Return to David's theory of theodicy;Plantinga & Raup (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, April 29, 2024, 08:45 (16 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: An all-everything God is recognized generally as the God of the Western monotheistic religions.

dhw: And what makes you think that this invalidates the various gods of the rest of the world?

DAVID: You don't understand my approach at all. I have my God, of course, they can have theirs.

So what was the point of your comment?

DAVID: That God creates what He wishes to create by evolving them is obvious. He evolved humans, which means He 'wished' to create them, not 'has to' as you distort the concept of creation.

dhw: Total distortion. Your theory is that he only wanted to create humans and therefore “had to” create 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with humans. Here is an exchange from November last year which should settle two of the current disputes between us:

dhw: We and our food have evolved from 0.1% of evolution’s products.

DAVID: Yes.

dhw: So why can’t you accept that…he wished to create…the vast variety of life forms extant and extinct, as opposed to being forced by the system he invented to create and cull forms he didn’t want? (Please don’t make me list the quotes in which you say he “had to do” it that way.)

DAVID: The bold is a correct view of God's approach to evolution, not your usual distortion about the 99.9% discarded over time.

According to you, not even “discarded” but “culled”. (DAVID: The ‘had to’ refers to required culling over millions of years.) And why did he cull them? Because they were not relevant to what you say was his one and only purpose – us and our food. That is why you have ridiculed his method as messy, cumbersome and inefficient. If you now agree that your omniscient and omnipotent God wished to create a vast variety of forms extant and extinct, then quite clearly his one and only motive could not have been to create just the 0.1% which led to our current bush of life.

dhw: These discussions drag on because you keep denying your own statements which are the subject of disagreement between us!

DAVID: Just as you distort the true meaning in Raup's statistics about required extinctions in evolution.

dhw: My interpretation of what you tell us is that extinctions and speciation are triggered by changing conditions, as a result of which 99.9% of organisms have disappeared. Therefore extinctions are a necessary feature of evolution, because without such changes in conditions, there would be no new species. Which species die out and which species survive is purely a matter of luck. Nowhere in your summary is there any mention of God, of us and our food as the sole purpose (or of any overall purpose), every single species being an ancestor of us and our food, or indeed any of the main features of your theory of evolution.

DAVID: Of course, Raup does not mention God!!! What do you expect? That all of my readings support God? I used my broad reading to form my own theology, much of based on scientific discoveries in physical sciences and well as biological research.

You have not disputed my summary of Raup, so why do you keep pretending that I am distorting the “true meaning” of Raup, when it is you who propose conclusions that are totally alien to his?

Double standards

DAVID: I follow theistic thinking as presented by several sources. I have never found the sort of God you describe in any of it.

dhw: I pointed out to you that the sortof God I was describing was to be found in process and deist theologies. You replied:

DAVID: Process and deist theologies are not mainstream, and not worth using. My view of God is mine, and just as valid as as any other.

dhw: In the context of discussions, the term “double standards” refers to the arguments people offer when attacking other people’s beliefs or defending their own. For example, if your reason for rejecting a belief is that it is not mainstream (which is the only reason you gave), but you then go on to defend your own belief, even though it is not mainstream, you are applying double standards. If you had told us that you rejected deism because…(followed by a reason you felt was valid), you would not have been applying double standards. Please stop trying to mangle language.

DAVID: In these brief discussions getting into broad views at depth would require hours of text. I am using broad brushes. You know the God I favor. Remember it. The rest follows! It affects all considerations of each issue. All by pick and choose of what I prefer in theological thought. All by my standards which are mine to freely use.

And so you continue to ignore the meaning of the term “double standards” as illustrated by what you wrote.