Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, March 18, 2023, 12:28 (405 days ago) @ David Turell

I shall juxtapose some exchanges for the sake of coherence.

DAVID: To entertain Himself is a self-centered reason to create. God creates selflessly.

dhw: […] please tell me where you get your information from. Have you ever read the Old Testament?

DAVID: OT?, yes I've read portions of it. As I've told you, I don't use it to form my thinking.

dhw: It’s riddled with your God’s focus on himself, to the extent that if anyone dares to believe in any other God, they should not only be killed, but whole cities should be destroyed. (Many humans have actually followed these instructions.) I have no objection at all if you reject the OT, as I did in my youth. I just thought you might like to be reminded of this self-centred, “official” version.

DAVID: Modern rabbis ignore all of that.

Apparently you and modern rabbis know more about God than Moses did. Do modern rabbis also believe your God’s designs were so faulty that 99% were “mistakes” and “failed experiments”?

dhw: So when you say he enjoys creating and watches his creations with interest, you actually mean he doesn’t enjoy creating and doesn’t watch with interest.
And:
dhw: I find absolutely nothing wrong with the assumption that he would not create if he didn’t enjoy creating, and he would not watch with interest if he wasn’t interested.

DAVID: His watching is not the same as our watching. Remember our previous discussions about allegorically different.

dhw: The term “allegorically different” is meaningless. You are making a mockery of language. Please tell us what YOU mean by watching if you do not mean paying attention to what is happening.

DAVID: In God it is different. (ADLER)

But it is YOU who use the terms! If YOU are sure he enjoys creating and watches his creations with interest, the words mean the same to you as they do to me! And enjoyment and interest provide a motive for creating and for watching.

DAVID: Your God and mine both create what they wish to create. God's use of an evolutionary process to advance life is history and it tells us 99.9% of all life failed to survive. That tells us such a survival rate is required in evolving life.

dhw: But it does not tell us that your all-powerful God’s one and only purpose was to create us and our food, and therefore the 99% failure rate was the result of his faulty designs, mistakes, failed experiments, inefficient and cumbersome method. All of these are your own words. I have offered you three different theistic theories to explain the 99% of non-survivors without turning your God into an incompetent blunderer, but you firmly believe that the blunderer is more godlike than a designer who makes no mistakes.

DAVID: Your God is one not in complete control of evolution, since He uses it for enjoyment and spectacle.

A complete non sequitur! He COULD be in complete control and still enjoy what he has created. It’s only in my third alternative that he creates a free-for-all. In my other two, he creates, controls, learns and enjoys. Whereas your theory states that your all-powerful God is not in control of the environment, which means the environment dictates what he can and can’t design – hence all his “mistakes”.

dhw: […] why do you believe such a theory when you can’t even understand it yourself?

DAVID: I understand it perfectly. God chose to evolve us and I accept what He did. Adler accepted evolution as God's doing. He did not discuss survival rates.

dhw: You have stated explicitly that your theories make sense only to God. But if God exists, then of course evolution is his doing. It’s the rest of your theory that is so absurd, and you have told us before that Adler does not cover it, so I don’t know why you keep trying to hide behind him.

DAVID: It is his proof of God using the evolutionary process. Adler assumes God directed evolution as it presents in history and God created humans this way!!!

Yes, he “proves” God’s existence, but he does not subscribe to your “presentation” of God’s inefficient and cumbersome (your words) method of directing evolution, so please stop hiding behind him.

Stromatolites

QUOTE: "In fact, most of life as we know it would never have developed on earth without those tireless little cyanobacteria colonies.”

DAVID: This shows how carefully God planned evolution. He had things worked out all in order of a necessary progression. Just as the survival rate of 0.01%b was necessary.

dhw: […] why was it “necessary” for a God, whose one and only purpose was to design us and our food, to design 99% of life forms which you call “mistakes” and “failed experiments” because they had nothing to do with us and our food? And why would an all-powerful God create a system which forced him into these errors because he had no control over the environmental changes which restricted his scope for design?

DAVID: What an amazing conclusion. God could design what He intended in any environment as history shows. We are her, unimpeded by you wacky analysis.

But you say he only “intended” to design us and our food, which he could NOT design until chance provided the right environment. Please explain why you have called the 99% of irrelevant life forms “mistakes” and “failed experiments” if it’s not because they did not lead to us and our food.