Return to David's theory of evolution, theodicy and purposes (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, October 30, 2024, 19:33 (22 days ago) @ dhw

God and possible purposes

dhw: The following quotes and exchanges provide a summary of David’s current beliefs and contradictions:

DAVID: Why must [God] have a reason? It is part of your humanizing God.
But:
DAVID: Assuming God as designer then humans were his purpose.

Not a 'but' example. Remember I separate goals/purpose from 'reason', while you do not. I feel one has to develop a reason for a purpose.

dhw: Please explain why you agreed that God would find puppets pretty boring.

DAVID: If He knows what is coming He cannot be bored (I've changed my view.)

DAVID: I follow the guideline that God is not human in any way.

dhw: But you also believe that all our “humanizing” proposals, including God’s love for us, are possible, although they are not possible. Hence your self-diagnosed schizophrenia.

Not 'not possible'. but we simply do not know and factually cannot support any conclusion.

DAVID: When I add He is selfless I mean these creations do not satisfy His own self-gratifications, which do not exist.

dhw: How do you know that he has no desire for self-gratification?

DAVID: As God is perfect he does not need self-gratification.

dhw: We are not talking of “need” but of purpose. Your concept of perfection is a selfless, emotionless being who inefficiently creates millions of species with no purpose except to design us plus food, but with no purpose for designing us plus food, although it is possible that he enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, loves us, is benevolent, and may want recognition and worship...These possibilities are possible but impossible, and you never contradict yourself.[/b]

DAVID: Not contradictions, just going back and forth, studying possibilities of an all-everything God.

dhw: These quotes show that you are not “studying possibilities” but have explicitly rejected possible boredom, all human-like thought patterns and emotions (“he is not human in any way”), is selfless and has no desire for self-gratification, which means you reject any possibility of enjoyment, interest, recognition and worship, although “all we can say is all or none of them are possible.” But although you call your beliefs schizophrenic, you can’t see any contradictions.

You are constantly upset when I protect a God 'not human in any way'. Why must God have any human attributes? What religions describe about God are all human wishes and you support them.

99.9% v 0.1%

dhw (re Raup): You wrote: “His study was to explain why extinctions happened as a necessary part of evolution. […] Well-adapted species suddenly were unprepared for new circumstances. The losses cumulatively were 99.9% with 0.1% as survivors.” What is "cumulative" if it's not the losses from all the extinctions? And how in heaven’s name do you come to interpret this as meaning that each survivor was the child of 99 sets of parents from different species? […]

DAVID: Page 1 and 2 paraphrased! Only one in a thousand that ever existed are still alive. That is a 99.9% extinction rate. Between five and fifty billion ever lived. That is it. We can assume 0.1% are the survivors to make 100%. All inclusive, no lines of descent!

dhw: Your “paraphrase” neatly omits your misrepresentation of Raup and your absurd theory that one species can be the progeny of 99 sets of parents from different species. The bland generalisation is fine until the last sentence. What is “all inclusive”? How can you possibly have evolution without lines of descent? These lines are formed by the survivors! You are STILL trying to dodge the obvious fact that we are descended, not from the 99.9% of species that became extinct without any descendants, but from the 0.1% of the species that survived. You agreed. That should have been the end of it.

The bold is the constant issue. The 99.9% did not just disappear. Going extinct they actually left living descents, the 0.1% surviving.