David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, May 03, 2020, 12:32 (1663 days ago) @ David Turell

Transferred from “complex speech mechanism”:

DAVID: Tracts in the brain have to begin development somewhere in time as evolution progressed to produce humans and their ability to have speech and language. As always I view this a God's preplanning for the future.

dhw: I agree totally with your first sentence, because I believe in common descent. bbbWhat mystifies me is that your now totally hands-on God apparently only wanted to directly design H. sapiens, but first he had to directly design the arcuate fasciculus 20-25million years ago, and then all the other bits and pieces over the next umpteen millions of years just to produce our voices.

DAVID: […] Do you deny the possibility that God planed ahead as He designed advances in evolution? Pre-planning, advanced programming, dabbling are all just reasonable guesses as to His methodology. […]

It’s difficult to keep up with your changes of mind, since almost everything was once pre-preprogrammed, then dabbled, then hands-on all the way (=entirely dabbled), and now it could be any of them. Incidentally, wouldn’t you say that hands-on all the way, directly designing and killing off millions of non-human life forms etc. before directly designing his only purpose (H. sapiens), sounds much more like experimenting than pre-planning? You even acknowledge that both experimenting and a free-for-all ever-changing bush are “reasonable guesses” (unlike your own, which makes no sense even to you) except that they each require a human thought pattern which apparently he probably/possibly has but hasn’t.

DAVID: It has always made sense to me. God chose to evolve humans starting with bacteria, and I have no idea why God did it that way. It was His choice.

dhw: That way makes sense to you, but you have no idea why he did it that way. So maybe he didn’t do it that way!

DAVID: Unreasonable extension. If I reasonably see God's choice of method, I don't need to know His reasons. […]

It is the reasonableness of your choice of God’s method that I am questioning! Neither of us can see any reason why an all-powerful God with one purpose (H. sapiens) would choose a method which involves creating and destroying millions of life forms that have nothing to do with H. sapiens!

DAVID: God created the history of evolution and allowed/caused all the exterminations.

dhw: Why “allowed”? Two days ago, he was totally hands-on.

DAVID: I specifically wrote 'allowed/caused'. You never think as I do. 'Allowed' can be seen as the Earth evolved and a disaster was coming, God could allow it to cause an extinction He wished, or He could have specifically created the extermination event, all hands-on!!!

Seeing a disaster coming is not “hands-on” if he didn’t design it! So now environmental changes could take place without his designing them, but just “allowing them”. So he could also have “allowed” life forms to design themselves (having given them the means to do so), and then designed an extermination event if he wished. Is that “unreasonable”?

DAVID: You can invent all sorts of possibilities, without knowing the real truth.

dhw: As all of us do, including you. None of us can know the “real truth”, and so we test the different possibilities. You can’t find the logic of yours, and you accept the logic of all mine, but reject them all because they are based on something [human thought patterns] which is probably/possibly true.

DAVID: You constantly ignore my statements that your logic is only acceptable to me only at a human level of thought, which is all we have when trying to ascertain God's purposes. Please quote me properly always.

Yes, it’s all we have. Neither of us can know the truth, and you are as human as I am. You find my alternatives logical, and you can’t find any logic for your own. Draw your own conclusions.

DAVID: As for imagination, the real problem starts with an approach to God, and that requires a proper set of guidelines as to how to think about Him and therefore how to think about what He creates.

dhw: […] If God exists, only he can know the “proper set of guidelines about how to think about him”. But if the guidelines you follow lead you to an explanation of evolution which makes no sense to you, perhaps you might reconsider your self-imposed guidelines as to how to think about him.

DAVID: My theory of God running evolution makes perfect sense to me. Again the usual misquotation. Why should we continue to debate when you constantly twist/reinterpret what I state as my thoughts?

It is not your theory of God running evolution that doesn’t make sense. It is your theory of HOW God runs evolution - namely by specially designing and destroying millions and millions of life forms etc., as above, although the only thing he wants to specially design is H. sapiens! You know very well that this is what I challenge, and your statement: “God chose to evolve humans starting with bacteria, and I have no idea why God did it that way” simply leaves out all the directly designed millions of non-human life forms etc. between bacteria and humans! Where is the twisting/reinterpreting?