New Miscellany: fine tuning, theodicy, climate, evolution (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 11, 2025, 16:34 (3 days ago) @ dhw

Fine tuning again

DAVID: I'm disagreeing with you. Having a life allowing universe is always a FIRST requirement. Your friendly climate is a secondary requirement in that order.

dhw: Of course the essential universe came first, and the essential fine-tuning for life came second. Fine-tuning is what provides the final details which make something work. Are you playing games with “secondary” and “second”? “Secondary” means not as important as something else. How daft is that? You agree that life cannot possibly exist unless there is a hospitable climate, plus a certain combination of biochemicals. These are indispensable “fine tunings”, not minor matters of secondary importance! So how can the entire universe be fine-tuned for life although the only place we know that is fine-tuned for life is Planet Earth?

I'll stick with my statement. Fine-tuned are 26 major factors that make this universe what it
is allowing life to develop in any comfortable, life-inviting area. It is an accepted concept which leads to thoughts of alien civilizations, life elsewhere than Earth. We don't really disagree. Our emphasis is different.

Theodicy

DAVID: The good came with the evil side effects. God had to accept them.

dhw: Your all-good, all-powerful, all-knowing God had to accept that he was powerless to prevent the evil he had created, and did not have the knowledge to create the world he wanted (assuming that in his all-goodness he disapproved of evil).

DAVID: We cannot have the good without the evil. An all-knowing God had no solution for that side-effect. I'm alive and enjoying the good. Yes, I'm fully aware of evil, but not twisted into knots over it as you are.

dhw: You and countless theologians have twisted yourselves into knots trying to solve the problem of theodicy, which in fact you raised in the first place and which has caused trouble ever since humans started theorizing about the concept of a single, all-good God. (No problem for those who believe or believed in multiple gods.) Your solutions are to ignore the problem, to ridicule your God as being incapable of creating the world he would have wanted (unless you think he wanted evil), and to tell us how happy you are.

We are alive, enjoying life, thanks to God. And you want to complain that a perfect God did not give you a perfect evil-less existence. It is obvious He couldn't.

Climate change
Timing a probable glacial period

DAVID: We agree on the effects humans have and should mitigate them, but you want it faster than I do.
And:
DAVID: Your urgency specifies a speed you may not realize. I'm just slower.

dhw: You are pleased that some countries like USA have already taken measures. I say “as quickly as pragmatically possible”, and you agree that this means measures must be taken at a speed which will not create social or economic havoc. Neither of us has set a date, so how can we gauge the speed at which these measures must be taken? I suggest we shake hands and congratulate one another on our complete agreement.

Let's shake.

Evolution
DAVID: God evolves all. You don't like it, but it works eventually.

dhw: I have no objection to the theory of evolution. I only object to the absurdity of an all-powerful God who is messy and inefficient. You refuse to consider alternatives.

DAVID: I refuse to accept humanized God forms.

dhw: You have proposed that your God enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, may or may not love us, may want a relationship with us, may want us to recognize his work and worship him, and probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. Furthermore, a God whose designing talents are messy, cumbersome and inefficient sounds all too human to me. Why do you refuse to accept your own humanizing proposals?

DAVID: Adler warns we must think allegorically about God's attributes. Your problem is you laugh at Adler and do not realize I am thinking allegorically about God.

dhw: I’m discussing this with you, not Adler, and there’s nothing “allegorical” in concepts such as enjoyment, relationships, recognition, worship etc.

Yes, when applied to God.

DAVID: God used evolution as His standard pattern of development, with the Big Bang to the current universe as an example. Then He evolved life to finally reach humans. Evolution is God's preferred method of creation, and we do not know why. All I can say is the giant tree of evolution gave us an enormous supporting supply necessary to let us survive.

dhw: None of this explains why according to you he inefficiently designed and had to cull countless species irrelevant to what according to you was his one and only purpose (us plus food), and none of it means that your own humanizing speculations about his nature and motives are invalid. If, according to you, he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours, and you proceed to list some of them, it is patently absurd for you to “refuse to accept humanized God forms”. Please stop all this dodging and self-contradiction.

The God-form proposals you conjure up are all very human. I apply the terms allegorically recognizing God is not human in any way.