David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 08, 2020, 10:22 (1688 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Like you, I have no idea why an all-powerful, all-purposeful God, with only one purpose in mind – to create us – should spend thousands of millions of years directly creating thousands of millions of now extant non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles, strategies and natural wonders before directly creating lots of different hominins and homos before directly creating us, his sole purpose.

DAVID: Unlike the bold I have a completely sensible idea presented many times, and the validity totally ignored by you: God foresaw the mass of humans now on Earth. He chose to evolve a huge bush of life for the necessary food supply we have today. Remember, I've discussed the food factories we have created, and their dangers. We, with our big brains, are the stewards over all of this. Obviously , with clear thinking and analysis, what God did makes perfect sense. I don't know why you are blind to it. Extremely well thought out and purposeful.

You know perfectly well that I am not referring to the CURRENT bush but to your belief that he directly created 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, econiches etc., 99% of which are extinct, although apparently his one and only aim was to create H.sapiens and whatever bush H. sapiens needed to feed on. One purpose, the ability to achieve that purpose any way he wanted, but all his attention devoted to life forms etc. that had nothing to do with his one purpose! You have admitted over and over again that you have no idea why he did this, but your solution to the problem now is simply to ignore it.

dhw: With my theist hat on, I have no problem with God creating the process of evolution! My problem, as you well know but desperately seek to avoid, is the illogical theory bolded above. It is this theory which creates an inexplicable delay!

DAVID: Same totally inconsistent reasoning. Evolution, which you accept theistically is run by God, must take time, so there is no delay, just required elapsed time until humans appear.

Of course evolution takes time, and of course there is no delay if your God did NOT have one particular purpose in mind, and yes, time certainly elapsed before humans "appeared" (strange word, since according to you, he directly designed them). But that does not explain why...ugh, ugh, not again!... if your God’s one and only purpose was to directly create H. sapiens and their food supply, he spent 3.X billion years NOT directly creating H. sapiens, but directly creating millions of life forms and their food supply, although they had nothing to do with H. sapiens.

dhw: I propose that a purposeful God would stick to his purpose, and therefore the direct creation of all those non-human twigs either had a purpose independent of humans, or (less likely, in my view) constituted experiments in the quest to create a being with thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to his.

DAVID: Don't you remember? The various tribes of sapiens from different environments interbreeding gave the final sapiens a plethora of attributes useful in many climates and sickness situations.

Don’t you remember, your God can apparently directly create whatever he wants to directly create. And your comment ignores the subject of “purpose”, which was the focus of what I wrote – since you claimed that only your “purpose” suited God’s purposefulness.

DAVID: What! You want is instant creation of the bush and us? Didn't happen.

dhw: According to your latest theory, he directly creates all species and natural wonders etc, etc. We’re not talking about “instant”, if you mean everything all at once. I’m all in favour of the theory that your God wanted to create a long-lasting, ever changing bush. I’m only objecting to the theory bolded above - the one you agree is not illogical so long as we don't apply it to the actual history.

DAVID: Exactly, the opposite formation of my position: My logical opinion is above. Can you finally apply some real logic, instead of taking old quotes out of context?

Your logical opinion above has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem of why an all-powerful God would directly create 3.X billion….See above, twice over, and a thousand times before that! Please tell me what other context you could possibly have been referring to when you wrote: “Nothing illogical required if one does not apply human reasoning to the actual history”.