Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Monday, September 06, 2021, 09:10 (965 days ago) @ David Turell

New amphibious whale
dhw: Why is it more difficult and cumbersome for God to invent a single mechanism which will be capable of autonomously making each decision, performing each operation, coping with each new situation, than for him to keep popping in and doing it all himself "hands on"?

DAVID: In human designing. if you do it yourself it is much easier than telling someone else how to do it and reach the proper desired result. I've been there as previously described.

dhw: Telling someone else means giving them instructions! I agree with you completely. In the theistic theory of cellular intelligence, your God has given cells the ABILITY to do the designing all by themselves, i.e. first-hand! “Much easier” for him than having to pop in and give them lessons on how to deal with every single new situation and on how to invent every innovation. Thank you for this excellent argument.

DAVID: The instructions make the design secondhand. What if there are mistakes as we see in current existing living biochemistry?

The whole point of the theory is that there ARE no instructions. If he exists, the proposal is that your God gave cells the AUTONOMOUS ability to do their own designing. And of course things could and did and do go wrong. That is how you can solve the theodicy problem, and that is how we can explain the vast variety of life forms that have been and gone.

dhw: You wrote: “You have no idea why we are here”, so I asked you why you thought we were here. When you "humanized" him by guessing that his goal was to have us recognize and admire his work, and maybe have a relationship with him, what meaning did you intend to convey? Yes, it’s guesswork, as is belief in his existence, but that is what our discussions are about! You seem to think it’s OK for you to "humanize" him in your guesses, but I mustn’t link other guesses of yours - e.g. he enjoys creating and watches his creations with interest – to a possible reason why we are here (we are EXTREMELY interesting to watch), because that is “humanizing”.

DAVID: I'm afraid my impression of your humanizing is unchanged. Despite my pronouncements that I deliberately do not humanize, you twist what I write to sound like humanizing.

Why is it not “humanizing” when you say that he wants us to recognize and admire his work and maybe have a relationship with us, but it is humanizing when you say you are sure he enjoys creating and watches us with interest, and I am “twisting” what you write?

DAVID: That doesn't solve your problem about my view of your imagined God. He is nothing like my God and you know it.

You said I had no idea why we were here. I repeated your own guesses as to why we were here, and I have no objection to any of them. In fact, I like all of them. And I especially like the one about him enjoying creating and being interested in his creations, and I propose that this might explain why he created life in the first place, but for some reason, all of a sudden you object that your own guesses concerning why we are here must be rejected because they “humanize” your God.

New amphibious whale found or not
QUOTE: "Imagination. Belief. That’s putting it politely, which I insist upon doing. We all have imaginations, and we all have beliefs. So in that sense this is understandable. But if I weren’t so polite, a variety of other terms could be used to describe telling the public this fossil represents a “four-legged whale.'”

DAVID: And we should trust Darwinist "findings"?

Why limit your scepticism to “Darwinist”? Practically every theory concerning every unanswered question we discuss on this website is full of untrustworthy “findings”. Just look at the thread on time for an example.

Introducing the brain
dhw: So does every neuron receive instructions handed down from 3.8 billion years ago, or alternatively, does God pop in to tell every neuron what to do?

DAVID: I think He dabbled hominin neurons to fit our consciousness needs.

dhw: So does that mean he gave them the ability to make their own decisions, or that he preprogrammed all their decisions 3.8 billion years ago, or that he pops in to give them instructions for every single decision?

DAVID: I said dabble the neurons' current abilities, so they can work on their own. I'd better add, following God's implanted instructions.

So every time there is a new problem he pops in to increase the neurons’ ability to follow the instructions he laid down 3.8 billion years ago? This is getting just a little confusing. How about a different, much simpler theory: 3.8 billion years ago, he provided cells with the ability/intelligence to solve problems all by themselves?