Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS ONE & TWO (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 11, 2023, 08:38 (388 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Since when is God conceived as not all-knowing? This is a distinct contradiction to what most religions believe.

dhw: Since when did most religions inform us that your God deliberately designed 99 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his sole purpose of creating us and our food etc. […]

DAVID: Your bolded mantra above is a distortion of the fact that evolution occurred, Raup pointed out the necessary survival rate showing it was cumbersome. As the creator God ran the show because He wanted to.

dhw: You challenged the theory that God is not all-knowing on the grounds that most religions believe he IS all-knowing. How does that distort the fact that evolution occurred? Do most religions ask you to worship God for his inefficient, cumbersome, messy handling of evolution as pointed out by you and Raup? Of course if God exists, he would have wanted to run the show the way he wanted to run the show. […] I have pointed out that your insistence on God’s omniscience is highly controversial among religious thinkers, as it entails the massive problems of free will (linked to predestination) and theodicy (why would an omniscient God deliberately create evil, knowing all its terrible consequences?)

DAVID: There are many opinions of God's personality, no better than the one I developed for myself with help from Adler, as important any 'experts' you presented.

The one you have developed is that of a God whose sole purpose is to design us and our food, and whose method of achieving his purpose is inefficient, cumbersome and messy. You reject my proposals on the grounds that most religions would reject them, and then proudly inform us: “The Bible, Adam and Eve are not part of my theology, nor Does Whitehead impress me. I follow the Catholic philosopher Ed Feser for some of his thinking. But I have my own brand of theism I follow.” So your views of God do not conform to “most religions”, but that’s fine. It’s only if my proposals don’t conform to most religions that it’s not fine.

DAVID: Evolution is a messy process and yes, religions don't dig into the problems, they just accept it at its surface. It worked.

You have dug into the problems of your own theory of evolution, and have concluded that your God is an inefficient, cumbersome and messy designer. Since you can make no sense of your theory (it makes sense only to your God), why do you complain if I come up with alternatives that offer perfectly logical explanations of evolution’s history which remove such criticisms of your God?

DAVID:I do not perceive the warts you apply to my God.

dhw: Please explain to us why you do not regard as a "wart" his inefficient, cumbersome and messy method of fulfilling his purpose by designing 99 out of 100 species that are irrelevant to that purpose.

DAVID: I accept what God did as His valid choice of method, for His own reasons. It worked, we are here.

You accept your THEORY about what God did for unknown reasons, and it makes no sense to you. All my alternatives end up with us being here, and they all “worked”, according to whatever purpose we assign to him.

The universe

DAVID: dhw wonders why God made it so big. Because that is what God wanted.

dhw: The usual edited version of what I “wonder”, leaving out the question why your God would have designed thousands of millions of galaxies if his sole purpose was to design our galaxy containing our planet containing us and our food. If he exists, maybe it would make more sense if he didn’t design every galaxy and every species, but set in motion all the processes of galaxy and species formation, and watched the results with interest.

DAVID: More derision about our necessary food!! God doesn't make sense to you, as you hopelessly use human logic to understand God!! Yikes!! As God evolved the universe, He knew exactly what would happen. His favored Milky Way appeared about two billion years after the BB. Your human God would start it and watch. My God is hands on and His 'interest' is doing it.

What is derisory about our food? He could hardly want to create us without wanting to create the food which would keep us alive! In all my alternatives, God’s actions make perfect sense to both of us, your only objection being that they show him to have thought patterns and emotions like ours, although you believe he has thought patterns and emotions like ours. If he was hands on and “knew exactly what would happen”, he knew right from the start that he would spend 2 billion years specially designing countless millions of galaxies although he only wanted to design one, just as he knew he would design 100 life forms although he only wanted to design one (plus its food). And he knew he was inefficient, cumbersome and messy, but just like you, he found himself stuck with a ridiculous system/theory entirely of his own making.