David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 30, 2019, 13:14 (1879 days ago)

I am combining quotes from different threads in order to avoid the constant repetitions.

David’s theory of evolution is that his God is in total control, and H. sapiens was his one and only goal; God decided to take 3.X billion years before starting to fulfil his goal, therefore he had to specially design all the other life forms in order to cover the time involved. David has no idea why God chose this method of fulfilling his one and only goal. He denies that this is his theory, and so I have quoted his own words: “He knew those designs were required interim goals to establish the necessary food supply to cover the time he knew he had decided to take.” He agrees that this is his theory (“Of course.”)

dhw: Do please make up your mind. And let us not forget that you have no idea why he decided to “evolve humans over time” as described in your theory.

DAVID: Same Theory: God, the Creator, created evolution as His choice of life's creation. Obvious logical result of accepting God as Creator.

That is not the theory that is in dispute here! If God exists, then for those of us who believe in evolution, clearly evolution was his chosen means of achieving his purpose. The dispute is over your choice of God's possible purpose and of the possible means of fulfilling that purpose. Since the above theory makes no sense even to you, I have offered alternative explanations of purpose and method. For instance, if he really did specially design us humans with our very special level of consciousness, it may have been an idea that occurred to him only after 3.X billion years, or if he wanted us from the very beginning, he may have spent 3.X billion years experimenting to find a way of achieving this purpose.

DAVID: Experimentation strongly implies a humanized God. God knows what He is doing, and makes His own clear Choices.

Of course God, if he exists, would make his own choices, but an experimenting scientist or inventor “knows what he is doing” or his experiments will have no chance of success! “Humanizing” is your desperate attempt to escape from the illogicality of your theory, but you have admitted that “He very well could think like us, but it is only a guess, as your suppositions about His thoughts are.” As indeed are your own. If he “very well could think like us”, a “humanizing” hypothesis is clearly just as likely to be true as a hypothesis based on the belief that he does not think like us. And so you are left with one last straw to clutch at: your theory is logical provided we jettison human logic:

DAVID: The history of creation tells us how God the Creator did it. Nothing illogical required if one does not apply human reasoning to the actual history.
And
DAVID: You try to make God logical to fit your human thinking, It doesn't work.
Let us remember that your theory as summarized above is your personal interpretation of your God’s purpose and method. In contrast to my alternatives, apparently your theory is perfectly logical provided we do not use human logic to try and understand it. May I humbly suggest that if God “very well could think like us”, theories which ARE logical by human reasoning are more likely to be true than a theory which you as a human find illogical and which is based on the assumption that God does NOT think like us.