Return to David's theory of theodicy;Plantinga & Raup (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, April 25, 2024, 12:29 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Evolution requires culling, doesn't it?

dhw: Extinction (“”culling” implies purpose) inevitably happens when existing species cannot cope with new conditions. It is new conditions that cause extinction and trigger new speciation. And Raup attributes the history of speciation to luck, not to a divine purpose. […]

DAVID: Raup taught me how to look at evolution statistically. I never imagined the wild fantasies you would concoct about Raup and his findings. Same old idiocy: God chose to evolve us for whatever HIS reason.

We both accept the statistics. You have concocted the wild fantasy – totally different from anything in Raup – that your God’s sole purpose was us and our food, and therefore he designed and then culled 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his sole purpose. Raup makes no mention of God, or of any purpose, tells us that speciation is triggered by changing conditions, and it is pure luck as to which species survive. I have no idea what “wild fantasies” I am supposed to have concocted. But I would say that if God exists, he would have chosen to evolve not only us but every creature that ever lived, including those that are irrelevant to us and our food. I would not say that he must have chosen a messy, cumbersome, inefficient way to achieve whatever his purpose may have been. Nor does Raup. So please stop distorting his findings to support your “wild fantasies”.

DAVID: Another view of the statistics of our evolution:
https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxStpNnPZttJdhRHJjjvBQXvKg

QUOTE: "[…] each grain of sand illustrates 10 million people. The green grains are those alive today, that’s about 8 billion, the red ones are those who lived in the past, about 110 billion. But that is just a tiny part of all the lives that are yet to come."

DAVID: […] Were those 110 billion lost humans a waste of God's time as seen in dhw's looney view of evolution???

dhw: This is getting painful. According to you, your God’s one and only goal was to produce us humans plus food. Your wacky theory is not that his only goal was to produce David Turell and his contemporaries and therefore all our human ancestors were a waste of time! It’s the 99.9 out of 100 non-human, non-contemporary species that were – according to your wacky theory – a waste of his time.

DAVID: A reasonable God had His reasons to evolve us rather than direct creation.

You have completely ignored the total absurdity of the above attack on me, and collapsed back into one of your obvious generalisations. Heaven forbid that you should say: “Oops, I made a mistake!” If your God exists, of course he had his reasons for using evolution to evolve us and every other creature that ever lived. That doesn’t justify your theistic “looney view of evolution” as 99.99% irrelevant to your omniscient, omnipotent God’s purpose.

Double standards

dhw […] you wrote: bbb“Process and deist theologies are not mainstream, and not worth using. My view of God is mine, and just as valid as any other.” But you can’t see that someone else may pick and choose, and their non-mainstream theology is theirs and may be just as valid as your non-mainstream. Bad because it's non-mainstream, but good if it's YOUR non-mainstream = double standards. […]

DAVID: Same distortion of 'double standards'. I have the right to pick and choose between theories using any standard of proof I wish.
And later:
DAVID: Double standards can be applied to all ideas and should be avoided. I do not apply different standards to theological issues. […] Process theology, deism, etc. are all out there for us to view, pick and choose, for we are allowed to make choices, and if ideas are obviously unequal, they can be picked or not picked, based entirely on choice.

You have the right to pick and choose, to believe whatever you wish to believe, and as bolded to dismiss process theology and deism as “not worth using” because they are not mainstream, and yet to cling to your own choices although they are not mainstream either. The latter is an example of double standards, which should be avoided, but of course you have the right to contradict yourself.