Balance of nature: ecosystems are losing diversity (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, October 29, 2020, 08:46 (1276 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have said explicitly that “extinct life plays no role in current time”. There is no connection between past ecosystems and our current system!

DAVID: An obvious of course not!!

At last. So please stop telling us that “God knew we would populate the Earth as He designed the entire bush of life for our food supply”. There is no connection!

dhw: That is one of the points at issue between us when you tell us that your God designed every extinct life form and ecosystem as “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans”. […]

DAVID: I hold that God ran/designed/conducted the process of evolution with the goal and endpoint of producing humans, just as history factually shows.

History does NOT show that God exists and that if he does, his goal was producing humans. (See “error corrections”.) History only shows that humans are the latest species. We may be the endpoint, but I would be unwilling to prophesy what species will exist on Earth in ten million years’ time. Please stop calling your opinions “factual”.

Your claim that every extinct non-human organism and food supply was directly designed as “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans” has been demolished on the “errors correction” thread, and much of the material here merely repeats your attempts to dodge the issue, which is why your all-powerful God, whose one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, would have spent 3.X billion years designing millions of other non-human, now extinct life forms and natural wonders which you admit had no direct connection to humans! I shall deal with each dodge in turn:

DAVID:…you deny God did anything related to evolution.

I do not. If he exists, he would have invented the mechanisms for life and evolution.

DAVID: All dhw sees is a God experimenting, creating spectacles, looking for interesting organisms, and then if He wanted humans as an endpoint, He seems to have done it all wrong, inventing things not needed and taking too long […]

You have correctly reproduced my alternative theistic explanations of evolution, the logic of which you have acknowledged, but I have never said God did it “all wrong”. The illogicality of the argument bolded above suggests that it is a flawed interpretation of your God’s intentions and/or methods. I am criticizing your interpretation, not God.

DAVID: Your long illogical set of humanizing theories offering a God who is not sure of what to do, but they fit reality if one accepts your type of insecure God not working on a specific purpose of creating a very superior form of organism.

Only the experimenting theory suggests that he did not know how to achieve the purpose you impose on him. Even that does not make him “insecure”, unless you think that any inventor who is looking to create something new is “insecure”. My other alternatives also have him working on a specific purpose.

DAVID: Your presentation is a totally critical discussion of the God I envision. You ignore the personality difference I've continuously pointed out in your God and my God. That is the key to our difference.

It is a totally critical discussion of your claim that every extinct non-human life form was a “part of the goal of evolving [= directly designing] humans”, that the brontosaurus was our ancestor, and that every extinct econiche was a preparation for our food supply (now ridiculed even by yourself). What personality difference? I have him knowing what he wants and getting it. (This even applies to the experiment theory, but this allows him to learn instead of being omniscient.) On the theodicy thread we both have him interested in what he has created.

DAVID: It all goes back to Adler's arguments, as far as I am concerned and our totally unexplained arrival. Assuming evolution changes organisms to improve survival, there is no reason for our appearance of survival. The apes, our direct ancestors, did just fine until we overpopulated their areas.

Dealt with over and over again. According to your reasoning, there is no reason for ANY multicellular organism to have appeared, since bacteria have always done just fine. As regard the apes, I have repeatedly proposed that a local group of apes may have encountered conditions which required a change of habitat and of behaviour. You seem to think that all apes lived in the same location under the same unchanging conditions.

DAVID: Finally to answer the bold, I don't know God's reasoning, nor do you, for producing us, but does not negate He wanted our arrival. We are here. Why should I have to find a reason??? I just accept His works.

We don’t know God’s reason for producing ANY organism, but that does not negate the possibility that he wanted ALL organisms to arrive. You do not “just accept his works”. You have built a whole theory concerning his “goal” and his methods, and you want us to swallow it whole by avoiding the question why your all-powerful God, whose one and only purpose was to directly design H. sapiens, would have spent 3.X billion years designing millions of other non-human, now extinct life forms and natural wonders which you admit had no direct connection to humans.