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

by David Turell , Thursday, February 17, 2022, 15:33 (1008 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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?

God knew we would have emotions, thoughts and logic, but we cannot be sure how similar they are to His.

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.

dhw: 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?

Now you make sense. You have repeated my guesses about God and His purposes with humans as an endpoint.

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 But now that you have withdrawn your theory that humans were his one and only purpose, we can move on to other theories anyway.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.

dhw: 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?

If you accept as I do that God engineered evolution, note I've entered articles about early preparation of the genome, one such this week. Thus pre-programming and dabbling are probable valid ways God acted.