Let's study ID (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 16, 2021, 17:54 (951 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: You asked the impossible question as to why God chose to evolve us over time. I have no way to answer, so I asked you if you could.

dhw: That is not the question I asked, though you keep pretending that it is. The question is why, if his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, did he design all the extinct life forms that had no connection with our food? You have no answer, and so you advised me to ask God.

My answer is unacceptable to you, but entirely logical to me. God chose to evolve us over time.

dhw: I offer different theories to explain the course of evolution. One, based on one of your guesses, is that his goal was to create life because he enjoys creating and wants something he can watch with interest. That goal would be best served by creating an unpredictable free-for-all (i.e. not controlling every move). Why do you say that is not a goal? We may be a lucky accident, or he might have dabbled, or he might have guessed that eventually the intelligence he had planted in the first cells would later evolve to our level, or he may have wanted to produce such an intelligence and experimented in order to find the right form. All logical “guesses” that fit in with the history of life as we know it. It’s only your “guess” that makes no logical sense and requires your God to explain it.

DAVID: As usual you have presented your views of a God who wanders along without direct purpose…

dhw: Your usual total distortion of what I offer. A free-for-all that he can enjoy creating and watching is a direct purpose. Experimenting to find the right formula for a creature that could mimic himself is a direct purpose.

Only if you envision a God who starts without purposes.

DAVID: ….when we see the amazing accomplishments of God, who produced this universe, fine-tuned for life, started life itself and put life on a life-supporting planet with very precise mechanisms.

dhw: If he exists, I have no hesitation in endorsing this view.

Good.

DAVID: Suddenly when He evolves us, He bumbles long.

No he doesn’t. See above for two precise goals.

DAVID: Your humanized God makes your theories logical, but you split up God's works into two unrelated forms: precise and wandering. How inconsistent of you.

dhw: There is no wandering. Both free-for-all and experimentation are precise.

A God without controls or plans is not the God I see.

DAVID: All we know about God must fit together as a whole, my approach, but not yours.

dhw: You have agreed that my proposals are logical, which means they fit together with the history of life as we know it. Your approach, yet again, is that he had one purpose (us) and proceeded to design countless life forms that had no connection with us. These two premises do not fit together, which is why you tell me to go and ask God for an explanation!

Yes please, ask god. I don't know why He chose to evolve us. History tells me He did.