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

by David Turell , Friday, November 24, 2023, 20:19 (155 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

No confirmation from the past several days ago:

"DAVID: Adler argued his point from the standpoint of accepting Darwin's evolutionary theory. That made humans entirely improbable and therefore God was needed. I am a step further.

"dhw: [..] Adler accepted Darwin. Departure, then, from Adler.

"DAVID: Adler used Darwin theory as it made Adler's point.

"dhw: And you reject Darwin theory, which makes my point that you are not Adler in your thinking."

I am an autodidact taking ideas from various sources as I accept them. Adler accepted Darwin's form of evolution. It made his point that humans were an unnatural result of the process, therefore God did it. I see the need for a designer from ID material. So, I just logically melded the two. God ran evolution and humans were His final process.

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.

dhw: 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.

Well, God created our reality. He is the reasonable source of everything. God used precursors when He wished and direct creation when He felt necessary. The history of evolution is filled with anthropologies' secret gaps, per Gould, "“All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.”