Bacterial Intelligence and Evolution (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, May 11, 2019, 20:44 (1805 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I simply say: it was God's choice of method.

dhw: And I say how do you know, and why do you assume that he chose a method you cannot understand whereas there are alternatives which you can understand?

DAVID: We have exhaustively discussed all the alternative reasons in the past. Why try to repeat them? I've simply chosen to accept God's choice of method to create what He desires to create.

dhw: If God exists, and since we both accept that evolution happened, we both accept that he used evolution to create what he wanted to create. Our disagreement is over how he used evolution and what he wanted to create.

We both see the same history of evolution. You are the one fighting with God's choice. It cannot be explained, just accepted.

DAVID: I don't have to know why He made he choice He did. Only you want it.

dhw: Again you take it as a fact that he chose to specially design thousands of non-human life forms to eat or not eat one another until he specially designed the only thing he wanted to specially design: H. sapiens.I want to know what logical reason you can find for this interpretation of his choice – but you have no idea.

DAVID: History tells me, if God is in change, and I believe He is, that what you have described is what He chose to do. I don't find a need to interpret known history, and just accept it as God's choice. I repeat, for some reason you want an interpretation, when any other thought would be an unsubstantiated guess.

dhw: If God exists, of course he is in charge. But it is NOT “known history” that he preprogrammed or dabbled every life form etc., or that he set out with the sole purpose of designing H. sapiens. That is YOUR interpretation, but “known history” is confined to the existence of all the different life forms extant and extinct, and the fact that H. sapiens is the latest of these life forms. You admit that you have no idea why he would have chosen your “unsubstantiated guess” at his method in order to fulfil your “unsubstantiated guess” at his goal, both of which are your attempts to interpret known history, and then you complain that I want an interpretation! No, I am simply challenging the logic of your interpretation and offering alternatives which you yourself have agreed are logical.

Of course it is not 'known history' that He pre-programmed or dabbled. I am simply using the known history of evolution to say that it presents God's choice of creation method. How He controlled it is my attempt at guessing how He managed the genetics. You keep conflating my guesses as a history. I've never done that. If you accept the possibility that God ran the progressive complexity of advancing evolution, and humans are the current last event, than obviously they must be accepted as a goal. You are arguing that other goals might be coming. That is as much guesswork as my suppositions about He has run the show. I'm simply sticking with what has happened so far, and my supposition is that more advanced organisms will never appear.