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

by dhw, Friday, September 13, 2024, 08:24 (6 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Your view of God as selfless is your wish and is no more and no less a guess than your list of God’s “reasons”. Among your own proposals, only “caring” and “interest” represent a human desire. Why would we “desire” him to recognize and worship him? Your own guesses included God’s enjoyment of creating, and indeed why would he do it if he didn’t enjoy it? I do not “humanize” God. If he exists, I want to know about his nature and purposes, and you have agreed that “of course he may have human-like attributes”. Since he is supposed to have created us, that doesn’t “humanize” him – it “deifies” us! Why do you continuously agree that he may have such attributes, and then schizophrenically deny that he might have them?

DAVID: I start with a definite type of God I want.

Thank you for repeating this confession. You could hardly have a less scientific, less logical, less defensible approach, since you have already decided the result even before you have considered the evidence!

DAVID: Your approach is totally amorphous and results in Him acting like a human.

I have offered three precise, theistic theories to explain the comings and goings of evolution: 1) a free-for-all created out of enjoyment and interest; 2) experiments in order to make new discoveries; 3) experiments in order to reach a particular goal (akin to your own theory, but without the insulting emphasis on his inefficiency etc.) None of these theories is amorphous, and for the thousandth time, you agree that he may have thought patterns and emotions like ours, which would mean we act like him, not he acts like us.

DAVID: I was taught to think about God by Adler and following his rules, I've come up with the conclusions we are discussing.

You have admitted that your conclusions are your own, and apart from "proof" of God's existence, he does NOT share them. Even if he did, I am discussing these conclusions with you, not with Adler, so stop trying to hide behind him.

DAVID: God is not human in any way, but that doesn't stop Him from exhibiting human traits which must be thought about allegorically since we ae applying our traits to a supernatural being.

Off you go again. Either your God cares or he doesn’t, wants us to worship him or doesn’t, enjoys designing or doesn’t - all according to what we understand by those terms.

99.9% v 0.1%

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: You agree we are NOT descended from the 99.9% of extinct species but only from the 0.1% survivors of each extinction, but you insist that we ARE descended from the 99.9% of extinct species, which “produced” us although they had no descendants! Only 0.1% - the survivors of each extinction - “produced” us. The two examples based on your own beliefs CONFIRM Raup’s overall statistics (you say 100% of pre-Cambrian species were not our ancestors, and we know that 99.4% of dinosaurs were not our ancestors). Why do you reject your own examples, which confirm Raup’s statistics?

DAVID: You continue to slice up evolution into discontinuous parts. The 99.9% extinct created the 0.1% surviving. Common sense.

You continue to dodge all the points I have raised above, as well as your own agreement! The continuity is provided by the 0.1% that survive Raup’s extinctions. Those that do not survive cannot create anything. Common sense. How many more times are you going to contradict yourself?

Theodicy

DAVID: You are so confused with your humanized God. See editing:

dhw: See above for your confusion concerning “humanizing”. Please tell me why an experimenting God who gets what he wants is weaker than a God who needs human help to correct the mistakes arising from the system he created.

DAVID: An all-powerful God does not need to experiment. Life's biochemistry, invented by God, will have errors since the molecules are free acting as they follow directions.

An all-powerful God would not need help to correct mistakes he is unable to correct!!! And how can molecules be free acting if they follow directions?

Under “Editing DNA mistakes” and “Bacterial intelligence”

dhw: In the context of theodicy, why do you try to restrict the discussion to molecules? You are still left with the problem of murderous viruses and bacteria, so-called natural disasters, and human evil, so why do you reject the possibility that your God might have created a free-for-all in which life forms have the freedom to design their/our own means of survival, whether these entail success, failure, kill or cure?

DAVID: Why would a benevolent God deliberately create the chaos of a murderous free-for-all?

Since you can hardly deny that your murderous bacteria, viruses and humans exist, please answer your own question, which is precisely the subject of theodicy! Meanwhile, why do you assume your God is benevolent? Your answer: “I start with a definite type of God I want.” If atheists told you they started with what they wanted, you would tear them to pieces!