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

by David Turell , Monday, January 03, 2022, 20:46 (1053 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Monday, January 03, 2022, 20:55

PART ONE

DAVID: There is the major difference between us. I accept God's actions as dayenu, enough. I don't question why He did what He did, but interpret it as His desired goal/goals. Your God with amorphous thinking is not the God I envision.

dhw: It is absurd to keep emphasizing how purposeful your God is if you are not prepared to discuss his purpose. You do not “accept” God’s actions – you merely cling rigidly to your belief that he individually designed every life form and natural wonder, and that he did so for the sole purpose of producing sapiens plus food! You could hardly impose a more “amorphous” shape on his thinking than having him create countless life forms that had no connection with his one and only goal. In all three of the alternatives I have presented above, he has a very precise purpose (see also under “Cellular intelligence”) and his pursuit of it explains the vast variety of extinct and extant life forms that constitute the whole history of evolution.

Once again you demand I know God's thoughts. You and I don't. The God you describe is vastly different from mine. I have guessed as to why He wanted us to appear in the past but you know all of that information. I've not changed my mind or conclusions about a very purposeful God, sand hour God has no obvious specified point to His process of evolution if He sets up a free-for-all. My God knows His specific endpoints, this basis of Adler's philosophic approach.

dhw: According to you, nothing would appear unless desired by God, since he designed everything. So he kept popping in every few million years to turn leggy flippers into proper flippers on the way to designing humans. Anyway, I’m pleased to see that you have not withdrawn your statement that he “designs new species when required”, i.e. not BEFORE they are required (or “allowed”).

DAVID: I don't see the difference you infer. God designs species to handle living requirements at the time of their existence. They arrive prepared for their future.

dhw: But you believe in common descent. So even in your own God-does-it-all scenario, he does not change existing organisms in anticipation of new conditions – as you have always maintained in the past – but in response to the conditions that exist. And then of course they are prepared for a future under those conditions, until things change again, and then he does another dabble – or his 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme for every change throughout life’s history switches itself on at the appropriate moment, i.e. when conditions change (and not before they change). And when you have him designing creatures "de novo", they must be able to handle requirements at the time of their birth - i.e. he'll produce them at the time when conditions have already changed, not before they change.

My approach is simpler than your distortion above. God evolves in steps, basing each new designed forms on the past. Bacteria start with many basic biochemical processes to be used by all future forms, so form can change but the biochemistry is already in place for much of the requirements for living, with new systems added as necessary to fit with the new phenotypical changes. All prepared for future use.