Natural Wonders & Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, September 20, 2019, 18:40 (1889 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: You don't question your interpretation of your God's choices of action. You believe that he specially designed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder. Why is specially designing each one (even if he keeps reusing patterns) easier for him than inventing cells which can do their own designing? And why is the latter more “humanizing” than the former?

DAVID: It is loss of complete control. My God is pure purpose, knowing exactly what He wants. Also see the answers below.

dhw: And why do you refuse to countenance the possibility that your God did not WANT complete control? And why is WANTING complete control less humanizing that NOT wanting complete control?

Many Humans do want complete control over their projects and are very purposeful, but that does make God a human-like personality if He is ot ally purposeful. Adler warns we cannot know His actual personality. But you jump right in with your humanizing suggestions.

DAVID: Your view of God's personality is not mine. In your theory God does not have a purposeful goal, just wanders along and lets evolution run itself. Namby-pamby is your insecure wandering God.

dhw; Of course he has a purposeful goal, though you prefer not to discuss it, because if you do, you will find yourself agreeing with me! I have asked you what you think was his purpose in specially designing us. Your answers so far have been to have us admire his work and to have a relationship with us, and you have also said he watches us and the rest of his creations with interest (all nice and human).

My guesses are responses to your probing for God's reasons, but I view them as pure guesses, with n o real substance.

dhw: That’s fine with me, though it still doesn’t explain why he would decide to spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us. And so I suggest that your God’s purposeful goal was NOT solely to design H. sapiens, but to design a mechanism which would produce a vast variety of things (including humans) for him to “watch with interest”, and I suggest that unpredictability is far more interesting to watch than predictability. Nothing namby-pamby or wandering or insecure. And all perfectly logical and completely purposeful. Unlike “I have no idea why….” The only objection you have raised so far is that, although you have suggested all this yourself when pushed, you just happen to know that your God doesn't think that way because he's not human.

Exactly. He is not human and probably doesn't think as we do.

DAVID: History of fossil specimens tells us new species arrive as beautiful new complete designs, which we recognize cannot happen without mental design input. Old species don't have the mental capacity to design their successors. Epigenetics produces only minor modifications or adaptations.

dhw: Yes, yes, nobody knows how speciation arose, and the theory that the cellular intelligence made evident by epigenetics might also be capable of major changes remains as unproven as the existence of God and as the theory that God preprogrammed the very first cells with every single undabbled species, lifestyle and natural wonder. We can only theorize.

God is chosen as the need for a designer is obvious. You can't accept him, which is fine for you.