Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, February 19, 2017, 11:29 (2834 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: If your God exists, and if he is watching us but remains hidden, as you claim, then maybe he created life in order to watch the ever-changing spectacle of pain and pleasure. You could scarcely imagine a less personal God. Your initial vehement resistance (now modified) to such a concept, and your authoritative statement that your God does not contain a smidgen of evil, can only have sprung from your own desire for the all-good, personal God you find yourself approaching. I am just offering an alternative to your own bundle of contradictions.
DAVID: Why should God have a 'smidgen' of evil? Your word. Explain please. I'm sure He watches His creation for His own reasons, which cannot be ascertained by simple humans.

It was your word: Saturday 4 February at 22.44: “I don’t believe God has any smidgen of evil in himself. Evil is the result of what he has created: the physical forces of Earth, the evil in freedom-of-choice imperfect humans. That he allowed the results means He does not care if they happen. He has given us the power to try and solve these problems, and we are doing just that.”

It seems to me that a) if God created everything, he could hardly have created something that he was totally ignorant of, and b) a God who created diseases and natural disasters (though we mustn’t forget all the good and beautiful things he has also created), and who watches them happen and doesn’t care, might have created them with the purpose of having a spectacle of good and bad things that he can watch without caring. But I can well understand your dilemma as you make your personal approach to him.

The next exchange concerns “balance of nature”, and I will summarize the argument before quoting you: all forms of life need energy. According to you, God had to specially design all life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct in order to keep life going till he could dabble humans.

dhw: And even you admit that the attempt to link every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder with humans, despite your God’s ability to dabble, does not make sense.
DAVID: I didn't say that it made no sense. I don't know why God chose an evolutionary method, but it implies that He is limited in powers and had to by dabbling along the way.

Here is our exchange:
Dhw: 17 February at 18.54 under “particles and connections”: The problem with your hypothesis is the nature of your plan: you insist that your God, who is always in tight control, geared everything right from the beginning to the production of humans, which leads you to have him designing nests and flight paths and parasites and frogs' tongues and fishy camouflage etc. in order to keep life going before he can dabble with the brains of humans - and his ability to dabble makes even you wonder why he couldn't have produced us more directly. It just doesn't make sense.
DAVID: Guess what? It doesn't make sense to me either, but He did not directly create humans. He used an evolutionary process of living organisms, after using an evolutionary process to create the universe and a very special Earth. Go with the evidence that this was His plan from the beginning. Why not?

It doesn’t make sense to you that God had to design all these life forms, lifestyles and wonders to keep life going till he could do a dabble, but that is what happened, so God couldn’t do it any other way. The being who created the laws of nature is now limited by the laws of nature. I am offering the hypothesis that maybe your God did NOT set out from the beginning only to produce humans – though he may have dabbled them – but to produce the ever changing spectacle that constitutes the whole history of life on Earth. If your version doesn’t make sense to you, then why not consider an alternative?

DAVID: [The carnivorous plants and frogs’ tongues] look like they need to be developed all at once, as a saltation. God helping would not be 'odd'.
dhw: It’s the implication that is odd. Either they could or they couldn’t do it themselves. God helping them suggests they were trying autonomously and couldn’t do it, so God stepped in – because he needed these prey-catching methods to balance nature in order for life to go on etc. Your hypothesis doesn’t make sense to you, and yet you still cling to it.
DAVID: Your same twist. I still maintain the bush of life is balanced in its many niches to supply energy for evolution. Makes perfect sense to me if humans are the goal.

Your same twist. Nobody would deny that all living forms need energy, but two days ago it did not make sense to you that your God had to design all these life forms before he could dabble humans. If this is a misunderstanding, please explain what it is that does not make sense to you.

DAVID: And you made no note of the obstetrical dilemma article about human big brains where it is obvious God had to play a major role.

You can call that a dabble if you like. It doesn’t mean that your God had to design frogs’ tongues in order to keep life going before he could dabble humans.