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

by dhw, Monday, September 09, 2024, 09:00 (10 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My dog has human attributes. So, a non-human God can have human attributes like 'love'. Nothing here is schizophrenic. God chose to create us indirectly for His own reasons, none of which satisfied any personal need for self-satisfaction.

dhw: If a non-human God can have human attributes like ‘love’, you are contradicting yourself when you say that he “is not human in any way.” If your God might have enjoyed creating life and been interested in his creations, and if he created us because he might have wanted us to recognize and worship him, you are contradicting yourself when you say he is selfless. You have rightly described your conflicting beliefs as “schizophrenic”.

DAVID: You totally ignored the example of my dog. He is not human in any way. Thus God, totally non-human can show human attributes without being or becoming human.

You are playing silly language games. Do you really think we’ve spent all this time arguing over whether God (or your dog) is a human being or not? The question is whether he does or does not have thought patterns and emotions like ours. But you keep agreeing and disagreeing with yourself over your own proposals.

DAVID: All the attributes you just listed are human wishes for a relationship.

No they’re not. If God enjoys creating butterfly wings or is interested in how a fungus can eat a fly, there’s no relationship with us. And if you think God wants us to recognize his work and worship him (one reason you proposed for his creation of humans), that has nothing to do with our wishes but focuses entirely on HIS, and it contradicts your belief that he is selfless.

DAVID: Remember Adler's 50/50. God may be a creator without emotions. Your constant humanizing of God confuses your attempt at logic about God.

Adler’s 50/50 is an agreement that your God may have attributes like ours. The above proposals (enjoyment, interest, recognition, worship) were YOUR humanizations of your God, and I find them perfectly feasible. However, you reject them on the grounds that your God is not human in any way (= he can’t have attributes like ours) and is selfless.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: All species have ancestors!!! The 99.9% extinct species produced the 0.1% now living. The dino/bird sliver of all of evolution is a nutty non-example of the reality. (dhw's bold)

dhw: The fact that all species have ancestors does not mean that 99.9% of all extinct species were the ancestors of us and our contemporary species! Furthermore, it is your belief that we and our contemporary species are directly descended from species which your God created “de novo” during the Cambrian explosion. “De novo” by definition means without ancestors, and so you believe that not even 0.1% of pre-Cambrian species were our ancestors. Why do you think the dinosaur example, with only 4 species out of 700 producing ancestors of current species, is a nutty non-example of the reality? Were all the species your God designed during the 3,000,000,000 pre-Cambrian years also nutty non-examples?

Not answered.

dhw: Let me repeat the unequivocal statement you keep forgetting:

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.

dhw: Please tell us how we and our food can be directly descended from the 99.9% of creatures that ever lived, although we and our food are only descended from the 0.1% surviving.

DAVID: Simple: every organism on Earth is here to support humans. They came from, evolved from, the 99.9% that went extinct.

How can we plus food have evolved from the 99.9% that went extinct if, as you say, we and our food are only descended from the 0.1% that survived? Stop contradicting yourself!

Theodicy

dhw: please explain why you think your God wanted to test us.

DAVID: God certainly is quite aware of theodicy issues. We live with them and must face them by using our God-given brains. If God tried to change the freedom of action of molecules life could not exist, as explained before. Of course He needs our help.

So he did not create the baddies in order to test us. Exit the testing theory, and enter the theory of an omnipotent, omniscient God who can’t cope with the evil he couldn’t avoid creating, and is relying on us to do what he can’t do.

Asgard Archaea

DAVID: dhw asks why viruses were created. […]

dhw does not ask why the good ones were created – he asks why the bad ones were created.

Editing DNA mistakes

DAVID: what interests me here is the editing system to control mistakes. It applies directly to our theodicy discussion. My view is God clearly recognized the need for editing when the molecules were necessarily free and uncontrolled in their actions as they followed the given instructions. The article clearly shows the level of mistakes. (15 to 50%)

How could they be free and uncontrolled if they followed the given instructions??? The whole point is that 15%-50% didn’t follow instructions, and your God tried hard to “edit” or correct the mistakes, but he apparently needs our help because he can’t stop them despite his omnipotence and omniscience.