God and Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, February 02, 2019, 19:04 (2119 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You are again sticking the different parts of your hypotheses together in the hope of glossing over the illogicalities. So let me try again. For argument’s sake, I am accepting God’s existence, and that he must have had a purpose. I also accept evolution, and so evolution must have been his method of achieving his purpose. What I do NOT accept are your fixed beliefs 1) that he specially designed every single innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of life and evolution (although I accept the possibility of dabbles), and 2) that his one and only purpose in designing billions of galaxies, solar systems, black holes, stars, and every single organism that ever lived was to design H. sapiens.

Can you explain why we are here? I have a very different series of logical thoughts than
you do. If survival drives evolution as you believe (an irrational theory never proven), we have no need to be here battling on our computers, evolved way beyond survival necessity! We are a totally unexpected miraculous result. So once again you have questioned God's choice of method. Either He had to do it this way or He chose the method, no way of telling!

Repeated under “Big brain”:
DAVID: You know I view God designing every stage of evolution so humans appear from a stepwise process.

dhw: Yes, I know. And in order to maintain this view, you constantly block out the inconsistencies: 1) an always-in-control God who has one purpose (us) but spends 3.5+ billion years designing other things, and 2) you believe in evolution but insist that your God specially designs every species.

DAVID: Again it is you who questions God's choice of method. I accept it. Yes, theistic evolution is not your natural automatic evolution.

dhw: Once more: it is your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method of achieving his purpose that I question. There is no reason to contrast theistic evolution with “natural evolution”, and I don’t know why you insert the word “automatic”. If (one possibility:) your God created a mechanism enabling cell communities to work out their own ways to improve their chances of survival, then you have theistic, non-automatic, natural evolution.

There is not a smidgen of evidence organisms can act as you wish.

dhw: Your own thinking “may not apply”, so why bother to tell us that your God’s one and only purpose in creating the universe and life was to design H. sapiens, and he decided that he would take 3.5+ billion years designing billions of other life forms etc. before doing it?

Answered above. We can 't know if God is limited or not.

DAVID: I'm sure He watches everything He created, like an artist enjoying his own paintings.

dhw: So, still sticking to a theistic explanation of evolution, you now agree that your God’s purpose in creating the bush of life might have been to enjoy watching the bush of life. And since you think he enjoys watching humans because we have free will, perhaps you will even agree that “freedom” (i.e. cell communities freely using their God-given evolutionary mechanisms to create their own designs) might make all forms of life - your “everything” - interesting to him. (I live in hope. )

DAVID: No hope. I'm sure He watches, maybe in enjoyment.

dhw: I’ll settle for a “maybe”. That is sufficient to show that “maybe” he has what you call “human” thoughts, and “maybe” there is something wrong with your hypothesis that, while specially designing whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch’s flight paths and weaverbirds’ nests, his thought was: “I must improve their chances of survival so that life will survive for 3.5+ billion years until I can fulfil my one and only purpose of specially designing H. sapiens.”

Again questioning God's method with no possible answer. And the issue always exists. Why are we here? Survival does not require it. I'll chose to believe it is God's choice.