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

by David Turell , Monday, July 27, 2020, 23:55 (1578 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: 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?

DAVID: God is not there holding hands with the molecules. They are designed to follow chemical commands, but the molecule may make its own mistake and mess up the reaction. Not God's fault, and He recognized the problem with backup systems in place. You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can't control.

dhw: I’m going to skip most of my own responses now, and focus on your own statements, as you are creating an extraordinary pattern. Evidently your God created molecules which – whether he intended it or not – are capable of going their own way. They make “mistakes” which he does not want them to make, and even the backup systems don’t always work. And these “biological accidents are chance events.”

You miss the entire point, but state it. Once again: the molecules are programmed to have certain actions, but that programming is not an absolute control, and the molecules make mistakes in trying to follow it. Remember molecules must react with other molecules or properly fold to cause a reaction. they are not puppets!!!

Now consider these two comments of yours:

DAVID: “A mutational error favored by natural selection or by God may have arranged for our human evolution.”

Does't sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.

DAVID: “God did not want errors. If the mutation resulted in our evolution God achieved His goal!”

Fine. God created the mutation. Again, for clarity, where is the quote.

You’ve told us that “God is not at work now”. Maybe he was not at work in the distant past either. In the picture you have just drawn for us, he designed the system, put in backups – some of which worked and some of which didn’t – and from then on (apart perhaps from the occasional dabble) the cells simply went their own way. In other words, they had free rein.

My idea is God is not at work now pushing further evolution, but he is here. i'm never qa deist.

DAVID: I know you don't agree with my version of God, as you humanize Him beyond recognition. God dos not give free rein. He is too purposeful, our major disagreement.

dhw: I have dealt with the silly “humanization” argument elsewhere.

Not silly. i enumerated your human reasons for Him many times.

dhw: The version of your God that you have just presented has him accidentally – despite all his best efforts to provide safeguards - giving free rein to molecules to make their own mistakes, although these random errors may have led to the evolution of humans. Our major disagreement most emphatically is not about God’s purposefulness. If he exists, I have no doubt that the whole history of evolution reflects his purpose. And I have offered you different possible and – by your own admission logical – interpretations both of his purpose and his method of achieving that purpose. However, I have NOT offered you a version in which I combine an all-purposeful, all-knowing, always-in-control God who is unable to control the system of life that he has created, whose one aim is to produce H. sapiens but who directly designs every non-human life form, lifestyle, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life before designing the only life form he wants to design, and whose one and only purpose may have been achieved through random mutations although he directly designs every species. I’m afraid I find such a version too illogical to support.

That's fine. I find God as powerful as He can be. You are still to influenced by Biblical version of God. My God differs. The bold is your usual wish for an impatient God, although you don't seem to realize that is exactly what your statement says.