Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Saturday, June 19, 2021, 11:08 (1254 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: This is a total distortion of my position in your twisted view. I am simply stating God chose to evolve humans starting with bacteria.

dhw: So you no longer believe that we were his only purpose, that he designed every living form etc. himself, and every single one of them was “part of the goal of evolving humans” plus our lunch?

DAVID: God running evolution entails exactly what you ask.

We were in the process of distinguishing fact from interpretation, and you claimed that you were simply stating that God chose to evolve humans from bacteria. That is not all you “simply” state, and the above list of your statements is pure interpretation. There was no distortion on my part.

DAVID: We are the result of His works in evolution. That we are so unusual is supreme support God did it.

dhw: According to you, the complexities of ALL living things provide support that God did it, and ALL living things are the result of his works in evolution. So why did he “evolve” (= design) millions of life forms and lunches that had no connection with humans if humans and their lunch were his only goal?

DAVID: Silly. You describe how evolution happens and then complain about the mechanism. His method is evolving bacteria to human in stages.

My complaint is your constant attempts to dodge the fact that according to you his only purpose was to design humans and their lunch, and his “method” entailed individually designing millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders and lunches that had no connection with humans.

DAVID: Only the current bush supports current life. And yes, past supports past…

dhw: So will you please finally stop saying that “the huge bush of life is required to support our current population” when the dispute concerns your God’s reason for specially designing the huge PAST bush of life, which had no connection with humans!

DAVID: Same dicing and slicing the continuity of the evolutionary process.

dhw: Same attempt to gloss over the fact that, although the bush of life sprang from the first cells and each branch sprang from preceding branches(= continuity), the branches of the bush were not connected with one another! Only one branch allows for continuity between bacteria and humans, and 99% of past lunches have no connection with present lunches.

DAVID: Darwin's drawn tree had a connecting trunk!!!

So what? We don’t like the trunk bit and so we prefer the image of a bush, but a tree also has branches, and the same argument applies: the roots are the first cells, but from them spring all the branches of all the different species which have no connection with one another.

A.N. Whitehead
DAVID: I've viewed Whitehead as not accepting God but accepting evolution as a sort of God.

WHITEHEAD: "It is as true to say that the World is immanent in God, as that God is immanent in the World.”

dhw: He was a believer, and this quote is closely akin to your panentheism. But he rejected your version of a transcendent, all-knowing God. What you call wishy-washy and namby-pamby if an agnostic dares to challenge your own fixed view.

DAVID: He believed with his view, I with mine, both equal.

So when I propose a God who learns as he goes along (a continuous process of what Whitehead calls “becoming” – hence the term process theology), my theory is equal to yours, and is not to be dismissed as weak, namby-pamby, wishy-washy….

Even our White matter is different
QUOTE: A complete portrait of the structural basis of cognition and emotion cannot neglect the white matter because it interacts so intimately with its gray matter counterpart."

DAVID: The main point is the enormous connectivity between the brain parts which allows to to have the thinking capacity we have. Had to be designed.

dhw: The heading of this thread is misleading. Our fellow animals also have white matter, but we just have much more of it.

DAVID: That is a difference, isn't it?

If you have a million dollars and I have a hundred, does that make your dollars different from mine?

Magic embryology
DAVID: It has to be a highly controlled, orchestrated, programmed series of events. Therefore highly designed and never by chance mutations.

dhw: Agreed. And isn’t it amazing how often these researchers find themselves talking in terms of cells conversing and sending messages! All these processes must have had a beginning, and if cells are intelligent, as some prominent scientists believe - and a good friend of mine acknowledges that the odds are 50/50 – they could have developed the original design which, of course, would then have been passed on.

DAVID: 50/50 only because we are on the outside looking in. This is where interpretation is employed.

If the odds are 50/50 and you reject one of the 50s, I would suggest that is where prejudice is employed.