Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 18, 2024, 16:54 (100 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your objections are false and painful to constantly have to rebut. God's method of creation was to evolve us as the primary end point. There is no point to constantly complain His method resulted in that 99.9% of all species ancestors are extinct. That is a fact of evolution's results.
And:
DAVID: Everything living is the result of 99.9% loss of ancestors.

dhw: And still you dodge! The loss of 99.9% of the ancestors of current species (assuming that is true) does not mean that 99.9% of ALL species that ever lived were the ancestors of current species. You keep agreeing that we and our “food” (= current species) are descended from only 0.1% of all the species that have been and gone. And you even suggested that maybe not even 0.1% of dinosaurs had any connection with us and current species. You insist that your God designed all species with the sole purpose of producing us plus food, and you have no idea why he would have specially designed the 99.9% which had no connection with us or our food. That remains the point at issue, which is so illogical that you can't think of a single reason why your all-powerful God would choose such an inefficient method. So maybe at least one of your theories is wrong.

What lives today are the survivors of the culling process of evolution. We can assume every line/branch suffered the same rate of loss. What remains today is humans in charge of everything else. Viewed that way we are left with why did God evolve us? We know He can simply create with no predecessors in the Cambrian. God gives us no hint as to His reasoning. Since God is all-knowing, He has chosen the best method. That reasoning evaporates your complaints.

dhw: I asked you what might be your purposeful God’s purpose for giving humans control of the Earth. Your answer: God gave humans the brains to run the show. Does that tell us his purpose?

DAVID: Yes, God wanted us in charge, as we are.

dhw: You keep harping on about your purposeful God. So what do you think might have been his purpose for putting us in charge?

He gave us the brains to do it and I presume at the end of evolution He wished to have someone in charge.

Theodicy (now "prejudice")

dhw: Unlike you, I have no fixed beliefs to which I cling, no matter how illogical they may be. Do you regard this as prejudice?

DAVID: No, you have a reasonable position, since you require proof. But why criticize beliefs based on faith?

dhw: I don’t. I said so quite explicitly: “I have no problem with faith so long as it doesn’t turn into prejudice.” The turning point comes when someone has a fixed belief which causes them to ignore any information that might cast doubt on that belief.

Do you have such factual information?