David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, April 06, 2020, 12:15 (1690 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw *(under “Nature’s Wonders”): I always accept your arguments for design, but you have given us only two possible methods of design. One is a programme your God created 3.8 billion years ago, […] The other is direct dabbling, i.e. direct creation. Which of these do you think he used for temperature sensing, or can you perhaps think of a different method of design?

I have edited your response to enable us to deal with the salient points.

DAVID: […] my initial simplistic answer was preprogramming […] The second stated method for God is hands-on direct creation of all stages, a form of constant dabbling. […] We currently cannot find any way the genome is coded to speciate. It might be found, but seems very unlikely to me, with no hints in sight. Which brings me to a current conclusion, mentioned over and over: God does all new speciation Himself, and preprogramming is, therefore, very limited as a technique.

Dabbling = direct creation, so you are clearly opting for biblical creationism (= the different species of living things were separately created by God, as opposed to their having evolved). I don’t have a problem with this as your faith, but it somewhat contradicts your message to me a couple of days ago: “Note religions will give you all the answers you want, all from human reasoning. I carefully avoid that approach […].” You haven’t said whether you think temperature sensing was preprogrammed 3.8 billion years ago or directly created.

DAVID: A fully purposeful God with exact goals in mind will not allow any other approach, such as the dhw suggestion of giving the organisms means of evolving. That means God gives up some/ or in large part directional control of evolution. [...]My conclusion is the evidence supports a God who is extremely purposeful.

Who in his right mind would believe in a God who created the universe and life without having a purpose? This whole discussion is about your restriction of God’s purpose in creating billions of years’ worth of non-human life forms etc., extant and extinct, to the production of H. sapiens. (And you don’t even want to speculate on your extremely purposeful God’s purpose in producing H. sapiens!) Here is another theistic theory for you: God doesn’t want to spend eternity thinking about himself. And so he has an idea: a vast variety of living things whose forms and behaviours will give him an endless source of interest, e.g. enjoyment, as a painter enjoys his paintings (D. Turell). These include humans capable of questioning him, of passing tests like dealing with nasty viruses (D. Turell), or of admiring his work (D. Turell), or of having a relationship with him (D. Turell). Part of his interest lies in unpredictability – a world of automatic puppets would be as boring as sitting in eternal isolation - and so although he reserves the right to dabble, he gives organisms the means to work out their own responses to different environments and situations (autonomous cell communities, human free will). Before you cry “humanizing” (a) remember that he could very well think like us and probably has similar thought patterns and emotions to ours (D. Turell), and (b) this is not the objection you have just raised, which is that your God is “extremely purposeful”. Now please explain why this theory is not extremely purposeful.

DAVID: God evolved the Earth to prepare for a survivable evolution of life with the proper-sized bush.

dhw: What is the “proper-sized bush” for the fulfilment of his one and only purpose, to create H. sapiens? 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and natural wonders etc., 99% of which must go extinct!? What is your criterion for "proper"?

DAVID: Why do you ask that question when you fully should know the answer from my previous comments? The current human population requires a bush of that size […]

You know perfectly well that I am not questioning the need for the CURRENT bush. I am asking why an all-powerful God who could create us any way he wanted had to create 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human bush before getting on to the only species plus econiche(s) that he wanted to create!

dhw: I have accepted your argument for design, but I challenge your illogical interpretation of the designer’s combined purpose and motive. I also offer logical alternatives, but then you grumble that we mustn't humanize a God who could very well think like us and probably has similar thought patterns to ours.

DAVID: I don't grumble. God's purpose in creating us is obvious. Of course we must not humanize him as you constantly prefer to do.

You don’t want to deal with his purpose in creating us. That requires “humanizing”. You only want to deal with his purpose in creating the universe and life, which you say was to create us. See above for both “purpose” and “humanizing”.