Return to David's theory of evolution PART TWO (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, December 20, 2021, 07:13 (857 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: How can a theory about an all-powerful God who knows exactly what he wants and proceeds to design it be an attempt to avoid a belief in God? Why is it more human for your God to design exactly what he wanted to design than for him to try – sometimes in vain – to correct the errors he could not avoid in the system he had designed?

dhw: You still haven’t answered my questions.

DAVID: My answer is quite clear. He designed the only system that would work, and it allowed errors for which He designed editing systems.

How does this fixed belief of yours come to mean that a theory about God knowing what he wants and designing it denotes an attempt to avoid a belief in God? And how does your fixed belief in God’s inability to design a system without errors, and his designing editing systems which sometimes don’t work, make him less human than a God who designs exactly what he WANTS to design and designs it?

DAVID: You can't read my mind as to how I view Him. I tell you and you purposely misinterpret.

dhw: You have said explicitly that your God “had to” design the system this way as no other system was possible, and you have said explicitly that he took measures to correct some of the errors, but he could not correct them all. What have I misinterpreted?

DAVID: Nothing.

dhw: So please stop accusing me of misinterpreting your view of God.

DAVID: Only your paragraph above is correct, not the other numerous distorted complaints.

You believe he specially designed every life form, natural wonder etc., including all those that had no connection with humans plus food, for the sole purpose of designing humans plus food. Is that a distortion? Please pinpoint just one of my “distortions”.

dhw: You have distorted my comment. If God exists, I accept that he chose to EVOLVE reality, because I believe that life evolved! That does not mean he DESIGNED every life form etc., and why have you left out the second part of what I do not believe, which is that he “did so for the sole purpose of producing humans and their food”? My alternative proposal for the “reality” is a free-for-all, as opposed to your puppet show. I do not regard human free will as secondhand designing ability, and I propose that evolution itself depends on a similar autonomous, decision-making ability in cell communities other than our own, possibly designed by your God.

DAVID: Same unproven intelligent cell theory, based on single cell studies in which all reactions act intelligently and appear to be automatic.

How can they simultaneously react intelligently and appear to be automatic? If they react intelligently, maybe they ARE intelligent. But yes, all the theories are unproven – otherwise there would be no discussion.

dhw: I know how ID works, and I have said over and over again that I accept the logic of ID: i.e. I accept that life is too complex to have arisen by chance, and if we believe in design, we should believe there is a designer.

DAVID: You did not know ID never mentions God, except now in Meyer's book.

dhw: You named Behe, Meyer and Dembski as supporters of your illogical theory. On Thursday 16 December I replied: “I always thought that Behe specifically avoided mentioning God, let alone God’s purpose.” Dembski turned out to be the same. I knew nothing about Meyer, and I’m sorry, but his wonderful achievement in mentioning God has nothing to do with the fact that you cannot name a single scientist who supports your anthropocentric theory of evolution.

DAVID: ID does and you won't accept it. Read ID. Not my problem. I've personally chatted with Behe!!

Good for you. So did Behe tell you he believed God individually designed every life form, natural wonder etc. including all those that had no connection with humans plus food, for the sole purpose of designing humans plus food? Has he ever published this theory?

DAVID: Something is eternal. Refute that point if you can. How did your magical rudiments of consciousness evolve themselves further? More magic? Totally illogical.

dhw: […] I have not “refuted” the point that there has to be an eternal first cause! I have presented two possible first causes, each of which I find “equally difficult to believe”. In answer to your questions: If your inferior consciousness must have been designed, how did your magical, all-powerful, all-knowing first-cause consciousness simply exist without being designed? Sheer magic? Totally illogical. But I am wrong one way or the other. Agnosticism is not a boast but a confession.

DAVID: I'll accept it not as confession but confusion. Your 'eternal mass of energy and matter' admits an eternal first cause must exist. You recognize design, so why not a designer?

I keep saying that there has to be an eternal first cause, and I keep presenting you with two possibilities – your sourceless superconsciousness, i.e. a top-down designer that was not designed, or a sourceless unconscious mass of matter and energy which eventually produces a form of consciousness that evolves into bottom up design. And I find both hypotheses equally difficult to believe, which is why I am an agnostic.