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

by David Turell , Monday, June 17, 2024, 18:26 (157 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: God has the right to choose any method He wishes to use at any point in time. Since I believe God created the historical evolutionary record we have, His assumed reasoning must fit that record. That makes it logical to assume God both direct creates and also evolves as He wishes, for His own reasons.

dhw: Precisely. It is therefore totally absurd to assume that even though he had the power to create his desired species directly, he designed and then had to cull species irrelevant to his one and only purpose. You reject all of my logical, theistic explanations that have your God doing what he wished to do, and stick rigidly to your ridicule of him as an imperfect, messy, cumbersome, and inefficient designer.

If I make God the designer, I must have Him follow the history of evolution. He did exactly what He wished and made humans. All quite logical.

DAVID: My entry today on brain structure is from His evolution and demonstrates that we were His purpose, as Adler proposed in his proof of God.

dhw: The unique complexity of our brain demonstrates nothing more than the fact that our brain is uniquely complex. It does not explain why your God had to design and cull 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to us. A dog’s nose is at least 1000 times more sensitive to smell than ours. What does that prove or "demonstrate"? The argument is not about proof of your God’s existence but about his purpose, method and nature. Stop dodging.

It is your dodge to downplay our brain, the most unique object in the universe. Nature cannot make this brain. We are the purpose of God's evolution. God's nature is unknown and not in any way human.

DAVID: I only object to your throwing out the 99.9% as pointless.

dhw: Now that you have at last and yet again agreed that we are not descended from the 99.9%, do please tell us the “point” of your omniscient God deliberately creating them, though he knew he would have to cull them. I’ll help you: you can’t tell us. Only your perfect, omniscient God knows why he would choose the imperfect, messy, cumbersome, inefficient combination of purpose and method you have invented and imposed on him.

What is wrong with accepting God as you describe Him? I do, with no discomfort like yours.

God’s nature

dhw: […] Please stop contradicting yourself and trying to hide behind Adler.

DAVID: All of my 'certainty' in your mind were opinions of guessing about God. He may or may not have those feelings.

dhw: After proposing that he had them, you then said he certainly didn’t have them. Thank you for at last agreeing that he may or may not have those feelings. I shall note this agreement next time you insist that he is “certainly not human in any way”.

DAVID: What I accept as fact is, if there is a God, He wished to create us and give us a perfect planet on which to live.

dhw: A pretty good summary of the agnostic position, except that if he exists, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that he also wished to create the 99.9 out of 100 extinct species that had no connection with us. Hence your illogical theory of evolution and my alternative theistic explanations, involving certain human thought patterns and emotions which at long last you once more agree he may or may not have.

Your usual ploy. In my view evolution by God must be the same evolution Raup described with 99.9% now extinct. God's possible feelings are what we can imagine from our own living experience but that does not make them true for God. They must remain allergically possible, nothing more.