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

by dhw, Friday, March 14, 2025, 11:03 (5 hours, 38 minutes ago) @ David Turell

FACT: There are no known answers to any of the questions raised on this thread or the Savannah thread, including the existence, nature and possible purposes of a God. We can only offer theories and test their logic against whatever knowledge we do have.

Fine tuning again

dhw: The entire universe is NOT environmentally and biochemically fine-tuned for life to appear. Therefore the entire universe is not fine-tuned for life to appear.

DAVID: Yes. The entire universe is biochemically fine-tuned for life to appear. Environmental issues are secondary.

You have said yourself that life is only possible in a hospitable environment. If a hospitable environment is indispensable, it cannot be “secondary” (= of minor importance). The only place in the universe which we know is biochemically and environmentally fine-tuned for life is Planet Earth. It is possible that there may be others, but they will be few and far between, and so it illogical to argue that the entire universe is fine-tuned for life.

Theodicy

DAVID: I'm not ignorant in accepting God's works with evil attached.

dhw: Acceptance has nothing to do with theodicy, which is the quest for an explanation. If you can’t explain why an all-good, all-powerful God creates evil, or is powerless to prevent it, then just admit that it makes no sense to you, instead of lurching from one digression (e.g. “proportionality”) or contradiction (he’s all-powerful but powerless) to another?

DAVID: The 'digressions' are the answers.

The digressions and contradictions do not offer a logical answer to the question how an all-good, all-powerful God can create evil or be powerless to prevent it.

Evolution

dhw: We’re not talking about "how" but about "if". YOU know what you mean by enjoy, interest, love etc., and the only question is IF he does or doesn’t enjoy, have interest, love etc. There is no “allegory”, and it’s you who have proposed all of these as possible motives for his creation of life and us, so please stop pretending that your own proposals don’t “humanize” him. In any case, why should you assume that your God would NOT endow his creations with some of his own thought patterns and emotions?

DAVID: What words/concepts mean to God MAY NOT be the same as the meanings to us in discussions.

The question is not whether God uses a different dictionary from ours, but whether he enjoys, loves, wants to be worshipped etc. as we understand it. Do you really think that when you ask whether he loves us or not, you are asking whether he understands the word “love” as meaning he wants to murder us? Yet another of your illogical arguments.

Nature’s Wonders: octopus rape

DAVID: The symbiosis is not surprising.

dhw: Of course not. Don’t you agree, though, that it demonstrates intelligent cooperation between bacteria and the cell communities of the octopus? Or do you think your God gave different instructions to the female's and the male's bacteria and cell communities?

DAVID: Same instructions.

So he instructed the female’s cell communities and bacteria to eat the male, and he instructed the male’s cells and bacteria to paralyse the female. Oh what fun! Maybe this is your idea of your God enjoying creating. And presumably you regard this as essential to your God’s purpose of designing us and our food. Not much logic here, is there?