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

by dhw, Wednesday, May 29, 2024, 12:57 (142 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: At our level we know the meaning of the words. BUT when applied at God's level of His reality are the meanings the same? We don't know. Pure Adler.

dhw: We invented the word “worship”, and so we know what we mean. The question is not whether God has changed the meaning of the words we invented, but whether they actually apply to him […]

DAVID: Again, lost in a mental mire. God does not change the meaning of words! […] We cannot assume the words apply to Him at all. Back to Adler’s 50/50..
And:
DAVID: God accepts our words with our meaning. How He applies them to Himself is the issue. That is the allegorical quandary.

Your first statement, now bolded: “we know the meaning of the words…..are the meanings the same?” Thank you for your second statement, confirming my own: it’s not a question of a different meaning but simply whether the term itself applies to him. So please stop all this “allegory quandary” nonsense. The simple question is does he or does he not want us to worship him? Adler 50/50 = it’s possible that he does and possible that he doesn’t. Your answer is it’s 100% impossible, because your God has no self-interest.

DAVID: God created us with no expectation or desire we worship Him.

dhw: That is your 100% rejection of the theory that God wants us to worship him.

DAVID: No, it is 50/50 with God. It is our desire, and perhaps God's.

Our desires are irrelevant. You say he created us with no desire for us to worship him, but it’s 50/50, which = perhaps it is God’s desire that we worship him. You can’t see your self-contradiction.

How to think about God

DAVID: Adler wrote a whole book on the subject!!

dhw: Writing a book does not make you the only person who knows how to think about God. […]

DAVID: Keep denigrating Adler out of your ignorance. […]

dhw: I’m not denigrating Adler! I’m denigrating your arguments. If there are as many forms of God as people who invent them [your words], how can there be only one way to think about God? NOBODY KNOWS.

No answer from you.

dhw: if we reach the point where something is ineffable, it can’t be discussed with words, and so you can say that any verbalized conception is mistaken!

DAVID: This last point is pure Adler. God is ineffable, and 'can't be discussed in words and so you can say that any verbalized conception is mistaken!'. Welcome to one of Adler's guiding points.

dhw: Then you will have to stop telling us that your God is omnipotent, omniscient, selfless, not human in any way, purposeful, all-good, 50/50 this, that and the other… There is now no point in discussing God at all unless you can find a way of discussing him without using words. What does Adler use?

DAVID: Words!!! His whole book is a theistic guideline. And he sees God as all-everything!

God can’t be described in words, but he is all-everything (all-good and all-bad?), and this guideline tells you that he 100% has no self-interest but 50/50% may or may not want to be worshipped etc. (= self-interest). And he 50/50 may have thought patterns and emotions like ours, but he 100% is “certainly not human in any way”.

Evolution

DAVID: History tells us we evolved.

dhw: Yes.

DAVID: That method was inefficient in that it covered 3.8 billion years with a loss of 99.9% of all that lived. Pure Raup who decided the extinctions were from bad luck.

dhw: There is only “inefficiency” if you insist that the extinctions were a failure to achieve a particular purpose! That’s why you keep denigrating your God. Where does Raup talk of “inefficiency”?

DAVID: Raup doesn't. Purpose achieved in a round-about way.

That is your theory, hence your ridicule of God for his “inefficiency”. Nothing to do with Raup.

DAVID: Add God as the engineer or designer and suddenly it is all wrong because it required a 99.9% extinction rate. […] It all comes down to your twisted view: God should not have evolved us but used direct creation.

dhw: It is you who constantly twist both Raup and me. Evolution can only happen through changing conditions, which trigger extinctions and innovations. Once you “add” God, you have to explain why he created this system. (Goodbye to Raup.)

DAVID: The whole purpose was to evolve humans by a step-by-step method. It worked with or without God. Your complaint dies. It as if you see a dog where a horse is standing.

If his “whole purpose” was us plus food, why did he evolve (design) and cull the 99.9%? Yes, we are here, but you have ignored my response:

dhw: […] you would rather insult your God than consider the possibility that he WANTED the 100%, i.e. that his sole purpose was NOT just to create us plus food, but was to create precisely the history of life that we know: an ever changing succession of life forms. From that interpretation of what he wanted, we can move to explanations of why he wanted the ever changing history, and how he set about creating it through evolution.