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

by dhw, Saturday, June 22, 2024, 08:20 (78 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...] please stop dodging the question why, if – according to you – your all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect God’s ONE AND ONLY purpose was to design us plus food – he designed and then had to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with his purpose.

DAVID: I have answered the question over and over. The 99.5% loss is the natural result of any evolutionary process, as Raup showed.

What do you mean by “any”evolutionary process? We only know of one, and Raup argued that it happened “naturally”, as a result of organisms being unable to cope with changing conditions. You argue that it didn’t happen “”naturally” – that your God controlled it, deliberately designing and then having to cull the species that had no connection with his purpose.

DAVID: God chose to evolve us from Archaea for His own reasons. We must conclude He chose the best way possible.

Why “must” we conclude that your perfect, omniscient God’s one and only purpose was to design us, and that he chose an imperfect, inefficient way to do so?

DAVID: The broad expanse of living forms today is from that process and provides the resources for an ever-enlarging human population. That is full justification for the 99.9%% extinctions. Please explain why I am wrong with God in charge.

Because (a) your theory is NOT in any way supported by Raup's statistics, as you claim, and (b) a God who is in full control and who has only one purpose and who is perfectly capable of designing species directly (“de novo”), would not need to design and cull 99.9% of organisms that had no connection with his purpose, which is why you label your perfect, all-knowing, all-powerful God’s method imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient.

dhw: you refuse to consider the possibility that your combination of purpose and method may be wrong, for example if your God wanted to create a free-for-all, the 99.9% extinction and 0.1% survival rate (which Raup attributed to luck) would make perfect sense.

DAVID: Back to your out-of-control deity as humanized as ever.

A God who wants a free-for-all and gets a free-for-all or gets what he wants from his experiments cannot be dubbed out of control. And a person who insists that his God is unknowable but is certainly not human in any way cannot be dubbed rational.

“Allegory”

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

DAVID: The 'applicability' is the key and thus allegorical is correct. Pure Adler.

dhw: There is no “allegory”! Please give us your own definition of "allegory", and explain the difference between "God may want us to worship him" and "Allegorically God may want us to worship him".

DAVID: Adler says treat the words allegorically as applied to God. I am sure Adler knew the meaning of allegorical when he said to use it.

And so you haven’t got a clue what it means, so stop hiding behind Adler.

dhw: The question is whether your God wants us to worship (= love, admire, praise) him or not. And the same applies to all the possible attributes.

DAVID: It is the precise application to God that is the issue.

Correct. At last. I trust we shall never hear the word “allegorical” again.

Conclusion: We have no idea if your unknowable God does or does not have thought patterns and emotions like ours (i.e. whether such terms as love, enjoyment, selflessness, desire for recognition and worship etc. apply to him or not), and therefore it is absurd to preach that he is “certainly” not human in any way.

Fungi (and bacteria)

DAVID: our knowledge of the Earth's ecosystem is still growing rapidly. It is an enormously complex at many levels: “the little things that run the world” are vitally important to humans, who would not otherwise be here.

The little things are and were vitally important to every creature that ever lived.

DAVID: This answers dhw's ridiculous complaint about the 99.9% extinction rate in evolution. The necessary ecosystem variety of so many species is required for all to live. The 99.9% extinct are the direct ancestors of the now living. (dhw's bold)

Thank you for the three posts on this subject. They have absolutely nothing to do with your God’s design and having to cull the 99.9% of extinct species that had no connection with us. I quote:

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.

If we and our food are not directly descended from the 99.9%, then the 99.9% cannot have been the direct ancestors of us and our food. When will you stop contradicting yourself?