wishes because they would turn him into a human.

dhw: [on the subject of selflessness) …] your God must be some kind of zombie, creating us thinking, feeling beings without having had any of the thought patterns and emotions which as first cause he’s supposed to have invented from nothing. What a wonderful surprise he must have had when we humans invented love, care, benevolence, not to mention enjoyment and interest which are “clearly, purely and entirely human characteristics”. Oh but hold on, your God is omniscient, isn’t he? How the heck could he have known about all these things if they didn’t come from him?

DAVID: 'Came from Him' does not mean they are His. He can create an individual totally unlike Himself.

So now your omniscient, omnipotent God can’t possibly enjoy creating, be interested in his creations, be caring (even your Adler gives him a 50/50 chance) or loving or “benevolent” (another of your characterisations of him), want to be recognized and worshipped. He is an omniscient zombie who knows how to create thought patterns and emotions totally unknown to himself.

DAVID: Will you never accept the idea that all of evolution is for the purpose of human support? The 90% non-human is for human support. We use all the resources on the planet. Please answer the point.

I have always accepted that we humans use all the resources available to us in the present world. Will you never accept that “all of evolution” includes the millions of extinct species over the last 3.8 billion years that had no connection with us, but which you insist your God designed and then had to cull because they had no connection with us and you believe we were his one and only purpose?