Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, September 14, 2020, 13:35 (1529 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: My constant point is that God does not follow human logic but His logic.

dhw: How do you know his logic is different from ours, even though he probably has thought patterns similar to ours?

DAVID: He follows the rules of logic as we do, but the personality of the God I believe in has definite established purposes for His own reasons. Your wishy-washy God enjoys spectacles, experiments along the way, etc.

Purposes ARE reasons! How can you say he follows the “rules” of logic as we do if you can’t find a logical explanation for your claim that he directly designed millions of non-human life forms with their food supplies although the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens and his food supplies? The illogicality of this theory is not defended by your attacking my alternatives, though I will defend these by saying I see nothing “wishy-washy” about a God who enjoys his own creativity, or who experiments, or who gets new ideas as he goes along.

DAVID: I don't accept, ever, that an intelligent cell can equal what God has done in design. The intelligence we see in cellular responses is due to God's design of cellular functions.

dhw: With my theist’s hat on, I agree. I don’t think cells could design a universe, or design their original selves. I have always allowed for God as the designer of the intelligence we see in cellular responses, and one can only marvel at the design of mechanisms which (according to my theory) enable cells to combine themselves autonomously into all the organisms and to design all the natural wonders that go to make up the vast variety of life’s history.[...]

DAVID: You've twisted your argument into Gordian knots. God does all the initial amazing designs, but then the cells take over all by themselves and are able to continue designing at God's ability level because He implanted His instructions in them which they followed explicitly? Why would God do it second-hand instead of directly? Humanly lazy as your God tends to be? My purposeful God does it hands on. [dhw's bold]

How can they be said to “take over all by themselves” if all they do is explicitly follow instructions implanted in them, he does it directly, and he does it hands on?

dhw: […] a typical example of your using one obviously true premise and ignoring all the other premises of your theory. Why did your God directly design all those millions of complex ecosystems that preceded H. sapiens and had nothing to do with H. sapiens, if his one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens?

DAVID: What is evident is evolution lasted 3.8 years from bacteria to humans. Your strange argument skips all of that time. God created history and history tells us what He created.

dhw: This is an amazing twist! Your argument is that God’s one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens plus food supply. I ask: in that case, why did he spend 3.X billion years directly designing countless life forms and ecosystems that had nothing to do with humans, and you tell me I have skipped all that time! Yes, history tells us what he created, and you continued to ignore everything he created except H. sapiens and his food supply!

DAVID: Yes, a breakthrough. I have never said (red color) directly design!!!!! I have always said evolve over the time it takes.

You tell me I skipped time, whereas it was you who skipped time, and so now you change the subject. Now it’s what you never said, except that you have said it yet again above, also bolded in red, and you have always said it. And you have always said that the design was done in advance of requirements: e.g. bipedalism, brain, skull and pelvis expansion, restructuring limbs before our ancestors descended from the trees (like whales being given fins before they entered the water) – every stage the result of either a 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme (referred to above as instructions that are followed explicitly) or dabbling. This is why I have emphasized over and over again that by “evolve” you mean “directly design”.

DAVID: Do you remember old discussions where I said you were asking me to go back to six days of Genesis? God CHOSE to evolve us over time. Perfectly logical conclusion from the history of creation as conducted by God.

I do remember. But I was not asking you to do that at all. If I remember rightly, it was precisely your insistence on direct design and man’s dominion that made me wonder why you didn’t believe in Genesis.