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

by dhw, Wednesday, October 16, 2024, 12:52 (1 day, 16 hours, 39 min. ago) @ David Turell

dhw: How could I possibly treat your theories as fact? I have been testing them for plausibility, and they keep failing the test because you keep contradicting yourself.

DAVID: The positions you take state them as if fact to test for plausibility.

I have agreed with you that all our theories are inventions, including the theory of God’s very existence. But problems arise when your inventions turn into rigid beliefs – which means YOU regard them as facts. The rest of this post provides ample illustration of the resultant implausibilities and self-contradictions.

DAVID: […]. That He may have created us for no reason at all is as plausible as all the reasons we guess at. [...].
And:
DAVID: Why must He have a reason? As a human you think He needs one?

You always refer to him as being all-purposeful. Even today, under “kinesins”: “As evolution is purposeful, cells must be directed to that goal.” How can evolution be purposeful if its inventor and controller has no purpose? Do you now think it plausible that your all-purposeful God had no reason for creating life and us?

dhw: His existence and ‘only purpose’ are ‘possible, plausible conjectures’, but when you reject your own plausible conjectures concerning enjoyment, interest, recognition and worship because they clash with another conjecture (selflessness), and you reject my equally plausible conjectures (enjoyment, interest, love of new discoveries etc.) for the same reason, I see no plausibility in your schizophrenic self-contradictions.

DAVID: All these conjectures are humanizing! Don't you see that?

And you have agreed over and over again that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions like ours. Neither your “humanizing conjectures” nor mine would make him human. They would simply indicate that he has in certain respects created us in his own image. If he exists.

99.9% v 0.1%

DAVID: I have fully agreed in the past we are among and from the existing 0.1% surviving. Our disagreement comes from the fact that I take an overall view as Raup did,the 99.9% extinct produced the .1% surviving. Undeniable. You worry about specific lineages and step-by-step evolution, all beside the point.(dhw’s bold)

Your initial, daft proposal was that “The extinct died leaving new living forms!” which you then clarified: “Either they [the 99.9% extinct forms] were a dead end OR they produced their new species progeny as they went extinct.” The theory that dying species could become the parents of brand new species which could survive the conditions that are killing their parents then morphed into: “The 0.1% survivors are the progeny of the 99.9%.” This means that all the dead species were the mummies and daddies of the species that survived. So you think the brontosaurus could have given birth to an archaeopteryx. And you don’t find such nonsense embarrassing? As regards “step by step”, the Cambrian Explosion has always been your prime example of the gaps which support your case for God’s existence. But now you want us to ignore the gaps, because they denote a break in the continuum. All part of your schizophrenia. However, I am happy to accept your earlier agreement that we and our food are NOT descended from the 99.9% of creatures that ever lived, but “from the 0.1% surviving”. Why don’t you just leave it at that?

The free-for-all theory

DAVID: Stop fusing the real world with the Biblical God! In this world we have the only system 'He wished'. It is full of problems. How come? Why not a perfect problem less system? Answer, He couldn't produce it. It can't exist!

Thank you for repeating that this must be the system “He wished”. That is totally different from saying that your first-cause, omniscient, omnipotent God couldn’t produce a system without problems. Forget the Bible. You defined Eden as “a life without problems” and wrote: “Of course He could design Eden if he wished”. So he could design a life without problems if he wished, but he couldn’t design a life without problems if he wished. And you never contradict yourself.

dhw: Your idea fits in with a free-for-all, which God would find far more interesting than a puppet show […] . A free-for-all puts the responsibility into the hands or paws or talons or cells of the organisms themselves.[…]

DAVID: You again imply God needs a interesting free-for-all which I've referred to as needing entertainment.

dhw: You try to trivialize this plausible conjecture with your derogatory vocabulary. The desire to create something enjoyable and interesting seems to me to be a plausible motive for God, just as it is for us. But that does not make God “needy”, and it doesn’t “humanize” him. It is God passing his predilections on to us.

DAVID: How do you know God has predilections? Humanizing Him ever again.

Enjoyment and interest were among your own plausible “inventions”, along with a desire for recognition and worship. We don’t “know” anything, including the existence of your God. But if he exists, we theorize about his possible purposes, methods and nature. These include the possible “humanizing” predilections which you have proposed but then blamed on me because you have now invented a “selfless” God who is purposeful but might be without a purpose.