Cosmology: Earth in goldylocks zone; dangerous (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 31, 2017, 11:58 (2363 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: A hypothesis is not a description, it is an explanation! We both agree on the history: the bush of life exists, it resulted from evolution, life needs energy if it is to continue. In the context of this particular discussion, we are both looking for a THEISTIC explanation of this history. Your theistic explanation or, in most cases, non-explanation is that God evolves his purposes except when he doesn’t (instantaneous creation of species at the start of the Cambrian); God specially created eight stages of whale, though you don’t know why; God specially designed the weaverbird’s nest in order to keep life going until he could fulfil his prime purpose of producing the brain of H. sapiens, though life would have kept going anyway without the whale and the nest; God specially created the large universe but you don’t know why; and God’s logic is not ours. By contrast, my theistic hypothesis provides an explanation for the whole history, as you acknowledge.

DAVID: Please take my word for it. I view your hypothesis as descriptive of the history we know. I explain history as I see it from god's viewpoint. Yours is a viewpoint from non-acceptance of God.

I don’t know what word you expect me to take. We agree on the history, and we both offer a THEISTIC explanation of that history. The theistic viewpoint I offer is that of a God creating life as an ever-changing spectacle, part of which is human behaviour. Your viewpoint is that God created the ever-changing spectacle in order to produce humans who would think about him and have a relationship with him. I propose a free-for-all set in motion by God’s design, and you propose total control. I’m afraid that calling my hypothesis “descriptive” does not make it any less of an explanation of history from God’s viewpoint than your own.

dhw: So let’s just be clear: God personally dabbled mussel fibre stretching, or preprogrammed it 3.8 billion years ago, because without it life could not have gone on to enable him to produce the brain of Homo sapiens.

DAVID: No it is a side event of an eco-niche. The whole bush of life is what is important. Why not accept that God is an inventor?

If God exists, of course he is an inventor. And I agree that the whole bush of life is important, and not just the brain of Homo sapiens. And I suggest that a God who invents a mechanism that can produce the whole bush of life is no less inventive than a God who invents each and every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder individually, either through a 3.8-billion-year computer programme or by means of personal dabbling.