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

by David Turell , Thursday, December 07, 2023, 17:31 (350 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Nothing is left out. Your correct proportion of 99.9 out of 100 creates a wrong impression of reality. Many billions disappeared while the 0.1 percent remaining is also in the billions.

dhw: And the question which you simply go on dodging is why your God, whose one and only aim according to you was the remaining 0.1%, should have deliberately designed and then had to cull the 99.9%. This messy, inefficient way makes no sense even to you, but it is your fixed belief.

Same wrong question. Evolution is solid history. If God is posited as in charge He did it. Makes perfect sense to me. Sorry you are so confused.

DAVID: What is present now are humans running the entire Earth to their benefit. And enough food is a major issue.

dhw: Correct. And what was present in the past was lots of other life forms that had no connection with humans and our food.

DAVID: Wrong. What is here now is in great part out food supply.

dhw: Of course what is here now is mainly our food. And what was here in the past was mainly not us or our food! What is “wrong”?

Your confusion. The past became the present. Evolution was purpose driven.

DAVID: You condemn God for evolving us. I accept it as His goal.

dhw: Stop making things up! What I condemn is not your God but your insistence that he chose a method which turns him into a bumbling fool who deliberately designed and had to cull 99.9% of species that had no connection with the only species (plus food) that he wanted to design. [...]

DAVID: Don't distort what is presented here. I have constantly presented God's brilliant designs.

dhw: We are both right, but we are talking on two different levels. If you commissioned an architect to design a bungalow for you, and he designed a magnificent five-storey house but then had to remove four of the five storeys from his design, you could argue that he is brilliant but also inefficient. But you are obviously quite happy to call your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God inefficient, rather than acknowledge that it is your theory that makes him inefficient, and that it is possible your theory is wrong.

DAVID: Wrong analogy. In real evolution the five storys are still here in the surviving 0.1%. What is lost in the past is really here in the present. You misconstrue Raup's point.

dhw: The “surviving” 0.1% is the single floor of the bungalow. The other storeys are not here. In your theory, 99.9% of the past is lost and is NOT here in the present! That’s why your theory is such a mess.

Your totally redefine evolution. The 99.9% have to be gone in the process.

dhw: Messiness, cumbersomeness and inefficiency are hardly “god-like”. […]

DAVID: I can only conceive a God as highly purposeful, who needs no experimentation, unlioke your humanized form.

dhw:As usual, you ignore my now bolded question, and your messy, inefficient designer is no less human than a highly successful experimental scientist.

"A highly successful experimental scientist" is a humanized God, you are stuck with.

Theodicy

DAVID: [Theodicy] depends on a glass half full or half empty. You concentrate on the empty. God's good works far outweigh the small bad side effects. 'Dayenu' is the way I think.

dhw: You really don’t get it, do you? Evil exists! Theodicy does not ask what is the percentage of good and bad, or tell us how happy we should be because warmongers, murders and rapists are only a small minority! It asks how the one and only, all-powerful, all-knowing, first-cause creator of all things could have created a system which he knew would result in evil, and yet himself be all-good.

DAVID: I sure do get it. I started this stream of discussion. Goff's limited God is a reasonable answer.

dhw: You were trying to defend your non-answer of proportionality! Yes, Goff’s answer is reasonable, and it presents us with a God who is not all-powerful, though in order to defend your own prejudiced view of God, you have tried to define all-powerful as meaning with limited powers!

Makes sense to me. God knows exactly how to proceed within rigid limits.