David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, April 13, 2020, 13:49 (1683 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw (under “orphan genes”): In what way does my theory “diminish” God? The mechanism I propose involves the same astonishing powers of design as having your God popping down to earth every time he wants to add bits and pieces to his whale. […]

DAVID: The bold shows your incomplete understanding of true theism. God doesn't pop down from His heavenly throne !!! He is all around us all the time.

I was being sarcastic. Actually some people do believe God lives in heaven, but of course only panentheists are “true” theists. However, your complaint raises an interesting question, which I’ll tackle another time: where is God? Meanwhile, you still haven’t explained why personal dabbles require greater powers of design than a mechanism that can do its own designing. An analogy might be that your God designed the human brain which in turn designed computers and rockets that could fly to Mars.

DAVID: And your idea of design by organisms using a mechanism on their own without guidelines means God gives up total control of His works is obviously diminishing, as I've told you many times.

And I ask you why that is diminishing! Is God diminished because he gave up control of human beings? Are presidents diminished if they are not dictators but allow freedom of choice, of speech, of faith? Are fathers diminished by letting children develop their own tastes and talents? By what criteria do you claim that a God who creates a free-for-all (though always with the option to dabble) is less than a God who creates nothing but puppets?

DAVID: You never seem to realize your imagined self theism is always theism lite.

dhw: Why do you regard a God who creates an unpredictable spectacle as “liter” than a God who creates a bushful of puppets?

DAVID: Who are the bushful of puppets? You constantly apply human style thinking to what God has done. He may or may not think as you do, but my theistic view of God is that He has a lot more interest in His purposes than being a spectator. Again your God is very humanized.

Your God is such a control freak that even a weaverbird can’t build its own nest without his “guidelines”! But please tell us what other non-human interests you think your hidden God has in the world he has created.

dhw: Why would a food supply for non-humans tell us that God anticipated creating a food supply for humans? There is simply no connection.

DAVID: So now your view is God doesn't anticipate. Your escape is humanizing him.

No, my view is that if your all-powerful God’s sole purpose for creating life was to create humans, the only food supply needed would have been a food supply for humans, so why would he specially design millions of extinct food supplies for millions of extinct species?

dhw: If he exists, what is he doing? Either watching or not watching! What is your definition of “heavy” and “lite”, and how do you know that your hidden God is one but not the other?

DAVID: God lite is your humanized view. My 'heavy' God is seriously purposeful, knows exactly what He is doing, anticipates what He must provide for (as I explained for the giant bush), which you view as a spectacle! […] The problem is you do not recognize what you do wrong as a committed theist, because you don't know how to be one.

My God is also seriously purposeful, and knows exactly what he is doing but, unlike you, I propose a purpose for the WHOLE of the bush. Your sole purpose is the creation of humans, and you have no idea why he created the WHOLE bush. Anticipation = he knows what’s coming. So he specially designs millions of non-human life forms and food supplies etc., but he knows that after 3.X billion years, he’s going to specially design humans and their food supplies. How does that explain WHY he specially designed the extinct millions when he only wanted one lot and could have done it any way he wanted? Please stop kidding yourself that my agnosticism lends logic to your theory.

dhw (transferred from “brain expansion”): Two days ago you wrote: “All I have agreed to is that God thinks logically as we do, nothing more. "Emotions and attributes similar" is a possibility…” You merely reduced probability to possibility.

DAVID: What I have really thought underlying all this is my God is totally different than your weakly imagined humanized God. My God does not possibly think as you want Him to.

Thank you for agreeing again that your God might possibly have thought patterns similar to ours. Yes, you have a fixed idea of God’s nature – he is a control freak. And a control freak – i.e. a God who thinks the way you want him to – can’t possibly create something that allows evolution to run freely. You are right. But that doesn’t mean God thinks the way you want him to think. And since the way you want him to think leads to all the illogicalities that wreck your theory of evolution (you have no idea why he would have chosen your method of achieving your purpose), one can only conclude that your theory of evolution might just possibly be wrong.