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

by dhw, Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 06:58 (947 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your reasoning about my theories is totally unreasonable. I have decided to accept that a designer exists based on the overwhelming evidence of design. God is the common name given.

I have never questioned the logic of that decision, and have no problem with your calling him God, Allah, Jehovah or whatever name you like.

DAVID: I accepted all that the mind has created as His direct doing.

You are playing with words. The problem raised by your theory is why, if humans were his goal, he did not design them directly. Your bold, however, would apply equally to all my alternative theories, e.g. if he wanted a free-for-all, he directly created a free-for-all. If he wanted to experiment in order to find a particular formula, or in order to see what would happen if he did xyz, he did so directly.

DAVID: The endpoint of the procession from bacteria at the start to humans at the end tells me He wanted humans to appear.

That is perfectly possible, but since he also designed countless other life forms that did not lead to humans, he must have wanted them to appear as well, and so you are back to the mystery of why, if his ONLY aim was humans (as you keep repeating) he designed all the other forms. You can’t answer, so maybe something is wrong with your theory.

DAVID: Furthermore, all those humans need a necessary huge food supply. The huge vast bush supplies it.

But that refers to the present bush and does not explain the vast bush which preceded the present, which is now extinct and which did not lead to the food supply for humans. As usual, you edit your theory to leave out all the bits that don’t fit together.

DAVID: No one can answer your complaint re' not using direct creation.

Of course they can’t, if they accept all your premises, because the combination of those premises makes no sense. And so instead of brazenly assuming that your theory is right but “God makes sense only to Himself”, perhaps you should consider the possibility that God’s purpose and method are not what you say they are.

DAVID: That was obviously the designer's choice. No one, explaining the designer. can go further. And since I can't answer your unreasonable complaint, no fault is involved. The bold applies.

If God exists, the only obvious thing is that he would have invented the system which produced ALL forms of life, food, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. No one can “go further”, but you go miles further and come up with a theory that you can’t explain, and you tell us we should accept your inability to explain it as an explanation.

dhw: I am simply suggesting that if he is all-powerful, he could have produced a different system, and therefore I propose that the system he created is the system he wanted, as opposed to being the only one that could work. “Freedom” is the operative word, and your belief that he tried to correct “errors” but sometimes failed also casts doubt on his all-powerfulness.

DAVID: How do you know any other system is possible? My view is we have the only system that can work, provided by God's judgement of what can work. You say God had a choice. An unsupported theory.[…]

dhw: YOU have said he made choices along the way. How can you make choices if there is no alternative?

DAVID: The alternatives are involved in designing a single working system, not picking among several systems when God knew only one would work.

You wrote: “I think he devised a system from scratch consciously making choices and came up with the best in his view.” The best indicates a choice, but I don’t think it makes much difference whether he made choices between systems or between components of one system – choices still denote alternatives to what we ended up with.

dhw: My theory has him creating the system he wanted to create, not the system he “had to” create because there was no choice although he made choices. Which of these sounds more “godlike” to you?

DAVID: Exactly your theory, except only one could work.

He would have chosen the one that worked the way he wanted it to work. In your theory, despite all his choices, he had no choice because this was the only one that would work.

dhw: You have dodged the Cambrian issue. If your God could create species without precursors (and you say we are descended from them), why didn’t he create us directly if we were his only goal?

DAVID: Not dodged. His choice of methodology. Your imagined humanized God does not recognize the true God is not required to be consistent.

YOUR – not his – choice of methodology is for him to have specially designed a direct line from bacteria to humans, except that during the Cambrian he designed new life forms with no precursors, and we are descended from them. But all life forms are biochemical, and for some unknown reason this means that all life forms were designed in preparation for humans (plus our food). You also happen by great good fortune to know the true God, and you know that the true God only makes sense to himself.