Return to David's theory of evolution, purpose & theodicy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 28, 2024, 19:42 (238 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: […] unfortunately all these logical beliefs of yours miss out your immutable belief that your God also designed and culled 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with humans and our needs, and you have no idea why he would have done so. > This is the theory ...which has led to years of disagreement between us and which you constantly try to dodge because it is so fundamental to your personal, anthropocentric theology. You admit that you can find no logical explanation.

DAVID: Ridiculous charge that I 'cannot find an explanation'. I cannot question God directly. He has His own personal reasons using evolution. I can't know them, nor can you. Our puny human logic find objections. Did you ever think we are wrong?

dhw: If God exists, of course he has his reasons for using evolution. But you pretend that you know them: his one and only purpose was to design humans and our food. You also pretend that you know his method: to design 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his only purpose. Your conclusion, as below: He is a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer. And you refuse to consider the possibility that he might have had a different purpose and/or a different method to achieve his purpose.

Your now-bolded statement is your gross distortion of Raup's analysis of the statistics of extinctions in evolution. It all led to humans in charge of the Earth and its resources just right for human use. And I see God as the successful designer/engineer, not the Blackard you have invented about Him.

DAVID: God's use of evolution means He chose a cumbersome method of evolution.

dhw: No it doesn’t. It is your theory about his use of evolution that makes his method messy, cumbersome and inefficient. And it is your blinkered vision that makes you denigrate his powers in this manner.

More distorted sneering.

DAVID: I don't denigrate His powers as your experimenting God does.

dhw: I’m surprised that you don’t regard “messy”, “cumbersome” and “inefficient” as denigrating, but I’m getting used to your habit of reversing the meaning of words. I don’t regard experimenting, learning, discovering, enjoyment, interest etc. as “denigrating”.

DAVID: That view of God makes Him humanized and thus lessened.

dhw: And a God who wants to be loved, who enjoys creating (as you have agreed), and whose method of design is messy and inefficient is not “humanized” and is more godlike?

DAVID: How do you know with certainty God wants love and loves us? I don't.

dhw: This was a reference to your acceptance of Plantinga’s theory, which you have now withdrawn. And presumably you now reject Held as well. (See the other thread.) Nobody knows anything “with certainty” about God, which applies even to his existence. All we can do is offer theories and discuss their feasibility. Your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, selfless God is currently inefficient, guilty of creating numerous causes of appalling human suffering, and at one time wanted to be recognized and worshipped, and also enjoyed creating and was interested in his creations, but now you’re not so sure about that. However, you happen to know that he doesn’t experiment, or like to learn from his experiments, or make new discoveries. And you have also withdrawn your support for the mainstream theory that God loves us and wants us to love him. Your only certainty is that we plus food were his sole purpose, and that was why he inexplicably designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with us plus our food.

Nutty!! Raup shows us that these statistics were exactly the result of God's evolution of life and finally humans. You want God to do it without extinctions?

Darwinism and God (transferred from “More Miscellany”)

The starting point of this discussion was your statement that “Two alternatives exist: God or nature”. We are not discussing the content of articles..[/i].

DAVID: That is exactly the point of my original comment and along the way. Science articles are always Godless, referring to Darwin, Darwin theory or not commenting.

dhw: I’m not surprised that scientific articles do not turn into theological articles unless they wish to use science to discuss God’s existence and/or nature, as you and your fellow ID-ers do. Now please tell us: do you think it’s impossible for anyone to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution and at the same time believe in God or believe in the possibility of a God?

No! You do. It is logical to see design. But in one aspect you are blind. In the current state of scientific fact, there is not much logically left of Darwin except a form of common descent without natural selection.