The Watchmaker: my fav argument

[John 6IX Breezy]

Unfortunately, the christian narrative was never about fixing anything. It's always been about ensuring a uniform thinking society, and look how well that ended up in Brave New World.

Whatever the purpose behind the narrative might be (i.e. ensuring uniform thinking) the contents of the book are still a story of restoration.

[The Grand Nudger]

Have you ever considered that the truth lies somewhere closer to your own beliefs in restoration and your own ability to read things into stories?

[Silver]

Whatever the purpose behind it might be (i.e. ensuring uniform thinking) the contents of the book are still a story of restoration.

Many things can be gleaned from the book. Restoration is not one of them. It doesn't fit into the biblical narrative of unchanging.

[Pat Mustard]

Hey, idiot! If your god designed us we would be perfect, simply because as the perfect, ultimate, being that's how he'd design us.

The first three chapters of the Bible describe a world originally created good, that subsequently fell into death and imperfection. This is a basic Christian narrative (perhaps it's different in Islam). How does your claim fit into this narrative? You seem to be making objections that are detached from even an elementary reading of Scripture.

The first three chapters of the bible contains two discrete fictional creation stories, which are mutually incompatible.  And it describes humans as being the same as they are now, ie highly imperfect.

Tell me what possible reason is there for a reasonable person to use the bible as a guide to how the world came about? It contains so many scientific, historical and moral inaccuracies that it is completely and totally fictional.

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Hey, idiot! If your god designed us we would be perfect, simply because as the perfect, ultimate, being that's how he'd design us.

No, fool. It doesn't follow logically that a perfect god must create perfect creatures.

Of course the whole of the coffin is the fact that evolution has tons of evidence for it whereas creationism only has evidence to disprove its premises.

Evolution is irrelevant to the existence of god, idiot.

It does, idiot.  If a god creates imperfect beings, that shows that it too is imperfect. And while evolution doesn't disprove a generic god* it does show that such a being is not necessary for us to exist.

*It does disprove the abrahamic god, because it shows that the claimse made about said god are false.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Many things can be gleaned from the book. Restoration is not one of them. It doesn't fit into the biblical narrative of unchanging.

I'm not sure what you mean. As an example:

”For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind" (Isaiah 65:17, ESV).

[Angrboda]

It does, idiot.  If a god creates imperfect beings, that shows that it too is imperfect.  And while evolution doesn't disprove a generic god* it does show that such a being is not necessary for us to exist.

*It does disprove the abrahamic god, because it shows that the claimse made about said god are false.

It only follows if creating imperfect beings is not the right thing to do. It also ignores that there may be multiple interests at stake which conflict. Flawed but free beings may be preferable to perfect but not free ones.

[John 6IX Breezy]

It only follows if creating imperfect beings is not the right thing to do. It also ignores that there may be multiple interests at stake which conflict. Flawed but free beings may be preferable to perfect but not free ones.

One should also not confuse limited with imperfect. We are not brains in vats, we are embodied, we experience a slice of the perceivable world, we inhabit a certain ecological niche. Our vision is not imperfect by lacking the acuity of eagles—we are not eagles. But I agree that yes, giving us autonomy was intentional and by design.

[The Grand Nudger]

Many things can be gleaned from the book. Restoration is not one of them. It doesn't fit into the biblical narrative of unchanging.

I'm not sure what you mean. As an example:

”For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
And the former things will not be remembered or come to mind" (Isaiah 65:17, ESV).

Sounds like annihilation and replacement.......I feel like you have this exact problem across a wide range of issues? Hence my notion that what you see has more to do with your own novel beliefs read in than what is actually there.

....ofc...that may just be a particularly bad example, and some other will better express your own beliefs in restoration. It's a big book, I'm sure we could find something.

[Pat Mustard]

It does, idiot.  If a god creates imperfect beings, that shows that it too is imperfect.  And while evolution doesn't disprove a generic god* it does show that such a being is not necessary for us to exist.

*It does disprove the abrahamic god, because it shows that the claimse made about said god are false.

It only follows if creating imperfect beings is not the right thing to do.  It also ignores that there may be multiple interests at stake which conflict.  Flawed but free beings may be preferable to perfect but not free ones.

But its not about what is preferrable but about what's perfect. A perfect being cannot create imperfect things.

A good illustration of that idea is Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker.

[The Grand Nudger]

Flawed but free stands in as a placeholder for more perfect™, in that context. Which is fine as far as it goes, as a belief that people might hold about relative perfection - but it does make a jumble of the implicit assumption of a gods perfection. A flawed but free god would be similarly more perfect, if that's a standard of perfection that holds, rather than a convenient excuse for a contradictory point of data.

We might notice that broad swathes of pagan gods fit that bill. Flawed, but free. This isn't useful to a legalistic and transactional religion, though, because the divine intercessor cannot be relied on. If doing these three simple things gets you a ticket to the afterparty, you don't want to hear that the doorman might not accept it anyway. That freedom has to be stripped away from the divine in order for it to suit human needs and desires.