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

by dhw, Friday, November 03, 2023, 11:09 (384 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Not “had to design and cull”!! God is not forced to do anything.

In today’s post: DAVID: They had to be lost to get to us by culling.

If your God designed and controlled evolution, it's still he "had to".

dhw: […] you tell us he only wished to design us and our food. But instead he designed 99.9 out of 100 species which then had to be culled. You don’t know why, and so you cry: “We do not know why God chose to evolve us. dhw is correct. Why not direct creation?” And you have no answer.

DAVID: God's choice of evolving us makes perfect sense. […] We do not know why is correct.

dhw: So how can you claim that your theory makes perfect sense if you can’t think of any reason for such a messy, cumbersome and inefficient method (your own description)?

DAVID: Still don't understand I accept God and His works without explanations you need. […] You have never understood God's works need no explanation for me.

Still don’t understand: it is your illogical theories about your God’s purpose and methods that you cannot explain. There follows your absurd volte face:

DAVID: Raup's analysis of God's evolution revealed 99.9% were ancestors of the 0.1% alive today. […] View evolution as an upside-down triangle: Archaea are the original tip and the present survivors represented by the line of the hypotenuse. The area of the triangle is Raup's loss. (dhw's bold)

dhw: The line of the hypotenuse is the line from archaea to us and current species (our food). The area of the triangle (the 99.9% loss) is all the species that evolved away from that line and did not lead to us. […] (You confirm this later, as bolded)

DAVID: For some unknown paradoxical reason, the triangle example makes no sense to you. Evolution makes a triangle in its eventual developed shape. Any high school child would understand the comparison.

The triangle illustrates the degree of loss, not the shape of evolution, which you rightly describe as a bush. 99% of its branches grew away from the roots, and had no connection with those branches which have survived (us and our food). Any high school child would understand the comparison with a bush.

DAVID: I've never accepted the 99.9% were unconnected to God's purpose. All of evolution is connected to the past. The food is the entire bush of life.

Obviously all species at all times and on all branches had to have food. But the food for us is the current bush, so stop trying to mix the two concepts.

DAVID: What are you smoking? I have always said all of evolution was connected. Your misunderstanding of the triangle example continues.

Of course evolution was connected, since all species are descended from the very first form(s) of life, but that does not mean that all species and food supplies were connected to one another – which is why, if you stop smoking, you will realize that the history of life has formed a bush and not a triangle. Your triangle only illustrates the percentage of loss.

dhw: We are confined to the line of the hypotenuse.

DAVID: All life forms included the lines to us and those that provided our food.

Of course they didn’t! And you have corrected yourself in your second post:

DAVID: The hypotenuse is us and our food.

The line of the hypotenuse is from archaea to us and our food, and the area of the triangle is the 99.9% which did not include us and our food. Once more: the history of life is a bush, not a triangle.

Theodicy

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing God was powerless to prevent evil, and yet he “directly creates what he wishes to create”, and in one of your theories he even invents evil as a challenge to humans. As first cause, he created everything out of himself, so how could he “allow evil to appear” if he was nothing but good?

dhw: And still you ignore the bold.

Theodicy: the ‘good’ view of bacteria

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing designer designs bacteria. Sometimes they do good, and sometimes they do bad. Apparently that means he is responsible for the good but he is not responsible for the bad. And you think that’s logical.

DAVID: God knew the secondhand problem. There are editing systems everywhere.

dhw: Your all-powerful, all-knowing God knew that his bacteria and his humans would produce evil as well as good. (Is the good “secondhand”?) He creates what he wishes to create, remember? Editing systems? Even if he did create such systems, the evil consists in those “bads” which despite his alleged hatred of evil and his all-powerfulness, he was powerless to prevent – though according to one of your theories he actually invented the “bads” as a challenge to us humans. What a mess!

DAVID: Your perceived mess. […] Your view of a mess, not mine. Proportionality is the right view. […] God knew secondhand evil would happen, and knew the good outweighed it.

War, murder, rape etc. exist. What percentage of reality they form is irrelevant to the question why and how a first-cause God can knowingly create a system that will produce such evil and yet be called all-good.