Balance of nature: ecosystems are losing diversity (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, October 31, 2020, 11:32 (1484 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God purposely designed all stages of evolution to eventually produce our level of complexity.

You claim that he directly designed every life form and natural wonder in life’s history “as part of the goal of evolving [directly designing] humans.” If “extinct life has no role in present time”, once more: what role did the brontosaurus play in your God’s directly designing humans? Please answer.

DAVID: My version of God always knows exactly what His purposes are and how to reach them.

So does mine. How does that explain why he designed the brontosaurus in order to design H. sapiens?

DAVID: But then there is your wild supposition He has to experiment and look for spectacular spectacles.

I offer various alternative explanations of evolution. If God’s purpose really was to design H. sapiens, then experimentation would explain all the preceding life forms. You have no explanation for all the preceding life forms. Alternatively, he might have designed ALL the life forms because he enjoyed designing and watching the results of his creativity. And alternatively, he might have given free rein to evolution through endowing cells with autonomous intelligence so that he could enjoy the unpredictability of speciation. You have agreed that all of these are logical.

DAVID: Your alternatives following human logic, but not what God wanted to do, are with that exception logical.

How do you know what God wanted to do? All we know is that a vast bush of life forms existed, and we are the latest to emerge. I don’t pretend to know your God’s motives or methods and so I offer logical alternatives. You stick to the only explanation which doesn’t make sense.

dhw: What personality difference? I have him knowing what he wants and getting it. (This even applies to the experiment theory, but that allows him to learn instead of being omniscient.)

DAVID: You are denying your usual image of God in the past. Why the change now? And you are, IMHO, still making him weaker than I ever imagined from his works.

dhw: What change? Another of your manufactured straw men. I have opposed your presentation of a God who designed a system that caused errors he couldn’t prevent or correct. My proposal is that the system he built (if he exists) is precisely the system he wanted to build. Which of those images is “weaker”?

DAVID: Nice twist on my proposal that He built the only system He knew He had to design in order to have life emerge.

It’s not a “twist”. You have said categorically that he could not prevent or correct the disease-causing errors – and even produced back-ups, some of which didn’t work, so he left it to us to try and figure out a correction. I’d say that makes him “weaker” than a God who designed a system which gave him precisely the results he wanted.

DAVID: […] 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.

dhw: 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 regards survival, I have repeatedly proposed that changing local conditions may have necessitated new forms of behaviour by a local group of apes – just as pre-whales may have left the land because the water offered them a better chance of survival.

DAVID: Again, pure Darwin, with survival demands forcing complex new designs. Passive Natural Selection does not drive evolution.

I have said repeatedly that natural selection does not create anything. I have proposed that the creative activity is performed by intelligent cells! And I wish you would stop moaning about Darwin, as if the very word automatically invalidated an argument. It’s perfectly logical that changing conditions should require changing behaviours and these may require changing structures.

DAVID: Again, you ignore God's right to first create life and evolve it following His purposes. […].

dhw: I do no such thing! Of course if he exists he had the right to create life and follow his purposes. That does not provide the slightest justification for [your] totally illogical theory...

DAVID: Illogical only in your mind, as your statement contradicts your acceptance of God creating evolution. Your Darwinist approach never can explain why we are here.

If God exists, he had the right to create life and follow his purposes. What does that contradict? No approach can explain why we or any other life form are here – and so we all offer theories. You simply refuse to face up to the illogicality of your own, which is that your God’s purpose was to directly design humans and their food supply, and his method was to directly design millions of life forms and food supplies that had no direct connection with humans.