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

by dhw, Sunday, September 15, 2024, 11:26 (4 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: 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: All the questionable evidence is secondary for a supernatural entity.

dhw: An atheist would say that all the evidence for a supernatural entity is questionable, and I’m sorry, but your response is no answer to my now bolded comment.

DAVID: All of our evidence is secondary by studying our reality He produced.

“Secondary” means not as important as something else, so I have no idea what you’re referring to. I only know you have again dodged your confession that your starting point is the God you want, which means you either ignore any evidence against your wishes, or you plunge into one contradiction after another.

God and human attributes

DAVID: To clarify your confusion, a selfless God produced us for His own unselfish reasons. Although entirely not human He can exhibit human-like attributes.

“To clarify your confusion”, you believe he enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, and may have created us because he wants us to recognize and worship him, all of which denote forms of self-interest, but you believe he is selfless. You also believe he probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours, which means that although he is not a human being, he is like us in some ways, but you believe he is not like us in any way. And you confess that your beliefs are schizophrenic, but you never contradict yourself.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: […] Our meaning may not be God's.

The words are our invention, we know what we mean, and we want to know whether any of these terms are applicable to God “according to what we understand by those terms”.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: Still chopping evolution into slices. An extinct species is followed by a live species over and over.

Evolution is a succession of “slices”, as species come and go during the different periods. Once a species is extinct, it ceases to produce new species. According to Raup, only 0.1% of species survive, and it is these that produce new species. The latest “slice” is ours, and you have agreed the following:

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.

DAVID (under “Dinosaurs to birds”): 99.9% of all extinct produced the current 0.1% surviving.

You agree that we, the latest survivors, are directly descended from the preceding 0.1% of survivors, but now we are descended from (produced by) the 99.9% that didn’t survive!

DAVID: See todays' entry re distorted dinosaur statistics.

dhw: The new theory […] simply challenges the belief that theropods were the ancestors. Do you really think the new theory is that 696 dinosaur species were our ancestors? And don’t forget your 100% non-ancestral pre-Cambrians.

DAVID: No dinosaurs were our ancestors. The Cambrians used Ediacaran biochemistry, no phenotypic forms.

If 100% of dinosaurs were not our ancestors, and if your God created our ancestors “de novo” during the Cambrian (= 100% no pre-Cambrian ancestors), this makes nonsense of your claim that the 99.9% “produced” us and our food. Please stop it.

Theodicy

DAVID: Free-floating following instructions BUT then free to make a mistake!!!

dhw: Unless their instructions are to feel free to make a mistake, your comment makes no sense.

DAVID: Yes, they have the freedom to make mistakes.

So they are free not to obey your God’s instructions – a bit like us humans, since your all-good God gave us the freedom to be goodies or baddies.

Under “Editing DNA mistakes” and “Bacterial intelligence”

DAVID: Why would a benevolent God deliberately create the chaos of a murderous free-for-all? (dhw's bold)

dhw: 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!

DAVID: They want no God and pure chance. Makes no sense, while a God who designs does so even if His designs have problems.

dhw: As does the theory of his existence, and even more problems are thrown up when someone starts off with the conclusions he wants and refuses to consider any other possibility.

DAVID: Never your humanized God.

You have acknowledged that he and we probably have attributes in common. That does not make him human. Meanwhile, the new answer to the bolded question above is that you start with the God you want, and since you want your God to be “benevolent”, that means we shouldn’t bother to ask why he created the murderous bacteria, viruses, “natural disasters” and humans.