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

by David Turell , Friday, September 06, 2024, 18:38 (10 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If your God exists, he does not mimic us, and we do not mimic him! He would have created us with some of his own characteristics. You say he is not human in any way, but “of course he may have human-like attributes”, and you still can’t see that you are contradicting yourself. Your next statement simply omits your fixed and firm belief that your God is not human in any way:

DAVID: God creates with no needs for Himself. It is obvious to declare God is not human, but possibly has some human-like attributes. These are rules I follow.

dhw: Firstly, we are not talking about “needs” but about possible purposes which you yourself have proposed for his creation of life and us: enjoyment, interest, a desire to have a relationship, to be recognized and worshipped. But I have pointed out to you that your own proposals are contradicted by your insistence that he is selfless, whereas these purposes denote self-interest.

My proposals that God wishes this or that does not remove the concept of selflessness. They are human wishes for a relationship that may or may not matter to God. No proof of God's self-interest as you illogically propose.

dhw: Secondly, of course God is not human, and you agree that he may have human attributes, but you have conveniently forgotten what you call your “rigid principle; God is not human in any way.” It is these blatant contradictions that have led you to diagnose your beliefs as “schizophrenic”, though you claim that “Nothing in my thoughts is contradictory”!

Your contorted logic sees a schizophrenia that is non-existent. I am appealing to God for a relationship He may not wish to have or NEED to have.

99.9% v 0.1%

dhw: […] if Raup is right, the figure after each extinction would have been about 99.9% loss and 0.1% surviving, and as you have agreed, above, we are descended from the 0.1% surviving, not from the 99.9% that had no descendants.

DAVID: There is your stark error: 1) evolution works by new species evolving from old ones that go extinct. Just as you evolved from your great grandparents. 2) It is an equilibrium of continuity. The 99.9% extinct created the 0.1% survivors. The luck issue revolved about environmental changes knocking off the unlucky. 3) What then appeared was an improved form, and eventually an over-improved form, us. (dhw’s division of points)

dhw: How many more times are you going to ignore your own statements, and obfuscate with generalisations?

1) Of course that is how evolution works. Yes, our ancestors (e.g. all the hominins and other homos) are extinct, and are PART of the 99.9% of extinct species. But they themselves descended from only 0.1% of past life forms!

2) The continuity is provided by the 0.1% that survived each extinction. The 99.9% that died did not produce any descendants. In your own words, for the umpteenth time:
dhw: Do you believe that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived?
DAVID: No. From 0.1% surviving.

Instead of Raup’s “luck”, you substitute what you call your God’s imperfect, messy, cumbersome and inefficient method of deliberately creating and then having to cull 99.9 out of 100 species irrelevant to his one and only purpose of designing us and our food.

3) Yes, the 0.1% of survivors after each extinction produced new forms, and according to you, our own ancestors only appeared after 3,000,000,000 years, which means you believe that 100% of all pre-Cambrian forms were NOT our ancestors. Later extinctions included that of the dinosaur era, in which 696 dinosaur species went extinct without producing any descendants, and only 4 produced the ancestors of all current species of birds, but by some extraordinary mathematical calculation, you consider 4 out of 700 to = 99.9%.

Please listen to your Dr Jekyll - ("No. From 0.1% surviving") - and ignore your Mr Hyde, who is trying to make a fool of you.

You are contorting Raup's overall statistical analysis. In all of evolution 99.9% of all organisms went extinct to produce 0.1% now surviving. Your sliver of dinosaurs to birds is a miniscule myopic fraction of the whole picture.

Theodicy

dhw: I have no objection at all to the theory that your God gave molecules, bacteria, viruses and humans the freedom to commit what we call evil. If you want to tell us that your all-powerful, all-knowing God had no choice with regard to the molecules, then OK. We still have the bacteria, viruses, meteors, floods, famines and human evils to deal with, which at one time you stated were your God’s fault. Meanwhile, do you now wish to retract your theory that he created evil in order to test/challenge us?

DAVID: I can't withdraw it as a possibility, considering the amazing brain He gave us. God did not create evil! IT is all side effects of His good works.

dhw: The theory that they are all “side effects” does not exonerate him from being their creator. And if his intention was to test/challenge us with all the bad bacteria, viruses, floods, famines etc, then he could only have created them deliberately!

Deliberately created to do good, but with bad side effects. You can't have the good without the bad.