Back to David's theory of evolution: God's errors (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, July 26, 2020, 10:43 (1579 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I noted that you believe God gave instructions on how to correct the errors he couldn’t correct, and these corrections were also subject to errors, and although he created the system from scratch, it wasn’t his fault, apart from those errors in the system that kill old people (and unavoidably kill young people), because those were deliberately designed.

DAVID: The bold is true but ignores the fact that progressive aging to cause death is also purposely built in.

So he deliberately designed the diseases that kill old people (and accidentally kill young people) and he deliberately designed death from old age. There’s not a great deal left that you can say he didn’t deliberately design. It’s the death of young people which aparently was not part of his plan but was unavoidable and therefore, by some strange logic which I can’t follow, their death is not his fault.

DAVID:If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault.

dhw: So if I invent a flying machine which crashes because of a technical error I can’t stop, you won’t blame me as you hurtle to oblivion.

DAVID: A technical error is the designers fault!!! Like the MAX 737. These biological accidents are chance events, accidents not a designers fault.

But you keep telling us that it was your God who designed the molecules! Design is design, whether technological or biological. And if he's responsible for the designs that do work, why is he not responsible for the designs that don't?

dhw: If we can correct errors he can’t correct, then we are smarter than he is. If he exists, I honestly DON’T think we could be smarter than him. But you keep emphasizing the incompetence of your all-powerful, all-knowing, always-in-control God, whereas I propose that he knew exactly what he was doing.

DAVID: God is not incompetent and we are not smarter. God is not at work now and has left us in charge, with great brains to solve accidental problems, which we often can do. Your view of God is as weird as usual.

He’s left us now, and our great brains can correct some of the errors he couldn’t correct. Somehow this means that although the errors were part of his design, they were not his fault, and somehow it means that we are not smarter than him. But if I suggest that your God knew what he was doing, and what you call errors were not errors at all but an integral part of his plan, I am the one with a “weird view” of God.

dhw: We should also remember that all these errors accumulated over thousands of millions of years of evolution (unless bacteria suffered from all the diseases now known to humankind!) and so the question must arise as to how and when these “safeguards” were actually installed? How could he have directly dabbled or provided the first cells with a 3.8-billion-year programme to correct errors he could not correct?

DAVID: Your view of my presentations of God as illogical is due to your strange views about Him. I still believe in God despite my honest and logical presentation of biological problems that are not His fault. I am the one willing to show that God is not all-powerful and all-knowing and He can't stop molecular errors in a system He created, and you question me as if I am against God!! Unbelievable role reversals. Don't believe the God of the Bible.

A total misrepresentation of the whole argument, as you try to dodge the question in blue. I am not questioning your belief in God. I am questioning the logic behind your interpretation of the historical facts. For years you have objected to my theory that your God might have given free rein to evolution, because according to you he is all-powerful and always in control of everything. Now suddenly he is not all-powerful and he is not in control. Why? Because if he was, you would have to blame him for all the errors that indiscriminately cause disease and death. That is what I would call an “unbelievable role reversal”! And no, no, no, I do not question you as if you are against God! I question your interpretation of God’s nature, motives and methods.

QUOTE (from article on sialic acid)… This fertility barrier might have helped divide Homo populations into different species more than 2 million years ago, the researchers speculated. (DAVID’s bold)

DAVID: The last comment demonstrates that the battle with pathogens is a constantly changing arena of struggle. Note the bold. A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.

The authors attribute the change to a defence against malaria, and indeed, the battle is ongoing as new threats emerge demanding new cures. That is how the library of responses builds up, and again raises the problem of when your God is supposed to have designed the errors and the safeguards that did or didn’t work. Furthermore, the division into different species of homo plus “mutational errors” favoured by your God can hardly be said to fit in with your theory that your all-powerful, always-in-control God set out with the one and only purpose of “evolving” (which according to you = directly designing) H. sapiens.