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

by dhw, Friday, July 31, 2020, 11:22 (1574 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: Why did you think it didn’t sound like you?

DAVID: Mutational errors may or may not be God, but it went forward with His permission.

dhw: If God chooses to leave a good mutation, he clearly has the power to eliminate it. However, you have forgotten that you told us he does NOT have the power to eliminate bad mutations (errors).

DAVID: Show me where I said the bold. Not my thought.

Sunday July 26 (and several times before that, addressed to me): “You do not understand the issue that high speed reactions can have errors God can’t control.” All part of your convoluted argument (Friday July 24) that “If He couldn't stop the molecular errors, then they are not His fault. “ But directly contradicted by the bold below ("God chooses to...eliminate them.") One contradiction after another.

DAVID: "DNA as a free molecule can make a mutation by error or gamma rays. God chooses to leave it if worthwhile or eliminate them, exactly what I said." Our immune system is what we currently have. It makes mistakes. God is not in the business of fixing them now; it is up to us and our big brain. (dhw's bold)

dhw: According to you he was incapable of solving the problems in the past. I don’t know what sort of business you think he is involved in now, but if you are implying that he could solve them now if he wanted to, then we would have a learning God very different from the all-knowing one you started out with, though fitting in nicely with one who experiments or gets new ideas as he goes along. Meanwhile, you are still stuck with your proposal that we are better at fixing his errors than he is.

DAVID: Weird set of comments. My view is that God ran and monitored evolution until sapiens was well established in the current form. The bold is totally wrong in my view. In the past God took total control and managed evolution as He wished.

How can he have been in total control in the past if he couldn’t control the errors in the system and is not in the business of fixing them in the present?

DAVID: I'm not implying what you wished I imply. I don't change. The red sentence is also something you infer from nowhere. We fix things now that we are in charge. God not stepping in now.

He couldn’t control the errors, and yet we can, but you don’t agree that this makes us better at fixing his errors than he is!

dhw: Why won’t you consider the possibility that he did not WANT to control the molecules, and that he WANTED to give them free rein to make both beneficial and deleterious changes to themselves?

DAVID: Again, an idea from an imagined weak humanized God. Why would He allow 'deleterious changes' when He purposely put in backup systems? I see a God with serious purpose. You don't.

dhw: Please stop pretending that your God has serious purpose and then refusing to say what that serious purpose is.

DAVID: I don't refuse. Humans are the purpose. Still distorting.

You won’t tell us his serious purpose for creating humans, and try to avoid telling us the serious purpose behind his direct design of all the extinct life forms, or you propose that they were all designed to provide a food supply for humans who were not even there.

dhw: […] Why do you refuse to even consider the possibility that your God is not the weak and helpless designer of an imperfect system whose errors he can’t correct, but who deliberately designed the system we have? We needn’t even discuss possible purposes for doing so, since you “prefer to look at his creator side, and not consider that his human side has any role in his decisions for creation.”

DAVID: Simple answer. God is not human and nothing like the God you wish He were.

I do not wish anything. I am looking for a logical explanation of life and – if God exists – his actions and possible nature and motives. I have never said God is human. But I agree fully with your various statements that he probably has thought patterns, emotions, logic and attributes similar to ours.
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DAVID: No form of any God could control molecular mistakes in free-floating molecules which are supposed to respond properly to specific stimuli. It seems you cannot or refuse to understand a very simple biochemical concept. I teach the best I can.

You gloss over as many of your contradictions as you can. According to you, we humans can correct some of the errors that your God could not correct, but we’re not smarter than him. And although every life form that ever existed is based on the molecular processes you describe, and although he could not control the errors in the process, in the past apparently he was in “total control” and could “allow” good mutations (though elsewhere you have him directly designing every one that led to new life forms etc.), but couldn’t stop the bad ones! Do please stop pretending that the simple biological concept – which of course I accept – is the subject of our disagreement. The problem is the total confusion caused by your interpretation of your God’s intentions and powers.