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

by dhw, Saturday, March 30, 2024, 08:43 (30 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.
And later:
DAVID: 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?

dhw: My bolded statement has nothing whatsoever to do with Raup, unless he has proposed that your God’s only purpose was to create us and our food, and therefore he designed and culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with his purpose. Please tell us if that is his belief.

DAVID: Raup describes evolution as a result of extinctions, and they result in a purely statistical 99.9% loss of forms on the way. End of story.

Thank you. It seems that we both accept his statistics, and that is the end of his part in our story. So there is no point in telling me that I “distort” his analysis when I challenge your absurdly illogical theory that in order to design us and our food (his only purpose) God messily and inefficiently designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his purpose. Raup’s generally accepted statistics can be interpreted even theistically in far less insulting ways.

DAVID: I applied the term Blackard to your invention of God from Raup's statistics. Don't blame me for your distortion.

What distortion? It is you who describe your God as messy, cumbersome and inefficient. I offer alternatives such as experimentation, enjoyment of learning, discovery and creation. How does that make him a “Blackard”?

DAVID: A neutral theology is what I try to follow based on my concept of God's personality.

I can’t see any “neutrality” in your concept of God as a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer. Nor is it neutral to assume that your God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-good. Nor is it neutral if you tell us with great authority that he doesn’t need love, that he doesn’t experiment, that he is selfless, that although he enjoys creating he couldn’t possibly create things for his own enjoyment. Nor is it neutral to “trust God” although you cannot find a single reason why he allows human evil, while you even blame him for “natural” evils like bad bugs.

Darwinism and God

dhw: 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: […] In the current state of scientific fact, there is not much logically left of Darwin except a form of common descent without natural selection.

dhw:[…] our discussion is not on what is left of Darwin’s theory, so stop dodging. Millions of people, including Darwin, the Pope, the Rev. Charles Kingsley and little old me, have accepted Darwin’s theory but also believe in God or in the possibility of God. Your statement that the two are alternatives is just plain wrong. Stop dodging.

DAVID: Not through the eyes of ID!! With them and I join them, it is either/or. They have declared Darwin theory dead. God designed it.

Then that should be your statement: ID-ers dismiss Darwinism and claim that Darwinism and God are incompatible. Meanwhile, lots of other people believe that Darwinism is valid and that it is perfectly compatible with God. You do not have the authority to tell them that they are wrong.