Unanswered questions (General)

by David Turell , Friday, May 31, 2019, 15:28 (2001 days ago) @ dhw

I have again transferred material to this thread, where it is more appropriate.

DAVID (transferred from “cellular intelligence”): I agree that God might have designed a semi-autonomous design mechanism, but you view God as wishy-washy in control of evolution, and i view Him in firm control.

dhw: Semi-autonomous is meaningless.

DAVID: Semi-autonomous applies only to the mechanism you imagine God might have given to organisms so they can speciate.

dhw: Since you insist that your God either preprogrammed or personally dabbled every innovation, please specify precisely what half of the process of speciation is autonomous.

I use semi-autonomous in the sense that it is totally controlled by guidelines, when an organism initiates the process.

dhw: Your “firm control” contradicts your belief that the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens, but for some unknown reason he proceeded to design 3.5+ billion years’ worth of non-human life forms. Furthermore, you have recently decided that he did NOT control local environmental changes, which means he did not control the very thing which his innovations were designed in advance to cope with! A weird kind of "firm control".

DAVID: You make a constant note that species come and go. Succumbing to environmental changes is part of the pattern of evolution.

dhw: Of course it is, and it makes nonsense of the claim that your in-control God specially designed all the different species extant and extinct if he only wanted to design one species, namely H. sapiens. And please tell us how he remains in “firm control” if he does not “control the very thing which his innovations were designed in advance to cope with” – namely changing environmental conditions. Does he keep permanent watch on a crystal ball?

The usual complaint ignoring the point that if God started life and wished to create humans He chose an evolutionary process on exhibit in history. He had the right to choose His method! I do not know how much control God kept on environmental changes, but I think He evolved our special Earth to support life.

DAVID: […] God does not offer any plan to maintain all species forever, which is the implication!

dhw: That is not the implication at all! If God exists, it is as clear as it could possibly be that he did not want species to last for ever, but you claim that he specially designed all of them although the only one he wanted to design was H. sapiens! Yet again: Why did he specially design billions of life forms etc. if he only wanted to design H. sapiens? You simply refuse to acknowledge that it is the combination of your different hypotheses that renders them incongruous.

Nothing incongruous if you believed in the power of God. You are arguing God should not have chosen to evolve humans. Why shouldn't He have chosen this method?