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

by dhw, Wednesday, September 23, 2020, 07:16 (1520 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God created us. He didn't wish us ill.

According to you, God created (directly designed) every other species as well (see later), so presumably he didn't wish them ill either.

dhw: And you don’t regard your God’s concern for our welfare as “humanizing”? Your objection to my theory now turns out to be that your humanized version of God is different from my humanized version of God.

DAVID: Of course. His human attributes INHO are God-like , His concern for us like our concern for others.

Why of course? Experimentation, new ideas, or enjoyment are out because they “humanize him”, but the human attribute of “concern” for others (sadly counteracted by another common human attribute, which is lack of concern for others) doesn’t “humanize” him, and so your theory must be right?

DAVID: The failures are a problem, but you keep reversing the results, that editing blocks most. (dhw's bold)

dhw: That is not a reversal! You’ve hit the nail on the head: the failures are the problem. And so you don’t want to think about them.

DAVID: Hey! I brought up the issue. I am addressing them in a positive way while you quickly assume a negative approach and seized upon them to get God out of running evolution. Your negativity is inventive.

You brought up the issue, and your “positive way” of dealing with the evolutionary errors, which originally you thought changed the course of evolution, is to say they were just slight variations, so they don’t matter. The failure to control disease-causing errors IS a problem, as you say above, and your solution is not to think about them. In the meantime, you have advanced the theory that your God unwillingly and unavoidably gave molecules/cells the freedom to disobey his instructions and to do their own thing (hence what you call the “errors”). So your God unwillingly lost control of them, whereas I propose that he didn’t want to control them in the first place. Why is it negative to argue that God got what he wanted, as opposed to him not wanting what he got and therefore trying in vain to correct it. You admit that the failures are a problem, so please stop pretending (a) that an attempt to explain a problem constitutes negative thinking, and (b) that the problem is solved by not thinking about it.

dhw: I’m not trying to shake your faith in God’s existence (or do you mean more than just his existence?)…
I’d be interested to know the answer to this question.

DAVID: My faith is stronger than ever.

That is not what I was asking. But you tell us ”it is difficult to imagine that God purposely allowed harm to his creations” and he has concern for us. I suspect this is the faith that makes you reject the possibility that your God might have any attributes you don’t like.

dhw: Yes, a lovely, comforting, humanized version of your God. But it doesn’t invalidate the fact that you yourself have him giving molecules/cells the freedom to do their own thing. And that opens the way to a free-for-all that produces the whole of evolution as well as the struggle for supremacy between the “goodies” and the “baddies”. You acknowledge that it fits in with the history of life on Earth.

DAVID: Your negative version of God as usual. Yes, the molecules are free to make mistakes as the best system to create life.

Molecules/cells must change if evolution is to happen. Evolutionary advances are not mistakes. Once again, you are confusing them with disease-causing errors, but both these and evolutionary changes are the result of molecules/cells being free. You say your God couldn’t prevent their freedom, and I propose that he intended it. Why is that negative?

DAVID: How did the spider figure out it could produce a neurotoxin to stun predators and protect itself. This reeks of design, not chance evolution.

dhw: So he deliberately designed a spider whose poison is deadly to humans. He designed it before humans came on the scene, but according to you, everything he designed was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. And did he design the spider and the harmful bacteria and viruses without realizing they would be harmful to his creations? And how about carnivores – didn’t he realize that meat-eating would be harmful to some of his creatures?

DAVID: The spider is part of the Australian ecosystem, and Australians have a giant brain to learn how to avoid them. God knew everyone would eat everyone. All in the giant diverse bush.

Yes, in your theory God specially designed nasty bacteria and nasty viruses and poisonous spiders and meat-eaters although it’s hard to imagine him purposely allowing harm to his creations. He simply designed them, knowing what they would do, but it’s OK because…you have faith that he’s concerned about us and doesn’t “wish us ill” (and presumably we’re the only creations that matter to him). How about another possibility? That a world in which everything was perfect, there were no threats, no baddies, no problems, would be pretty dull, and you need the dark in order to appreciate the light? That’s the world we’ve got, and if your God exists, maybe that’s the world he wanted. If he doesn’t want the world we’ve got, and if he’s all-powerful, why do you think he doesn’t step in and change it?