Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, 15:31 (1625 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You presume that he designed not only each step from bacteria to us, but also each life form, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc. that had nothing whatsoever to do with us. All of these constitute part of the “history of evolution”. Back we go to the question at the heart of this whole discussion: What do you “presume” was his purpose in directly designing all of them?

DAVID: Covered endlessly in econiches discussion re' food supply for billions of eventual humans covering the Earth, as now. Don't you notice it is such a problem there are huge industries in agriculture and animal husbandry to unnaturally develop enough food supply? Your bolded phrase shows what you choose not to recognize.

dhw: But you believe that your God directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms and econiches before humans even appeared on the scene! Stop pretending it never happened! The whole discussion centres on why, if his sole purpose was humans, he specially designed all the extinct life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans! You have no idea why, and so now you are arguing as if life and econiches only began with humans!

DAVID: Once again you are assuming God did not choose to evolve humans from bacteria as history tells us and you agree He could have done. Your twisted view of my reasoning solves nothing.

You keep deliberately dodging the issue of why an all-powerful God whose sole purpose was to evolve humans from bacteria would choose to directly design millions of life forms and econiches that had nothing whatsoever to do with humans. […]

DAVID (re econiches): Building such a food supply required an enlarged bush as we have today to support 7.3 billion humans and growing more.

dhw: Of course econiches are vital, and always have been for every form of life! But there is no support for your theory that your God specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct life forms and econiches, and did so for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens. Please stop trying to conflate the importance of econiches with your theory of evolution!

DAVID: Still comes back to the interpretation of why humans are here, based on our very different attributes, which you always try to diminish by telling us how bright every other organism happens to be, which is supposed to diminish our difference.

Shifting the subject again!This has nothing whatsoever to do with the absurd argument that your God designed all those extinct econiches in order to feed humans who did not even exist. As for the “difference” I have always acknowledged it. (Repeated for the umpteenth time in yesterday’s post on brain expansion, precisely because I knew you would resort to this distortion: ("This is not to downplay the vast gap between our consciousness levels and theirs. I am merely responding to your reference to "parts".) I have even offered you two explanations of the bush which allow for your God’s special focus on humans.

dhw: I would suggest that a theory which posits God as being interested in all the products of his invention is actually more likely than a theory which posits that he deliberately designed all of these products although the only thing he really wanted to design was humans.

DAVID: You misread. I still object to spectacles, etc., […] Of course God was/is interested in all of life's vast bush that He created on his way to humans. He deliberately and purposely designed all of it.

dhw: You object to his being interested in the spectacle of life’s vast bush, but of course he was/is interested in all of life’s vast bush. Curiouser and curiouser.

DAVID: Curious only if you refuse to recognize God's purposeful activity to reach humans as a final step in evolution. God is always interested in his activity.

As before, I have offered you two explanations of the pre-human bush which allow for your God’s “final step” AND explain the vast bush that preceded it AND offer a purpose for ALL the life forms, including humans. Why would he bother to create any organism, if he wasn’t interested in its activities? And humans, with their special gifts would be especially interesting. You agree but you object.