Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, September 15, 2020, 11:52 (1528 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

dhw: Purposes ARE reasons!

DAVID: What!!! Each purpose comes from reasoning behind it.

You keep telling us that his one and only purpose or reason for creating life was to create H. sapiens plus food supply. You refuse to discuss his purpose or reason for wanting to create H. sapiens plus food supply, and you cannot tell us the purpose or reason for his direct design of millions of non-human life forms etc. when you say his only purpose or reason for designing life was to design H. sapiens.

dhw: How can you say he follows the “rules” of logic as we do if you can’t find a logical explanation for the above. 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: Your typical humanized god.

You have agreed that your God probably has thought patterns and emotions and other attributes similar to our own. How do you know that your God does not enjoy his own creativity, does experiments and/or gets new ideas, and why is this wishy-washy?

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]

dhw: 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?

DAVID: My statement is followed by a question-mark!!! Then I answered it by invoking God's role. I questioned your cell concept as usual.

You answered it by saying that he DID do it directly, i.e. hands on! So how can you say the cells did it all by themselves?

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.

Look above at your statements now bolded in red!

DAVID: I've always said God directly design evolution.

Please make up your mind.

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: I obviously accept Genesis as Schroeder did: 'yom' means eons!!! We've come full circle. And your objection to my approach to God and evolution is totally illogical.

Six days is not the issue, and I don't know why you've brought up the subject of Genesis, except as yet another digression. I have accepted the logic of your compromise between creationism and evolution: that common descent is true, and your God did his direct designing by preprogramming or dabbling changes in existing organisms. My objection – must I repeat it yet again? – is the illogical theory that your all-powerful God’s only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens and food supply, but he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of now extinct non-sapiens before he even started to directly design the only thing he wanted to directly design. You can’t find a single logical reason why your God would fulfil his purpose in this way, but apparently my objection is “totally illogical”.