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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 28, 2020, 15:54 (1577 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] 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.”

DAVID: 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!!!

A remarkable reversal of your usual claim that not only cells but also multicellular organisms ARE puppets. According to you, they have no mind of their own but follow God’s instructions: from leaf-biting, nest-building and camouflage, through to every bacterial response to every threat, and every successful defence mounted by the immune system – all preprogrammed or dabbled. I am the one who fights against the idea that cells are puppets and God is the puppet master. And now I have fight against your belief that he is a puppet master who can’t control his puppets.

DAVID: Now consider these two comments of yours:

They are comments of yours, not mine! So please consider them yourself.

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

DAVID: Does'nt sound like me. I need the precise reference point to respond.

See your comment under “Human evolution: changes in sialic acid changed immunity” Saturday, July 25, 2020

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

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

Sunday July 26 on this thread. Your first statement suggests that it would have been an error, not a deliberate creation. I’m sorry, but once you start positing contradictory theories, you are bound to get into more and more of a tangle trying to defend them.

dhw: 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.

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

An integral feature of deism is that God does not intervene, but that is not the point here. You have molecules going their own way, independently of your God’s instructions. So why can’t you allow for the possibility that once he had created them, he deliberately allowed them to go their own way? After all, you have now abandoned the concept of an all-powerful God always in control of everything, so why not at least remove the helpless tag and agree to the possibility that the free-running system he created may after all have been the system he wanted to create?

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.

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

I have many times enumerated possible alternatives involving thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours, and you have dismissed them on the grounds that they involve thought patterns, emotions, logic or attributes similar to ours, although you have explicitly stated that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours! Please stop contradicting yourself.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: 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.

You have no idea how powerful your God can be, and my alternatives have nothing to do with the biblical version. Please quote the biblical references to experimentation, late arrival of humans in his thinking, giving cells the intelligence to do their own designing, creating life as a spectacle for himself, relief from eternal boredom… And the bold has nothing to do with patience – another of your red herrings to divert attention away from the illogicality of the bolded theory above. See the other thread.