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

by dhw, Friday, March 18, 2022, 09:44 (979 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You split evolution into differing eras but the whole process is is one continuous process with every future step built on the past.

dhw: Firstly, you are the one who insists that it is discontinuous, since you harp on and on about the gaps. But as usual, you are sidestepping the issue, this time ignoring the fact that evolution is a bush that split up into countless branches, the majority of which have died out and did NOT lead to humans or to their food. We are at the end of only one branch, and past foods were for the past and not for the present. Don’t you ever get tired of dodging?

DAVID: The continuous view is we can trace us back to bacteria. Your non-god view confuses you about the Cambrian gap.

According to you, we are descended from life forms which appeared without precursors during the Cambrian Gap. Please stop trying to use my agnosticism as an excuse for dodging the issue of your illogical theory.

DAVID: I have my purposeful goal-directed God and your guesses produce a humanized God.

dhw: I have already responded to your insinuation that my theories leave God without a purpose. They don’t. [...] And I have shown in detail that your own guesses about God (enjoyment, interest, shared thought patterns, emotions and logic, kindness, desire to be admired, to have a relationship with us) are just as humanized as mine, and I find it perfectly feasible that a creator might invest his creations with some of his own attributes.

DAVID: Our guesses about the above attributes you list agree.

dhw: Then please stop moaning about my “humanizing” God, since you do exactly the same.

DAVID: Our guesses may be the same but our Gods differ widely in personality. Don't deny it!

My point is that you should stop dismissing my various proposals as “humanizing” God when you yourself also humanize him. In fact, I have used your own humanizations as the basis of some of my arguments, as below.

dhw: If you agree that he enjoys creating and is interested in what he creates, why is it illogical to theorize that his purpose might be to enjoy creating something that will interest him?

DAVID: There you go again in bold: my guesses about His reactions to what He creates has nothing to do with His purposes in creation. It's time you tried to understand that distinction.

Do you really believe that the results of actions can have nothing to do with the purpose of those actions? What sort of logic is that?

DAVID: [...] as usual your illogical complaint about my view of evolution is still highly illogical to me. It always comes across as why not direct creation?

dhw: Of course it does. You can’t explain why an all-powerful God with only one purpose would not fulfil that purpose directly! In view of the fact that he did NOT fulfil your version of his purpose directly, it is perfectly logical to suggest that maybe he had a different purpose![/b]

DAVID: It is simple for believers: God chose to evolve us, the only history we have to study, and you criticism God's choice while not believing in Him.
And from “More miscellany”:
DAVID:That is difference between you and God. God makes sense only to Himself! He has reasons we may not understand but simply accept as believers. As a result you have a problem, and I don't.

Yet again: if God exists, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean individually design) all life forms, and not just us, though you claim that we plus our food were his one and only purpose. You admit that you can’t explain why, and so yet again you claim that your illogical theory is a fact which we must all accept. It’s not a fact, there are alternative theistic explanations of evolution which you agree are logical, and my agnosticism is totally irrelevant.