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

by dhw, Wednesday, September 11, 2024, 08:52 (8 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] 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.

DAVID: […] We each imagine God, so as to my personal God, He is selfless and not human in any way.

And so you imagined that your God might have created life and us out of enjoyment and interest and a desire to be recognized and worshipped, but as you imagine him to be selfless and not human in any way, you reject your own imaginings, which is why you have described your beliefs as “schizophrenic”.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: The 99.9% extinct species produced the 0.1% now living.

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 the 99.9% could have “produced” us if we are only descended from the 0.1% that survived.

DAVID: Per Raup: 99.9% extinct resulted in the current 0.1% surviving. We are among the 0.1% as representatives of the surviving. Specific dinosaurs are beside the point and worthless examples of the total lumped statistics.

Yes indeed, if 99.9% become extinct, you will have 0.1% surviving. And yes indeed, we are here, so we are among the 0.1% of survivors. That does not mean that the 99.9% extinct species “produced” the 0.1%, i.e. that we and our food are directly descended from 99.9% of all the creatures that ever lived! For example, you believe that your God created our ancestors “de novo” during the Cambrian, so you believe that 100% of pre-Cambrian organisms were NOT our ancestors. And only 4 out of 696 dinosaur species provided ancestors of current species, which means we were NOT descended from 99.4% of dinosaurs. Do you now wish to tell us that your “No. From 0.1% surviving” was a mistake, and you meant: “Yes. From 99.9%”? And why do you think your pre-Cambrian theory and the dinosaur facts are worthless examples of the statistic that 99.9% of species are extinct and only 0.1% survived?

Theodicy

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

DAVID: […] If God tried to change the freedom of action of molecules life could not exist, as explained before. Of course He needs our help.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: He gave us brains that can work with Him. Challenge and help both fit.

So despite his omnipotence, he can’t undo the evil he didn’t want, and he needs our help to do what he can’t do. The test is to see if we can be cleverer than him. Sounds to me more like a weak human than an almighty God. And yet you reckon a God who experiments, or deliberately creates a free-for-all, is weaker than a God who needs help from humans to correct the mistakes he can’t cope with.

Editing DNA mistakes

DAVID: The molecules have instructions but no tight controls, a point you don't understand.

dhw: So some of them choose to follow God’s instructions, and some of them choose not to do so. They all have minds of their own. I get it. God needs our help to deal with the rebels.

DAVID: No rebellion. They make mistakes in action, not meaning to. You are getting closer to understanding.

So although they survive by killing us, they don't mean to, and your all-knowing, all-powerful God tries to correct their mistakes, but fails so miserably that he relies on us to do what he can’t do.

DAVID: (under “bacterial intelligence") […] Good bacteria in the wrong places are bad.

dhw: I don’t know why you think bacteria which kill us are good bacteria obeying your God’s instructions which prove lethal because your God didn’t tell them where to go. […] My proposal is that all bacteria, whether we call them good or bad, have the ability to design their own means of survival. And (back to “theodicy”) you are now telling us that your God knew what the so-called baddies would do but couldn’t stop them. No deliberate test or challenge. Just an all-powerful God needing help.

DAVID: The 'bad' bacteria may be 'good' but stumble into the wrong places. And then God needs help.

Then how come they are so good at designing resistance to all your God’s efforts and ours to destroy them? I stand by the above proposal and by my objection to a so-called omnipotent and omniscient God who needs our help because he can’t redirect organisms which accidentally disobey his instructions.