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

by dhw, Sunday, April 14, 2024, 13:37 (15 days ago) @ David Turell

David’s contradictions

dhw: You have yet to offer us a single reason for 1) your illogical theory of evolution, 2) your God’s deliberate allowance of evil both human and natural, and 3) how a belief can be rational although it is entirely dependent on irrational faith and, in your case, begins with your wishes which of course determine what you think “reality presents”.

DAVID: 1)Evolution: humans arrived as a goal. 2) see discussion above. 3) faith from evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. You clearly see design, so where is your designer?

1)“A” goal? You have always claimed that we (plus food) were “the" one and only goal. Once again, you are dodging the issue of the 99.9% irrelevant species. 2) Dealt with elsewhere. 3) As always you dodge back to God’s existence, as evidenced by design – an argument which I find perfectly logical – and you ignore the rest.

DAVID: […] we are obviously the last product.

Unlike you, I have no idea what will happen during the next few thousand million years. We are the latest product. But that does not mean we were the one and only goal.

DAVID: Your is, to avoid God, we are not that special. Isn't that an example of your wishful thinking? [/i][You attributed this last question to me, but it was yours to me.]

dhw: […] I have never avoided God. I am an agnostic, not an atheist, and these discussions have all centred on your God’s purpose, method and nature. I have always acknowledged the specialness of our consciousness level. [I shan’t repeat my list of objections to your anthropocentric theories]. None of this in any way downgrades the uniqueness of our intelligence. Please stop erecting these digressive straw men.

DAVID: Same scurry back to your distorted view of evolution, as described by Raup who took a view from extinctions driving the advance.

You accused me of avoiding God by saying we are not special. Both accusations are manifestly untrue. My criticism of your wacky theory does not entail any “distorted view” on my part unless you have changed your theory since yesterday.

DAVID: […] Come into the present. That is all that is important. Evolution implies culling, doesn't it?

dhw: Another big dodge! Of course you want to focus only on the present, as you desperately go on trying to ignore your own theory. […]

DAVID: Your distortion is wackier than ever. What is here now is what God intended to be here. Without all those extinctions (99.9%), how did everything arrive? Your muddle continues.

Your “muddle” proposes that the only way your God could design us and our food was to specially design and then extinguish the vast number of species (approx. 99.9%) that had no connection with us and our food. Or are you now saying that your omnipotent God did not intend to design the 99.9% that he had to extinguish?

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

dhw: 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: You dodged any discussion of purpose!

You accused me of not seeing the designer. We have discussed “purpose” ad nauseam. You have no idea what purpose your God could have had in designing the irrelevant 99.9%. I have offered you three theistic purposes to explain the 99.9% (experimentation, learning process with new ideas, free-for-all), and although they explain the history, you reject them all because you they don’t fit in with your wishes.

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: When I picked an omniscient, all powerful God, the results followed logically.

dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: God's omniscience is obvious as the evidence from intracellular biochemistry shows.

I had no idea that knowledge was confined to intracellular biochemistry. How do you know that your God knew the holocaust would happen, Beethoven would write 9 symphonies, and a billion years from now there will be…?

DAVID: God is all-good, based on the reality He produced. The challenge is a logical moral code must be obeyed by all humans.

As first cause, he must have produced all the realities that have existed, including the natural disasters for which you blame him, and the human ability to create the human disasters which he knew would happen. How do you know he is all-good by your own standards of goodness?

Darwinism and God

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Yes, my opinion.

Thank you.