Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS 1 & 2 (Evolution)

by dhw, Thursday, February 17, 2022, 11:32 (1008 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Nobody could possibly imagine that a God who creates a universe and life is just like any “other person”! But calling him a “personage” (another word for person) is in perfect keeping with your own belief that “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logic”, and “All we can be sure of is logic on his part”, and the fact that you are “sure we mimic him in many ways”. [...]

DAVID: My guesses about God have generally been after you request them.

Even if I requested them, what would have stopped you from saying your God had no thought patterns, emotions or logic similar to ours, and you are sure that his logic is different from ours, and you are sure that we don’t mimic him in any ways at all? Is it not perfectly reasonable to believe that if God created us, he would not have created thought patterns, emotions and logic he knew nothing about?

DAVID: You miss the fact I accept God does what He wanted to do. Logical. He obviously wanted us.

dhw: Anyone who believes in God is bound to believe that he does what he wants to do. If he wanted a free-for-all, he got a free-for-all. If he wanted to design us, then he designed us. But unfortunately, according to your theory, he also designed every other life form, food, econiche, natural wonder etc. in the history of life, which means he wanted them ALL, and that contradicts your theory that his one and only aim was to design us and our food. You can’t explain it, and that is why your only recourse now is to turn your back on logic.

DAVID: You have created the 'one and only aim' distortion which I view as totally illogical. Humans as a desired endpoint of God's designed evolution is a reasonable observation. After all humans finally appeared at what looks like an endpoint.

This dispute has rumbled on for years precisely because you have insisted over and over again that we were his one and only purpose, and every life form etc. was “part of the goal of evolving humans”. You introduced “endpoint” a little while ago, though even here you say “a” instead of “the”. I am happy to accept the reasonableness of the theory that your God, if he exists, might have wanted to create a being who would admire his work and perhaps even form a relationship with him (two of your other proposals), though it’s difficult to see how that would be possible if we didn’t have thought patterns etc. similar to his. And since apparently humans were not his only purpose after all, I also find it reasonable to suppose, as you have done, that he would enjoy creation and be interested in what he creates, which would explain why he created the vast variety of life forms etc. that had no connection with humans. Indeed his purpose right from the start might have been to create an ever-changing world of life which he could watch with interest – the most interesting of all being human beings. Perhaps we are heading towards a theistic theory that makes sense?

DAVID (later in this post:) My theory is illogical only by your individual standards. I'm with the group ID who are human also.

dhw: Do ID-ers tell us that humans plus food were God’s one and only purpose, and so he individually designed lots of life forms that had no connection with humans plus food? If so, how do THEY explain the “logic”?

DAVID: They insist everything in reality is designed by a mind.

That does not answer my question. But now that you have withdrawn your theory that humans were his one and only purpose, we can move on to other theories anyway.

Anticipation of use

DAVID: You know I believe God speciates.

dhw: […] I asked you how you think he did it. Specifically: did he provide the first cells 3.8 billion years ago with a programme for whales’ deep sea diving, or did he pop in one night and perform an operation on a few whales to engineer the necessary “phenotypic changes”? Please answer.

DAVID: Your facetious question has no answer. I have proposed an early program and dabbling as probabilities but in reality, I have no idea. Design requires a designing mind.

It’s not facetious! Those are the only two “possibilities” you have offered: preprogramming or dabbling. The very fact that you regard the above as “facetious” shows just how unlikely your two methods appear even to you! Good. If those two theories are too absurd for you to regard as anything but facetious, maybe you should consider other possibilities. Are you now ready to do so?