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

by David Turell , Thursday, October 17, 2024, 15:47 (13 hours, 48 minutes ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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.

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

"Reason" is the same as a goal to produce humans.

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

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

You've listed my guesses above.

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

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

I can't unless you stop your humanization of God.

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.

dhw: 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.

Off we go again. The 99.9% produced the surviving 0.1%.

The free-for-all theory

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.

dhw: 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.

Logic: we have the system God gave us. It is imperfect as shown in theodicy complaints. If God is not all-powerful that could be the reason. If He is all-powerful then the system we got is the only one that could work. I think He is all-powerful and gave us the current system using a cumbersome way to evolve us. Suddenly you avoid God enjoying the free-for- all. Seems you have recognized your humanization of God.