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

by dhw, Friday, November 24, 2023, 09:14 (155 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I’m Adler in our thinking. So I’m not just a nut in the wilderness.

dhw: Adler follows Darwin, but you don’t. Adler accepts evolution by steps or stages, but you don’t, except when you do. (“What looks like an evolutionary step is God inventing biologic complexity in stages.”) Adler offers no support for your theory that your God’s only purpose was to design us and our food, and therefore designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us and our food.
dhw: I’m afraid all this leaves you, to use your own expression, as the only “nut in the wilderness”.

DAVID: Welcome to David's theology.

dhw: And goodbye to Mr Adler.

DAVID: No way. Adler used our arrival to prove God. I'm with Adler.

dhw: And that is the only theory you share with him, so stop pretending that the rest of your wacky theories are “with Adler”.

DAVID: I don't, that is your interpretation. Adler says we are God's purpose, exactly my theology.

When you wrote “I’m Adler in our thinking”, I assumed you meant that you and Adler had the same ideas which we have been discussing ad nauseam on this thread. Until now, you have told us that Adler uses the uniqueness of us humans as proof that God exists. Fair enough. However, if he also argues that evolution means God designs each individual species “de novo”, and that we are God’s one and only purpose and therefore God individually designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species for reasons which he (Adler) cannot understand, then I owe you an apology. You and Adler will then be two nuts in the wilderness. Please confirm.

Irreducible complexity

I am shifting this topic to “More Miscellany Part One” to avoid all the repetition.

Defining evolution

DAVID: God created the process we call evolution. I can use the term.

dhw: Evolution is the theory that all living organisms except the first are descended from earlier ancestral forms. If you believe that your God created every species individually without precursors, you cannot call the process evolution. But perhaps you should give us your own definition of the word, as we know from other examples that your use of language can be weird to the nth degree (e.g. “all-powerful” means “with limited powers”).

DAVID: God's process imitates evolution. I've stated this idea many times.

God created the process we call evolution, but he only imitated it, and somehow this is supposed to explain how individual creation of every species, without precursors, can be called evolution, which is defined as the descent of all species from earlier precursors – the exact opposite of the process you believe your God used. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice might say.