Genome complexity: epigenetics in action (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, April 10, 2017, 11:27 (2572 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The point at issue is not lack of purpose, but your dogmatic claim that humans were your God’s ONLY PURPOSE and “everything else” was related to that. I absolutely do not agree with the purpose you have assigned to the energy supply! Your God is apparently now saying to himself: “All I want to do is produce humans, which I can do without difficulty, but first I’ll design the weaverbird’s nest and lots and lots of other natural wonders, so that it will take me a long time to produce the only thing I really want to produce.” I’m sorry, but this sounds pretty silly to me.

DAVID: What a convoluted interpretation: God's primary choice in creating humans may or may not have required a long time. It is entirely possible that God decided to take a while in getting there by slowly (in human terms) evolving humans. He might have been able to do it whenever He wanted, which appears to be Tony's view. This is why we have discussed pre-programming, dabbling , or limitations. We see the history, but when we plug in God's possible actions without Biblical interpretation we have no clear indisputable answer, and so we debate, each from a different viewpoint. I've deleted your further restatement of your comment as this answer suffices.

I can only take each statement of yours as you make it. You wrote: "You are blinded by the side issue of natures wonders and the balance of nature which we agree only supplies energy so evolution can take a long time to reach the end point."
Nature’s wonders are not a side issue, they are part of THE issue under discussion. Until now your two dogmas have been that (a) God’s sole purpose (which you seem to equate with “end point”) was the production of humans, and (b) he personally designed all of Nature’s wonders. This creates a problem: why did he personally design all of Nature’s wonders if his sole purpose was to create humans? And yes indeed, you have floundered around with all the possibilities you have listed, but on Saturday 8 April you announced: “I explored, not vacillated, several avenues of thought. I’ve now concluded that God chose a lengthy evolutionary process. There was no delay.” This is confirmed by: "The balance of nature…only supplies energy so that evolution [as directed by your God] can take a long time to reach the end point" [humans]. You rejected limitations, so you are left with God choosing to design all the wonders so that it can take a long time for him to do the one thing he wants to do. You now seem to realize that this does not make sense, and so on Sunday 9 April you go back to a list of all the possibilities, there is no clear answer, and gone is Saturday’s decisive conclusion. Quite right too. This leaves us with the options discussed under “Purpose and design”, including what you have at last accepted as a possibility: God’s sole purpose may NOT have been to produce humans, and God may NOT have designed all the natural wonders. Why not leave it at that?