[Serious] Why defecation?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

As we see so often, the issue comes down to "I have a value which I hold to unquestioningly, and the God I don't believe in doesn't seem to share this value, therefore God can't be so great."

In this case the value is efficiency. Why would a god make a system with inefficiency. The idea that an omniscient being might have reasons unknown to me is abhorrent.

First, it would be good to question whether efficiency is always a good idea. Critics of the industrial revolution were pointing out 200 years ago that the efficient production of goods often led to various other problems. So efficiency in itself is not always good. I suppose people don't read Ruskin any more, but he was pretty eloquent about the difference between an efficiently mass-produced chair and one made by an experienced craftsman. And of course nobody admires the Nazi's extremely efficient methods of extermination.

Second, there is evidence that if this world was made by a god, it is based on abundance. Ridiculous overabundance which doesn't require efficiency. People kind of don't need all the space that there is in the universe, but apparently this imaginary god wanted to make it. Not to mention the many species of beetles. So any ideas about God which acknowledged reality would have to see values other than efficiency for people.

Depending on how you read the New Testament, it can certainly be interpreted as advocating wildly inefficient overabundance in how we treat people. And classical theology says that God made the whole universe not because it was an efficient way to get something done (God needs nothing) but because something which is overabundantly good will overflow.

That’s not really what this is about.

The universe we can observe is exactly what we’d expect from a trial and error/hit and miss  process. While it is entirely possible that a deliberate creator made things this way, it is a moral imperative to ask, ‘Why this way and not some other?’ (which, incidentally, is the basis of philosophy). What you seem to be saying is that we should look at the universe as some sort of Rube Goldberg device and try not to think about it too much.

When a human engineer designs a system (ANY system, from particle accelerators to rabbit snares) she does so in the most efficient way possible. It is a natural human trait to look at systems and wonder if they can be improved or redesigned for better efficiency. Wondering why God didn’t do so is perfectly reasonable, especially give the far greater abilities ascribed to God. 

I think that your ‘overabundance of goodness’ point is woefully misplaced, as (from the POV of human beings) there does not seem to be such an overabundance - but that gets into the Argument From Evil, which is another topic.

But good job sneaking in a comparison with the Holocaust.

Boru