A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Thursday, July 22, 2021, 13:07 (1218 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Here is a major point of disagreement. You are still stuck with Darwinist 'survival' as a driving force. If God makes each new stage and dying is built-in, survival drives nothing and as a driving force is only theory, not ever proven. My view of the battle is eat or be eaten simply as a necessary food supply.

dhw: And what do you think the food supply is necessary for if it’s not survival? And why do you think your God would design all the different ways in which life forms adapt to different environments, catch what they eat, avoid being eaten, protect themselves against the environment, if the purpose was not their survival?

DAVID: A non-answer. My point is survival doesn't drive evolution.

Not survival but the NEED to find ways of surviving or improving ways of surviving. Even if you think your God designed every single method, the reason for eating, adapting, hunting, self-defence etc. is to improve chances of survival, and it is absurd to say that the reason for something is not a driving force.

Venus sea sponge
QUOTE: "That lingering could help the filter feeders catch more plankton. And because Venus’s-flower-baskets can reproduce sexually, it could also enhance the chances that free-floating sperm encounter eggs, the researchers say."

DAVID: the is no way this developed step wise by chance mutations. To protect the organism from damage by uncontrolled currents tis had to be designed all at once. Tentative adaptations would have had current damage the organism. Try to deny a designer with this example.

When have I ever proposed chance mutations for such developments? You could hardly have a better example of the manner in which Shapiro’s intelligent cells could design methods of improving their chances of survival. Please note the emphasis on MORE plankton, and ENHANCING the chances of reproduction. You claim to believe in common descent: so why can’t you believe that earlier forms caught LESS plankton and were LESS productive?

dhw: And still you avoid the question of why your God designed all these different life forms and strategies if the only species he WANTED to design was humans plus their food.

DAVID: The only way God wished to design us was by designing us step by step thru evolution. He have admitted He has that right.

And still you narrow the discussion to humans and ignore the question of why he individually designed every stage of every other life form in the history of life, including the vast numbers that had no connection with humans!

DAVID: If God designs each successive stage, as I believe, all previous steps end up with humans, so the whole process is connected.

dhw: Each successive stage of WHAT?...The connection is the on-going process of evolution as it branches out from the first cells, but the branches do NOT all lead to humans plus lunch!

DAVID: Each successive stage of complex organisms. The branch to humans is known. The rest is food.

The rest is food for what? All the branches of all the complex organisms that had no connection with humans had to have food. How does that come to mean that all the branches that had no connection with humans were “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus their food?

DAVID: My theory is fully explained by stating God chose to evolve us from bacteria. Nothing is left out.

Your statement does not explain why he chose to evolve every other life form plus food from bacteria if his only goal was to evolve humans plus food.