Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, March 19, 2023, 12:30 (613 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: [...] God creates selflessly.

dhw: Have you ever read the Old Testament? [...] 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.

dhw: 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”?

DAVID: Frivolous question. We are discussing the OT, not evolution as seen by Rabbis. But one exists: Judaism, Physics and God" by Rabbi David W. Nelson showing God's work as seen by science fits the Jewish religion. Raup's comment on evolution not discussed.

Hardly frivolous, since this thread concerns your theory of evolution, and you keep telling me that my alternatives are invalid because I don’t know how to think about God. See the next item:

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)

dhw: 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: I use the words knowing they are allegorical!! You are unaware of the concept Adler presents.

So apparently when YOU say God enjoys, watches and is interested, you don’t mean what you and I understand by the words. And presumably when you say God is selfless and a marvellous designer and all-powerful, you don’t mean he’s selfless and a marvellous designer and all-powerful, and I should ignore everything you say about your God because it’s all “allegorical”, which means there is no point in any of our discussions about God because nothing you say means what you and I think it means.

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

dhw: 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”.

DAVID: Can't design has been totally refuted!! God can design for any current environment and still advance evolution. Snowball Earth did not stop evolution.

He is limited to what can be designed in any current environment. And his limitations to what was possible in every current environment resulted in 99% of what you call mistakes and failed experiments. Only the 1% of survivors advanced evolution.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: All of evolution's successes and failures led to the 0.1% that survived and allowed us.

The failures, which you have called “mistakes” and “failed experiments”, did not lead to the 1% that survived and evolved into us plus our food, and I suggest that is why you call them “mistakes” and “failed experiments”, which you also say were due to your God’s “faulty design”.

DAVID (transferred from “late Devonian extinction”): I presented God's evolution that way to show its messiness. That was then, this is now. God purposely limited adaptation, because only He could speciate. Move on.

If you now wish to withdraw your vehement criticism of what you call your God’s “messy”, “inefficient” and “cumbersome” method of achieving what you call his one and only goal (us plus our food), and depended on luck providing the right environment, then please say so, and I’ll be delighted to move on.

DAVID: Adler assumes God directed evolution as it presents in history and God created humans this way!!!

dhw: 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.

DAVID: The fact that Raup is not discussed is off our point of discussion. Just snipping.

Nothing to do with Raup. The fact that Adler does not discuss YOUR theory of luck and blunders is why you should stop quoting him in defence of it. But perhaps you are now withdrawing your theory. Hope springs eternal...