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

by dhw, Sunday, June 09, 2024, 11:51 (90 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: It is no answer merely to repeat that Adler insists on allegory, and God is “all-everything”

DAVID: All everything is obviously a shorthand for all of God's all-powerful abilities.

All I know about Adler is what you tell me. There is nothing “obvious” about the meaning of “all everything”. Why would it not refer to all God’s characteristics? How does it fit in with 50/50 caring/not caring? Why do you say that “there are as many forms of God as people invent him”, and “everyone chooses the God he wishes to believe in”? The term “all everything” allows for whatever you want your God to be and whatever you don’t want him to be.

dhw: You agreed long ago that “all of evolution” did not produce humans or our food. 99% of evolution had no connection with us and our food.

DAVID: No, descended from the 0.1% survivors who arrived because of 99.9% who went extinct. Stop truncating Raup!

dhw: They did not arrive because 99.9% went extinct. They arrived because there were new conditions which caused the extinctions but allowed for new forms. Extinct species do not produce new species. […]

DAVID: The big difference. I apply God to Raup's discussion, while you are pure chance evolution.

dhw: I am not pure chance. I am an agnostic. You are distorting Raup by applying God to his theory of pure chance.

DAVID: Not distorted as a belief!

dhw: Your belief that your God had to design and cull 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to his sole purpose is a distortion of Raup’s theory, which does not even mention your God.

DAVID: No, it is not distorted. I plug God as designer to an unchanged evolution process and suddenly 99.9% ancestors count as nothing? The surviving 0.1% were created by the 99.9% extinct. Do you deny that?

Of course I deny it, and so did you! Disregarding the exact percentages since 3.8 billion years ago (which nobody can know), the obvious example was dinosaurs. Of the 700 known species of dinosaur, only 4 (theropods) apparently led to current species (birds). The rest did not lead to any current species. Yet again, listen to yourself:

dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all creatures that ever lived?

DAVID: No. From the 0.1% surviving.

One of the reasons why these discussions drag on is the fact that you keep agreeing and then disagreeing with your own agreement. Other examples are your God’s thought patterns and emotions like ours, his enjoyment of creating and interest in his creations, and the “allegory”nonsense (you agree that the question is not the meaning of words, but whether they do or don’t apply to your God). You have asked me to disregard past agreements, and so we go back over your already discredited arguments which led to your agreements in the first place.

Evolution

DAVID: Listen to Adler!! "Divine inscrutability precludes us from ever asking the reason why God does anything".

dhw: So please stop telling us that your God’s one and only reason for creating life was to design us and our food, and his reason for designing 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to this purpose was that he was obeying some law which he “inherited” […] And please stop telling us that your God is selfless and certainly not human in any way, since Adler tells you he is all everything, which must include his being 50/50 self-interested and 50/50 endowed with other human attributes […]

DAVID: None of the now bolded is Adler: "God is no way necessitated to create the universe and must be considered as acting freely." from yesterday means He is selfless in creating. You cannot learn about Adler through me, since his teachings upset your preconceived notions about God.

dhw: Your logic is incomprehensible. A God who acts freely is free to indulge in whatever interests him! […] It is you who confess that you “first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.” And the rest is a mass of contradictions which you keep avoiding, even to the extent of quoting Adler and ignoring the implications of what you quote. See above.

DAVID: I fully understand Adler. You don't or don't want to since it upsets your convictions about what a God may be.

dhw: I have no “convictions”. You are describing yourself, as bolded above. The question is not whether you understand Adler but whether you can defend the arguments you say he offers. You have agreed there is no “allegory” but the simple question of whether your God does or doesn’t want to be worshipped etc. If he is “all-everything”, he must be good and bad, selfish and selfless etc. Since you fully understand Adler, please tell us what else the word might mean.

DAVID: […] All everything applies to all of God's powers. I have not agreed to your use of allegory. Whether God wishes to be worshiped or not is unknown since the word worship is applied allegorically to God's wishes.

“All everything” can mean whatever you want it to mean (see above), and there is no “allegory” (see above) since the meaning of the word “worship” is 100% clear, and the question is whether he does or doesn’t want to be worshipped. As you agreed.