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

by dhw, Saturday, April 13, 2024, 14:11 (16 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: 99.9% who died were in various lines leading to the life here now.
And:
Had to live NOW! No way to get here unless 99.9% of ancestors of the 0.1% of all lines went extinct on the way!

dhw: Here we go again! Yes, our ancestors are dead and are a fraction of the 99.9% of species that ever lived. But you have your God specially creating and culling all those lines that did not lead to us and our food, and you have no idea why he would have created them in the first place if his one and only aim was to design us and our food. Stop dodging!

DAVID: Your concept of evolution with a purpose has caused you to criticize the process that is history. Humans and the Earth's resources are the end point of past evolution. We use those resources, so what is unnecessary? The past is what was culled. Come into the present. That is all that is important. Evolution implies culling, doesn't it?

Another big dodge! Of course you want to focus only on the present, as you desperately go on trying to ignore your own theory that your God deliberately designed 99.9 out of 100 past species that did not lead to us plus contemporary species, although you insist we were his purpose right from the start.

DAVID: Everything was important when you use the concept of 'purpose'. You see design, but not the purposeful designer.

Another dodge. The argument is not about the existence of a designer God but about your wacky theory of evolution which you can’t explain but actually ridicule by calling it messy, cumbersome and inefficient.

David’s contradictions:

dhw: All our opinions are maybes, since nobody knows God (assuming he exists). The contradiction is glaringly obvious when you express your opinion that he wants us to worship him, and then you express your opinion that he is selfless!

DAVID: The answer is yours. WE don't know. But at 'the level of how many angels can dance on a pin head', it is pure guess work opinions.

Nobody knows, but your opinions directly contradict each other.

DAVID: The way it works is evidence first, then faith.

dhw: Yet another of your blatant self-contradictions! You wrote: ““I first choose a God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” How many “firsts” are there in your “first”?

DAVID: See 'pinhead' point above. When I picked an omniscient, all powerful God, the results followed logically.

Except that at various times he’s HAD to design bad bugs and has been powerless to prevent their evil, and you cannot find a single grain of logic to support the inefficient blend of method and purpose that you impose on him with your theory of evolution, and you flounder around with your explanations of theodicy (don’t take any notice of the evil, or your God has morally sufficient reasons but we don’t know them, or evil was necessary in order to provide some sort of challenge etc.). Please tell us as briefly as possible what evidence you have found, for instance, that your God is omniscient, has the same moral standards as ours, and is all-good.

Darwinism and God

dhw: Common descent is the key feature of Darwinism, and ID accepts that it is NOT incompatible with the design theory, and hence with the existence of a designer. Therefore ID does not say Darwinism is “completely wrong”. Only atheistic Neo-Darwinists exclude God. Theistic and agnostic Darwinists, such as the Pope, Charles Darwin and me, did/do not.[/i] (David's bold)

DAVID: The now bolded sentence is my whole point you are trying to dispute. Everything in your whole statement is correct. […] (dhw's bold)

dhw: How can I be disputing my own statement which is correct?

DAVID: Will you finally accept your objections are all off point. I was showing most of the literature are written from Darwinist standpoints, nothing more.
And:
DAVID: Your scrambled extrapolation continues. History: Darwin grudgingly offered God in latter editions to fight off the criticism he received.

Darwin wrote in a private letter that he considered himself to be more an agnostic than anything else. “Grudgingly” is your own vicious interpretation, and is totally irrelevant to the point of this discussion, which is that your statement that the two are incompatible is completely and utterly wrong, and you agreed with my statement above.

DAVID: Most articles I find, and present are written from an atheist viewpoint. That is all I was noting. You've dragged in everything else. Most Darwinists are atheists.

Irrelevant. You have agreed with my first statement above. Some people think Darwinism is incompatible with God, and some people think it isn’t. So your original statement is not a fact but a personal opinion.