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

by dhw, Wednesday, April 27, 2022, 08:30 (724 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] You think God is inconsistent, using the Cambrian.

dhw: You are constantly mistaking yourself for God. It is you who are inconsistent. […] (There’s not enough space to repeat yesterday’s Cambrian example.)

DAVID: I am not God, and you do not understand how I view God especially when you ask me to explain your distorted views of God' actions. I accept what God has done. As an example, you puzzle over God's enormous universe, when He wanted to produce us. My view is God did what He had to do. We humans will puzzle over it and try to research as to why, and not imply it shouldn't be there.

I have not implied it shouldn’t be there! You assume that your God’s sole purpose right from the start was to produce us! I ask why you think your God would create countless solar systems and life forms if he only wanted one solar system and one life form plus food. You can’t answer. So maybe your God did NOT want just us and our food right from the start.

DAVID: What is wrong is your using your reasoning against God's. […]

Nobody knows God’s reasoning or purpose. You can find no logical reason why he should use your theoretical method to achieve your theoretical goal, and then you pretend that I’m questioning his reasoning instead of yours!

DAVID: Your problem is not recognizing God knows exactly what He is doing and needs to do, as in guaranteeing a proper food supply for all. You've left out part of my proposals in your discussion above. Why?

dhw: 3.X billion years’ worth of food supplies would not be necessary if his only aim was to design humans plus food! […] Hence your announcement that you can’t explain “why God chose evolution over direct creation. Why can’t you accept that explanation?” […] And furthermore, “God makes sense only to Himself!” That is to say, your theory makes no sense to you.

DAVID: See above your statement for full explanations. Your total misunderstanding of how I view God is revealed clearly in this last diatribe.

If you tell me you have explained God’s reasoning by saying you can’t explain it, and you tell me he makes sense only to Himself, what is there to misunderstand?

“Humanization”

dhw: I asked you what you thought was your purposeful God’s purpose in giving organisms “free will”.

DAVID: Organisms act freely and therefore can perform unexpected activities is all I pointed out. As for their free will, God obviously did not produce automatons. Simply, they need to act freely as in red in tooth and claw.

dhw: You have carefully avoided answering the question, though I’m happy with your answer, which supports my proposal that your God would prefer the unexpected to the expected (far more interesting) and that he did NOT specifically design carnivorousness but left it to the organisms (cell communities) to design their own methods of survival. Perhaps the reason why you avoided answering the question is that you believe your God’s one and only purpose in all his designs was to produce homo sapiens plus food, and you have realized that this does not fit in with the history of life as we know it.

DAVID: Your usual twisted view of my views. The history of life fits exactly what God wanted to create. The endpoint of evolution is humans, which therefore is a God purpose.

If God exists, I have no doubt that the history of life fits exactly what he wanted to create. And since the history reveals countless life forms and econiches that did not lead to humans plus food, it makes no sense to argue that every life form and econiche was preparation for and part of his one and only goal (not “a” but “the” purpose) of designing humans plus food.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: God knows what He is doing even if dhw has doubts with his second-guessing. It seems agnostics know better than God how to do things.

dhw: […] I have made no criticism of the system or of God. On the contrary, I have gone out of my way to emphasize that if God is all-powerful then the system we have must be the system he wanted! Not a system containing errors he did not want and could not control, but a system in which the different cells had the capability of taking their own decisions – i.e. were given the “free will” you have just unwittingly endowed them with.

DAVID: Your usual pipe dreams that either God couldn't do what He wanted which is a perfect system without errors……

It is you who tell us that he had no choice (despite the fact that he made choices) and “had to” produce this system, and tried to correct the “errors”, which can only mean he didn’t want the “errors”.

DAVID: …or He chose an uncontrolled free-for-all just to enjoy the unexpected battles. It is obvious God gave us the best system available always under his controls.

Once again, “best system available” suggests a choice, and “always under his controls” is clearly nonsense, since you say the “errors” were unavoidable, though he did his best to correct them. (See “Humanization” for more on God’s limitations and the free-for-all).