More miscellany (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 02, 2024, 09:21 (142 days ago) @ David Turell

Why would God “challenge” us? (Now “theodicy”)

DAVID: The good came with small side effects. Without the good would we be alive?

dhw: Theodicy does not question the good. It asks why an all-good God would create or allow evil. It is not an answer to brush aside all the suffering as a “small side effect”.

DAVID: This is how theologists handle the issue.

Some theologists argue that evil is the consequence of your God allowing free will, and others regard it as God’s punishment of sin. They don’t all tell us to bury our heads in the sand. But of course the former argument confines itself to the evil committed by humans, totally disregarding the enormous suffering caused by the “evil” of God-made diseases, floods, famines, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes etc. I really don’t know how many theologists try to ignore the suffering altogether as you recommend, but if they do, then I stand by my view that that is a dodge and not an answer.

Offshoot from Giraffes

DAVID: Evolution under Darwin theory is OK for you. Under God it becomes a destructive mess. Your logic is distorted.

dhw: It is you who call your God’s form of evolution a mess. And deliberate culling of 99.9% of species could hardly be more destructive. Darwin’s theory makes no attempt to discuss God’s nature or motives or methods. Darwin only focuses on the processes that bring about the origin of species. Only my alternative theories discuss what might be God’s motives and methods, and none of them are as messy and destructive as yours.

DAVID: Your humanized God fits no God religions present.

Firstly, as I have already told you, a God who created life and then left it to run its own course is one form of deism, and a God who learns is one form of process theology, but you rejected these because – like your own theories – they are not mainstream (hence your double standards). Secondly, when I pointed out that all the vicars, rabbis and imams believe that God wants us to worship him, you proudly announced: “My personal theology is mine. I follow Adler and Aquinas only.” In other words, your version of an inefficient designer who does not want to be worshipped (i.e. loved, respected etc.) “fits no God religions present”. (More double standards.)

DAVID: Removing 99.9% of older forms is how evolution works, or have you forgotten that?

The 99.9% loss is the history of the only evolution we know. The reason for the loss is that when conditions change, the vast majority of species are unable to adapt to them. Only 0.1% survive. Raup says they are the lucky ones. You say your God deliberately designed the 99.9%, knowing they were irrelevant to his purpose, and so he had to cull them. That is why you ridicule your God as an imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer. Or have you forgotten that?

Snake explosion

dhw: […] the short so-called “waiting time” can be explained by intelligent design through intelligent cells instead of through some unknown and unknowable, sourceless mind. See the next article, however, for the REAL problem.

DAVID: God chose to evolve us stated theologically. He didn't tell us why. Intelligently acting cells are actually automatons following DNA instructions and not equal to a mind.

dhw: As usual, you dismiss all those scientists who believe that cells are autonomously intelligent, because you know best.

DAVID: ID believes as I do. You've cherry-picked a few on the other side.

ID-ers are no more qualified than you or me to tell us the “actual” facts. We all “cherry-pick”. However, I accept that Shapiro’s theory is still unproven, whereas you seem unable to accept that your own theories of a divine, 3.8-billion-year-old set of instructions or an endless series of divine, ad hoc dabbles is also unproven.

The brain

dhw: Atheists have blind faith in chance. The complexities of the brain are nothing compared to the complexities of a mind powerful enough to create universes and design brains, but you have blind faith that such a mind can have come from nowhere and has simply existed for ever. You can each mock the other for your blind faith, and you are welcome to mock me for my neutrality, but the fact remains that nobody knows the truth.

DAVID: Logically a mind must have done the designing. Deny that!

And logically, if our minds could not exist without being designed, then a mind infinitely more powerful than our own must also have been designed, but you have blind faith that it has simply always been there for ever and ever.

Microbes in trees

DAVID: microbiomes are everywhere and usually beneficial. We must live with them, and we evolved from them. The flip side is there are some nasty actors whose presence we must accept. A benevolent God did this, fully understanding the consequences.

But hasn’t your Adler told you that you should remain neutral in your assessment of your God’s unknowable nature? So how do you know your God is benevolent? According to you, he deliberately designed the baddies to challenge us, knowing full well the suffering that his floods, famines, asteroids, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, diseases would cause. Is this what you call “benevolence”? See the evolution thread for more of your contradictions.