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

by dhw, Tuesday, September 12, 2023, 08:18 (228 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You attack Raup's statistical results…

dhw:They are irrelevant to the question why, according to your theory, a God whose one and only purpose was to produce us plus food “had to” produce 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us plus food.***

DAVID: They are relevant as they quantify the loss that must happen in an evolutionary culling process

How many evolutions are you talking about? We know of only one evolution of life on Earth. There is no “must”. Extinctions are a matter of history, but not of some unknown law. If your all-powerful God’s one and only purpose was to design us plus food, it doesn’t make the slightest difference whether 99.9% or 89.9% or even 50% of his designs were irrelevant to his purpose; you admit that you still can’t find any reason why he “had to” design species that had no connection with his purpose. Your theory makes no sense to you, so stop dodging.

DAVID: God does not talk with me. His reasons are unknown, but His goal is obvious.

How can his obvious goal be us and our food if he deliberately designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food? If you can’t think of any reason, then it makes no sense to you.

DAVID: I'm sorry it makes no sense to you. I accept how God did it. God knew exactly what to do.

You can’t even decide if he “had to” or “chose to” use the method you impose on him. What you accept is your own theory about your God’s purpose and his illogical way of achieving it. I can well believe that if God exists, he knew exactly what to do in order to achieve his purpose, but that doesn’t mean his purpose and method had to be your irrational mess of a theory which makes no sense to me or to you.

DAVID: God is selfless so when we think He enjoys, etc., it must be in an allegorical sense as Adler advises.

dhw: Stop messing about with language. If “selfless” means “selfless”, “enjoy” means “enjoy”. YOU know what you mean by both terms, and so you are sure that your God takes pleasure in creating and watching his creations. How can he do so without a “self”? Why do you use words if you don’t think they mean what they mean to you?

DAVID: I understand how I use words about God allegorically, as taught by Adler. I wish you did.

When you told us you were sure your God enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations, what did you mean by the words “enjoy” and “interested”? And please tell us the allegorical meaning of “selfless”.

Evolution and theodicy

DAVID: My views of God are mine alone.

dhw: Then stop pretending that theists agree with your explanation!

DAVID: My views of theodicy are theists published views. Stop mixing two subjects!!

I asked if theists “were as happy as you” with your view (which I bolded) that your God “knew in advance that his inventions would result in war, murder, rape, floods, famines and diseases, but went ahead and was powerless to prevent all the suffering these evils have caused.” You said yes. But I’m pleased to hear that you now wish to withdraw your claim that theists support your view, and perhaps you will now stop moaning that my own proposals are also out of line with what some theists think.

DAVID: From here: Friday, September 01, 2023, 18:27
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGtwqQdpjfGvpFVPlsHHvXCGNWT

DAVID: "Revealing whales’ secrets to long, cancer-free lives"
"Note the bold. Cancers are the result of mistakes as cell split in mitosis, a very complicated process with many events occurring all at once, under tight controls. Our bodies cells do this trillions of times a day, which means cancer is actually a very rare outcome. This should be noted in the theodicy thread for dhw's edification."
You didn't reply.

There is nothing to reply to! One of your dodges is to minimize the extent of evil, as if that solved the problem of theodicy. Millions of people suffer from the effects of war, murder, famines, floods, diseases (including cancer) etc., but your answer to the question how/why an all-good God could create such evils is that we shouldn’t take any notice of them, because God created lots more good than bad. Stop dodging.

dhw: […] If your all-powerful, all-knowing God is the first cause of everything that has ever existed, where did evil come from?

DAVID: Simple answer repeated: evil is a side effect of God's good works.

Answered under “Microbiome (Back to theodicy)”.