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

by dhw, Friday, July 12, 2024, 12:13 (132 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] I suspect that Adler would be turning in his grave if he knew you were blaming him for you schizophrenic confusion.

DAVID: I've admitted to the schizophrenic theology I have, while your neutralism is a soft cushion of what?

dhw: Thank you for once again admitting that your theology is riddled with illogicalities and contradictions. Do you not realize that this can only mean something is wrong with your theories? My neutralism does not reduce the absurdity of your evolutionary theory of your God’s inefficiency, or your theory of his nature, which for instance is benevolent, but can’t be benevolent. My neutralism allows me to propose theistic explanations without any contradictions, and your only objection is that they entail human-like attributes which you agree he might have but which you firmly state he can’t have.

DAVID: Since you have no set beliefs you can invent any sort of God you wish.

Listen to yourself:
DAVID: Whoever God is, is up for grabs. We are faced with a totally unknown personage.
And:
There are “as many forms of God as people who invent them.”
And:
“I first choose a form of God I wish to believe in. The rest follows.”

According to you, all of us can and do invent a form of God, and yours is a confused mass of contradictions which you attribute to your schizophrenic Jekyll and Hyde.

DAVID: What pops out is a mirror image of your imagination, filled with humanized approaches. That He wants a free-for-all type of evolution for entertainment, ignoring its loss of control, is like no other theology in existence.

The free-for-all, just like human free will, is a deliberate sacrifice of control, and what you call entertainment is merely an extension of your own certainty (Jekyll speaking) that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. Re other theologies, you have forgotten that deism proposes a God who sacrifices control, and process theology allows for a learning God. I do not know of any existing theology that proposes a benevolent God who can't be benevolent, a God who enjoys creating but can’t enjoy creating, who is perfectly efficient but is imperfect and inefficient, wants to be worshipped but can’t possibly want to be worshipped etc. But you claim to be in sync with "mainstream" theology while you are proud not to conform to "mainstream" theology.

DAVID: That He must experiment show us a God who is middling along and is not all-knowing.

There is no reason to assume that your God is all-knowing. He may enjoy discovering new things, and it makes a mockery of human free will if he knows exactly what everybody is going to do (hence the controversy over predestination). Targeted experimentation is no more “middling” or “muddling” than your imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient God’s method of achieving the goal you impose on him.

DAVID: A great summary. But it carefully ignores my presentation of Adler's proof of God in the creation of humans by Darwin's materialistic theory. There is no reason we should be an expected result. Compared to living apes, our mobile ability and brain power were not necessary to appear. This philosophic nuance escapes your thinking. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: All of my summary concerns your God’s possible purposes, methods and nature. (There is of course no point in presenting the atheist’s view here, which is simply that God doesn’t exist.) Your desperation to divert us to the argument for God’s existence won’t help you. There is no reason why life itself should be an “expected result” (bolded above), and there is no reason why the dog and its nose, the camel and its hump, the whale, the eagle, the ant, the shark, the weaverbird etc. should be an “expected result”. I have never denied the uniqueness of our degree of intelligence and consciousness, but we are just one piece of evidence for design out of millions, right down to the astonishing complexity of a single cell. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE HERE, so stop dodging.

DAVID: You dodged again. You champion Darwin's 'survivability' as a driver of evolution. Explain how the sapiens brain improved that ability, especially since our close cousins, the apes do just fine without it. Then add all the skeletal issues that allow us to do what apes cannot. WE don't compare to the complexity of single cells. We have trillions of them in our bodies.

The subject of survivability and the evolution of the human brain is dealt with elsewhere (now back on its own thread, since you have completely ignored all our past discussions on the subject), and IS NOT THE ISSUE HERE. However, I have pointed out that our brain is not the only “unexpected result” that can be used as evidence of your God’s existence.