Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, July 09, 2020, 10:52 (1349 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Total distortion! God cannot control each protein molecule's actions.

dhw: Why is creating what he wants a distortion? Why do you assume that an all-powerful God’s powers are limited and he was forced to create something he didn’t want to create and tried – sometimes in vain – to rectify?

DAVID: Forced! Crazy comment. God creates exactly what He wishes. What is distorted is your constant claim that God could have made the living biology system with perfect function. Impossible.

My proposal is that the “errors” in the system were exactly what he wished. If he did NOT wish for the errors, then he invented something which could not comply with his wishes, in which case his powers were limited and he was forced to invent something he did not wish for. Hence, according to you, his efforts – sometimes unsuccessful – to provide safeguards against the errors he had not wished for. You can’t have it both ways. Either he is all-powerful and created what he wished (my proposal), or his powers are limited because what he wished for was impossible (your proposal).

dhw: […] when I propose that he actually created the system he WANTED to create – because he did not want to create billions and billions of perfect life forms that would go on multiplying and diversifying but would never die – I am accused of “humanizing” him and making him act without a purpose.

DAVID: Your one lucid moment about recognizing death is builtin, which is not my issue about humanizing: you have Him experimenting and enjoying spectacles.

dhw: Experimenting would remove the discrepancy in your theory between God having only one purpose (us) but spending 3.X billion years directly designing anything but us. Your all-purposeful God must have had a reason for creating the great bush of life, including us, and it is perfectly possible that, as you put it yourself, he enjoys his work much as a painter enjoys his paintings. Of course we can only speculate, but as you so rightly assume, he probably has thought patterns similar to ours.

DAVID: Same mistaken approach. But you always forget that the huge bush gives us the food energy we need for a huge, and growing, human population.

And you seem deliberately to “forget” that life did not begin with humans, and according to you he spent 3.X billion years providing food for millions of non-human life forms, although his only purpose was to design humans. Please stop dodging.

dhw: How can a “logical method of thought” be the same as ours if we can’t understand the logic?

DAVID: Your comment about understanding God's logic is impossible to achieve. Whatever logic God used to decided upon His method of evolving us, I am sure it was logical, but He doesn't tell us His logic behind His reasons. How can we understand it?

You’re sure God’s logic is like ours but we can’t understand it! And yet you can understand the logic behind all the alternatives I offer to your personal theory about God’s purpose and method, and the ONLY reason you reject them is that they endow God with patterns of thought similar to ours, although you believe that he probably has patterns of thought similar to ours. Silly.

dhw: […] if your all-powerful God had only one purpose (us), why did he spend 3.X billion years NOT designing us but designing millions of now extinct, non-human life forms, econiches etc.? Your answer: no idea.

DAVID: False conclusion. You've totally ignored my two reasons: God runs evolution and chose to evolve humans over time. The huge bush of life provides food for a burgeoning population of humans.

We don’t know how God “runs” evolution – your way (designing everything) or my way (allowing free rein), and once again you forget that according to you he specially designed a huge bush of life and food for thousands of millions of years before humans came on the scene – and you have no idea why. THAT is the illogical part of your theory which you constantly try to dodge.

DAVID: My 'no idea' is not as you always imply. I have 'no idea' why He made the choices He made. I can't know!!! History can only tell us what He did, not why. My interpretation is not your interpretation, which basically is, why wasn't God impatient? Patently humanizing.

You have no idea why he made the choices you have imposed on him! History tells us that there was a vast bush before humans arrived. The rest is your illogical guesswork.

dhw: Goodbye to logic. “Our logic is similar to God’s” = God has no idea either. If God exists, I reckon he would know what he wants and would do it. Hence all the logical alternatives I offer.

DAVID: Your approach to God is denial, not logic. Your 'human logical thoughts' about God are all humanizing. God knows exactly what He is doing. Your bold is totally without logical thought. Read my comment above carefully. My 'no idea' is not your 'no idea'.

Denial of what? I agree that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing – hence my different alternatives. Your silly “humanizing” rejection of them is dealt with above.


Complete thread:

 RSS Feed of thread

powered by my little forum