Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, August 21, 2023, 18:21 (250 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: How can I find reason why God chose to evolve us? […].

dhw: Please stop dodging! for approximately the 150th time, the question is not why (if he exists) he chose to evolve us, but why, if his one and only purpose was to evolve (in your language = design) us and our ecosystems to supply our food, did he choose to evolve (= design) 99 out of 100 life forms and ecosystems that had no connection with us and our food?***

(I’m removing the bolds from your response, and will use the symbol *** to refer back to this question whenever you ignore it.)

DAVID: This is your failure to reason: Raup described the only evolutionary process we have to study. It contained a 99.9% failure-to-survive rate.

dhw: Correct.

DAVID: But it achieved producing human beings from Archaea in a continuous process of inventing forms and culling them through bad luck.

dhw: See the question ***. You now consolidate the absurdity by informing us that your always-in-control God didn’t even cull the species he knew were irrelevant: he left that to luck, which can only mean that the crucial 1% which did lead to us survived by luck and not through his control.

DAVID: It also kept life to a compatible size on a limited Earth area.

dhw: Agreed.

DAVID: Its appearance of common descent indicates present forms were related-to/descended-from past forms.

dhw: Correct – but they were only related to/descended from 1% of past forms. See the
question ***.

DAVID: That last fact means evolution is a continuum process. All existing on earth today are the 0.1% survivors.

dhw: Correct. There is a continuous process of comings and goings, but there is not a continuum between all past forms and all present forms. The continuity is limited to 1%. The rest were dead ends. See *** above.

DAVID: Life must ingest daily energy to survive. The Earth is covered with interlocking ecosystems from the diversity of life to feed all.

dhw: Of course, but see *** above.

DAVID: The current human population is straining that supply to emphasize the point of the necessary diversity of life forms.

dhw: Agreed. How does that answer *** above?

DAVID: God knew when He gave us the brain we have, that at some future point we would dominate the Earth and control it and begin to possibly overpopulate it.

dhw: Well done, God, for your clairvoyance. Now see question ***.

DAVID: The diversity of life, which is what you question as 99.9% unnecessary, is our food supply!

dhw: Only the surviving 1% is necessary. See *** above. I support all the articles which warn us we’re in the process of destroying our necessary ecosystems. You have written this entire post without even once mentioning the question *** above. Your most long-winded dodge so far.

DAVID: Evolution is a continuous process and therefore totally connected to its endpoint.
And:
DAVID: […] Evolution is a very long arduous and cumbersome process, but it the process God used.

dhw: If God exists, of course evolution is the process he used. But you believe we were the “endpoint”, which is why you keep dodging the question *** above, and also why you ridicule his design as messy, cumbersome and inefficient.

DAVID: It is all now connected as we humans use it all for food.

You never give up, do you? “All” = the whole of evolution, but we humans do not use 99% of it as food. Only 1% survived. See your agreement from Miscellany Part Two, as follows:
dhw: Only 1% of current foods from current ecosystems evolved from the past. You keep agreeing, so why do you then go on disagreeing?

DAVID: Only 0.01% of the past is the current present. Agreed.

dhw: Then stop pretending that the whole of evolution is a continuum "totally connected" to your God's one and only purpose, and answer question *** above.

Impossible as the series of responses above completely negate your premise. The 0.01% result of evolution existing are the present endpoint of the continuum of evolution, humans plus food.

dhw: You are no more qualified to describe a “true” God than I am......

DAVID: The obvious comparison: my God knew in advance exactly what He was getting, and your God found us a surprise!!!

dhw: Yes, your all-knowing, all-powerful, always-in-control God knew he was specially designing 99% of irrelevant species which luck would have to “cull”, and your all-knowing and all-good God knew he was specially designing evil bugs and humans, but that was what he wanted.

God never designed evil humans or bugs. All explained previously as secondary events.