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

by dhw, Saturday, March 19, 2022, 07:37 (978 days ago) @ David Turell

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

dhw: 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: Again, God as designer caused the gap. The gap is a strong support of a designer at work!!

Why have you changed the subject? In one breath you tell us that there are gaps, and God designed our Cambrian ancestors with no precursors, and the next moment there is a continuous line from bacteria to us. I am the one who upholds the theory of continuity, which means that all the different branches of life’s bush – including all those that had no connection with humans plus food – are descended from bacteria.

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

DAVID: Once again you have to ignore the obvious personality differences in our views of God.

The fact that some of your humanizations may be different from some of mine does not justify your dismissal of mine on grounds of “humanization”.

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.

dhw: 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: I'm claiming just the opposite! Our individual descriptions of God's purposes demonstrate two entirely different personalities.

Please explain why our common ground humanization theory that God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations cannot possibly mean that his purpose for creating life might have been to create things that he would find interesting.

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.

dhw: 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.

DAVID: Please not 'only purpose', as that is your defensive distortion of my thoughts. Humans are the purposeful endpoint of His creative evolution

“Goal” and “purpose” have now turned into “purposeful endpoint”! We may be the last and the most dominant species, but that does not mean every life form and food was “preparation for us” and “part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus food. Two days ago, you wrote: “I don’t pretend with my firmly established beliefs. All of evolution, designed by God, prepared for us.” Whenever you've tried to squirm out of this "firmly established belief", I’ve asked you to tell us what other purpose your God might have had, and so far your only answer has been to provide food for all (see below), but if all the different branches and foods were "preparation" for humans (even though most of the different branches and foods had no connection with humans), we are back to humans plus food being your God’s one and only purpose. Please stop dodging.

Transferred from “Cellular intelligence”:

dhw: Please tell us why you think your God wanted a constant war of survival between his creations.

DAVID: You still haven't resolved the issue of everyone has to eat, and plants have to absorb nutrients. The life system we have requires constant homeostasis, which means a constant energy requirement to support it. What kind of non-war life do you imagine?

There is no issue: all organisms have to eat. That doesn't mean that all organisms have to eat each other, and it most certainly doesn’t mean that all organisms were specially designed in preparation for humans and our food. There is no reason at all to assume that your God could not have designed a Garden of Eden, with all life forms – including humans - as vegetarians, living and cooperating in peace with one another. Let us not forget that your God is all-knowing and all-powerful. So once more, why do you think he chose to create life as “a constant war to survive by eating"?

The rest of your post goes over old ground, and continues to divert attention away from the fundamental illogicality of your theory.