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

by David Turell , Tuesday, June 11, 2024, 18:32 (163 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: My disagreement is with your backwards version of the statistics of evolution.

dhw:May I suggest to you that if 99.57% of dinosaurs had no modern descendants, and 0.43% of dinosaurs had modern descendants (birds), you were absolutely right to agree that this example illustrates the point that we and our food are NOT descended from 99.9% of the species that ever lived but, in your own words, “from the 0.1% surviving”.

The problem is the living are the result of descendants! We are discussing surviving species for which 99.9% had to go extinct. You cannot separate the past from the present. Evolution is a study of descendancy. Our species, in which you and I live, had a large multiple of forms that finally formed us. Yes, we descended from our parents as part of the 0.1% of currently living forms. "From the 0.1% surviving" is much more complicated than the meaning you give it.

Evolution

DAVID: The word worship is clear to us at our human level, but not the God level. Yes or no?

dhw: Your question makes no sense. There are no “levels”. The word is our invention, and we know what it means. God is not here to tell us that our invention doesn’t mean what we invented it to mean! The question is whether what we mean by the word we invented APPLIES to him. Once more, listen to yourself:

dhw: You have accepted that it is not the meaning of the words that is in question, but their applicability to your God.

DAVID: Finally you understand.

dhw: No, finally YOU understood, and now back you go to not understanding.

I trust you now understand that it is the application and not the meaning of the words that is in question. Goodbye to all the nonsense about “allegory”.

dhw: And this is what keeps happening. A string of contradictions, and agreements which a few days later turn into yourself disagreeing with yourself. (Examples: the dinosaur statistic; 99.9% of species didn’t lead to us plus food, but they led to us plus food; your God might want us to worship him and certainly enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but he doesn’t and isn't because he has no self-interest; he probably/possibly has thought patterns and emotions like ours but he doesn’t because he is "certainly not human in any way"; he is all-good but is to be blamed for murderous microbes; he is perfect, omnipotent and omniscient, but imperfect and inefficient when it comes to designing the one and only thing he wants to design, etc.) Your answer? I should ignore everything you have written in the past: only your present views count. By tomorrow, your present views will be past!

DAVID: Again, flushing up quotes out of context. The bolds I created are correct views of mine about God.

dhw: If you tell us that your God might want us to worship him, enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, probably/possibly has thought patterns and emotions like ours etc. there is no conceivable context other than his possible wishes and nature. And if you follow your beloved Adler’s pronouncements that your God is “all–everything”, and there is a 50/50 chance that he might listen to us and care for us, then it is doubly absurd for you to reject all your earlier proposals.

I have not rejected, I am trying to educate you to Adler's instructions as to 'how to think about God'. My earlier guesses about God's wishes or intentions are simply guesses with an intended allegorically meaning for God. I initially worked from memory, but recently have pulled that book out and reviewed His instructions. From Adler's view in 'The Difference of Mam and..." humans were God's prime purpose in evolution. I fully accept that. 'All everything' refers to the usual list of God's powers. Adler never touches on theodicy even if his view of God raises that issue. We are left with an all-powerful personage with no knowledge of His reasoning or intentions other than the above. There is no way He can be humanized.