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

by David Turell , Tuesday, March 29, 2022, 16:42 (968 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Your guesses – wanting our admiration, wanting a relationship - are just as “human” as wanting to create something interesting for himself, and in any case, you agree that he enjoys creating and is interested in what he creates.

DAVID: Mine are only guesses from our human standpoint and do not describe or agree to your desires for a god who creates for his interest or entertainment.

dhw: Wanting admiration and a relationship is just as “human” as wanting to create something interesting. I don’t “desire “ such a god, but if God exists, I seek a logical explanation for the history of life as we know it in the context of his possible purposes, methods and nature.

Your 'logical' explanation is based on your human view of God's works as if He were human, and He certainly is not. We differ widely

DAVID (transferred from “More miscellany”): ... it is very possible He just does it without any emotions or feelings about it. Any other approach is humanizing. […]

dhw: Yes, it is possible that the God you described as kind, and who tries to rectify the mistakes made by the system he designed, does so with no feelings. But I find it hard to imagine your first cause God creating thought patterns and emotions which he knows absolutely nothing about.

I never said He doesn't know about our emotions! We don't know if He needs to have feelings comparable to ours.

dhw:[…] However, you prefer to believe that your God “makes sense only to Himself”, and we should simply accept the illogicality of your theory.

DAVID: If that is my exact quote, it means God understands what He does is innately logical to Him and may or may not be logical for us.

dhw: It is an exact quote, and it fits in perfectly with your repeated admission that you can’t explain your theory and so I should go and ask God for his reasons.

When will you realize I have given you a full explanation of my theory?

God's choice of war over peace

dhw: We have countless examples of peaceful cooperation in this current system, the most obvious one being the harmonious manner in which our own cell communities harmonize with one another most of the time. I gave symbiosis as another example. Do you know of any herbivore that deliberately kills other animals and eats them? I don’t see why you can’t imagine an earthly paradise[…] My suggestion is that it would be boring for God, if he exists.

DAVID: As usual, a non-answer for your pipedream. No Wilson life system described. and final straw, your poor god hates being bored!

dhw: I have described a system in which all life forms live at peace with one another, cooperating instead of fighting and killing.

How do they live at peace? You have simply told us you wish for such a system. Tell us how it works practically. Full description please.

dhw: QUOTE: “Cells are built to evolve; they have the ability to alter their hereditary characteristics rapidly through well-described natural genetic engineering and epigenetic processes as well as by cell-mergers. Evolutionary novelty arises from the production of new cell and multicellular structures as a re

dhw: I would add the possibility that there is a God who designed this ability. This theism is no more and no less “invented” than your own 3.8-billion-year-old book of instructions for the whole of life’s history, or your vision of God operating over and over again on existing cell communities to restructure them into new cell communities, quite apart from his giving endless lessons to every species that performs a natural wonder such as a complicated nest, clever camouflage, and migration to a warm spot 10,000 miles away.

DAVID: Once again you have inflated Shapiro. His proposed theory is taken from self-sufficient free- living bacteria who must have those abilities to adapt to survive. […]

dhw: I don’t know why you continue to belittle him, as if he would have constructed his theory without taking into account the findings of other scientists’ research. But do please tell me why my theistic theory is more “invented” than your own, as summarized above.

I don't belittle him. I admire his work, first introduced him to you, and complain about how you misuse his theory. We differ widely on how we approach the issue of God's personality.