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

by dhw, Saturday, November 04, 2023, 08:25 (175 days ago) @ David Turell

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 confirmed this later, as follows:]

DAVID: The hypotenuse is us and our food.

dhw: Correct. And the rest is the 99.9% that has no connection with us and our food.

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.

dhw: 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: Fine, the bush can be illustrated by a triangular shape very naturally.

The sides of the triangle are joined together, but the branches of a bush do not swing back to join one another – they grow away from one another. The triangle image has the line of the hypotenuse as the line from archaea to us and our food, and the rest of the triangle is the 99.9% of life forms that had no connection to that line. You have always accepted that our line = 0.1% of the species that have lived and died.

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.

Under.”dhw's obsession” you agree that the “entire bush of life” is not our food:
DAVID: The CURRENT bush is our food supply, all of it.

dhw: So stop this silly obfuscation! The 99.9% had nothing to do with us and our food supply. Our current bush descended from the 0.1%. It is therefore sheer nonsense to claim that every species that ever lived was specially designed as preparation for us and our food.

DAVID: I do not make that nonsensical claim. The 99.9% are the ancient but direct ancestors of Humans plus food.

This is your latest volte face. For years now, I’ve been asking why you think your God would have designed and had to cull 99.9% of species that had no connection with us or our food. Here are two of your most frequent answers: “My defense is whatever God does is OK with me, I don’t need his reasons, only you do.” And “The only answer I do not have is why God chose this method of creation.” (Both in August this year.) You have never till now claimed that 99.9% were direct ancestors of us plus our food. Please tell me which humans/foods are direct descendants of the brontosaurus. Even it were true, it still leaves unanswered the question why an all-powerful God whose only purpose was us plus food, and who is perfectly capable of directly designing what he wishes, chose not to directly design what he wished to design. But first I’d like to know where you get this extraordinary new theory from, and why it’s taken you so long to propose it.

dhw: 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: They are mixed. Note today's entries on vegetation and ecosystems and how vital it is for us to maintain them.

According to you and Raup, current vegetation and ecosystems represent 0.1% of life forms that ever lived, the other 99.9% having had to be “culled”. This has nothing to do with the vital need for humans to maintain the current ecosystems that feed them. (See “Miscellany Part Two). Will you never stop dodging?

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?

DAVID: It is obvious an all-powerful God chose to use this method, or perhaps it was the only method available with evil as a secondhand effect.

And so theodicy asks how a God who chooses a method which produces evil can possibly be all-good, and I have asked how a first-cause God, who has no choice but to produce a system which produces the evil he hates, can be all-powerful?

Theodicy: the ‘good’ view of bacteria

DAVID: The good God gave us far outweighs the evil side effect. Are you happy to be living??

dhw: 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.
The fact that I am happy to be living does not explain how an all-good God can produce a system that he knows will lead to evil, regardless of proportion. Please stop asking silly, irrelevant questions.