Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, February 21, 2017, 18:41 (2832 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You've twisted my concept again. I have suggested He had to accept the problems and could not avoid them. Please review my comments.

dhw: No twisting. Your own statements raise two issues. Firstly, you claim that your God was forced (presumably by the laws of Nature which he had created, since he created everything) to create diseases and natural disasters in order to produce humans. And now he watches to see if humans can solve the problems that he couldn’t solve! None of that makes sense.

I'm not sure where your analysis comes from. Earth with plate tectonics supports life. Volcanoes and earthquakes are necessary byproducts of that arrangement. God should disallow those side effects? Like love and marriage, they are inextricably tied together. You want Him to step in and protect us. you sound like a priest or rabbi.

dhw:According to you, he didn’t “allow” the results but he had no choice – and he doesn’t care. Quite apart from the fact that not caring is every bit as “humanizing” as caring, I would like to know what you would call a being who inflicts suffering and doesn’t care.

I don't know that He doesn't care. I don't remember ever saying that. Again, it is most possible He had no choice in those bad results, but He had enough to give us big brains to solve the problems. Perfectly reasonable.

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.

dhw: It doesn’t make sense to you, but that’s what happened, so he either wanted or had to do it in a way that makes no sense to you. You refuse to consider the possibility that in devising the evolutionary process he might have had perfectly understandable intentions different from those that you impose on him.

He might have other purposes. We don't see any obvious ones, but remember I start from the conclusion He wanted humans, and that is history. We are not studying human history. We are studying God's creations to infer intentions, a very different process of analysis.

DAVID: I don't accept your style of description of balance of nature. I view it as absolutely necessary. The frog tongue is specialized to help him live in his balance of nature.

dhw: Yes, the frog’s tongue, just like every other lifestyle and natural wonder, is specialized to enable him to survive, and each organism has its own “balance” within its own niche, and 99% have died out because what you call the “balance of nature” is whatever affects individual organisms and has nothing whatsoever to do with your God designing every lifestyle and wonder in order to keep life going until humans could arrive.

God is only developing an energy-supplying balance of nature to allow for billions of years of evolution. So simple to see.

DAVID: It is obvious you cannot get rid of God in your own thinking with your own God-lite IM proposal. Chance or design (not God-lite) is all there can be.

dhw: Of course I can’t get rid of God. I am an agnostic. I can neither believe nor disbelieve. But it is not God-lite to disagree with your personal reading of your God’s mind, especially when that reading results in a scenario which does not make sense even to you and can only be explained by your claim that he must have wanted or been forced to do it your way. Maybe your way is NOT the correct reading of his mind.

My way may not be correct. I admit that. Your posture on the fence requires you to use God-lite constantly. Obvious. There is only chance or design; the latter requires a designer! I view you as stuck in limbo.