Balance of nature: ecosystems are losing diversity (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 31, 2020, 18:26 (1266 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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.

As in 'error corrections' thread: "Yes, 99% of previously living forms are gone today .The various extinct branches like dinos were not a dead end; they ended up as birds in our time. The mammals who survived Chixculub become primates and then us. You are still denying the continuous relationships from past forms. The various branches that did survive to today are the food supply for the huge populations on Earth, especially humans. God runs evolution by design and by logic. I don't see any logic in your presentations about evolution."

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.

dhw: 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.

You continue to ignore my point that the current biological system is the only system that will work, and for success the only one He could choose to design. The molecules must be free to react with others or change shape at fantastic speeds in micro-seconds.

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

dhw: 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.

Great logic, but no sense of how it can happen naturally!!!

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.

dhw: 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.

A totally confused illogical answer. I accept that God created life, and that He then designed all eventual stages of evolution to reach creation of us. With that belief history gives us the story of what He did. And again you have totally ignored the need for as a giant food supply in the bush of life.