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

by dhw, Thursday, October 17, 2024, 11:40 (17 hours, 41 minutes ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why must He have a reason? As a human you think He needs one?

dhw: 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?

DAVID: Why must He have a reason? It is part of your constant humanizing God.

If you don’t think he has a reason, why the heck do you keep telling us how purposeful he is, that his only purpose was to create us plus food, that only he knows his reasons for creating the vast universe, that his reasons for life and us may be enjoyment, interest, recognition, worship etc.? Your ridiculous self-contradictions are perfectly summed up by a comment under “God’s purposes” and by your last comment in this post:

DAVID: The universe is designed following God’s plan.

How can you make plans without having a reason for your plan?

DAVID: My God's purpose is producing us. Not 'without a purpose'.

How can you have a purpose for doing something without having a reason for doing it?

DAVID: That God 'probably has thought patterns...like us' is best expressed as 'possibly’, It is a better level of certainty.

That’s fine with me, compared to your view that your God is not human “in any way”. So stop complaining about “humanization”.

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)

dhw: 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?

DAVID: Fine. We disparate views of evolution. I'm with Raup's overall statistics.

Strangely enough, so am I. And I’m relieved that you have finally accepted that we plus food are NOT descended from the 99.9% but from the 0.1%, and we need no longer be embarrassed by your bolded theory that the 99.9% extinct were the mummies and daddies of the 0.1% surviving.

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!

dhw: 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.

DAVID: You trap me into a Biblical level discussion and try to relate my thoughts to this reality. Pure nonsense! Read my logic above and respond to it as I accept your 'God's wishes' and look at the result we have! All you have offered was word salad.

Nothing whatsoever to do with a biblical level. You accepted that the Eden image meant a life without problems. That is what we are arguing about. You agree that your God (if he exists) could create a life without problems if he wishes, but you insist that he could not create a life without problems. There is no logic in your answer. An all-powerful, all-knowing, first-cause God would logically have the power and knowledge to design whatever world he wished for. You have “trapped” him into having no choice. The difference is enormous. Instead of him weakly flailing around trying to correct the mistakes in his design (your version), we can have him deliberately creating a free-for-all, not just in the context of theodicy and human free will but also in the context of evolution: instead of your inefficient “design and cull”, we have your God creating autonomous organisms which try to design their own means of survival - adapting, innovating, or else they perish.