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

by dhw, Friday, April 29, 2022, 11:43 (937 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: God obviously modifies or evolves His creations over time. See past discussions I've presented. Why can't He have goals from the beginning? And work toward them?

dhw: Of course he would have had goals from the beginning! But according to you, his one and only goal was Planet Earth to house sapiens plus food, and yet according to you he specially designed countless solar systems and countless life forms and foods which even you agree did not lead to sapiens plus food. And although he was perfectly capable of designing species with no precursors, he specially designed stage after stage of hominins and homos before designing us. You have admitted you don’t know why, so why do you go on pretending that it makes sense to you? As for modifying his creations, you are at last beginning to creep inch by inch towards the possibility that he did NOT have everything planned right from the start.

DAVID: I'm not creeping anywhere from the concept God knows exactly what he wants He wants to create. I don't pretend. I accept exactly what history shows us God did. You simply cannot wrap your brain around such a concept.

I agree that God, if he exists, would know exactly what he wants. He could have wanted to create a free-for-all, or he could have wanted to create a being like himself and kept experimenting until he finally got what he wanted. Both theories would explain why he created the higgledy-piggledy history of life, as opposed to a theory which has him doing things you can’t explain. But “you simply cannot wrap your brain” round such logical explanations of what history shows us.

Rare solar system

DAVID: Of course, God is constantly intervening to be sure everything goes according to plan. Remember it fits my contention God is always in tight control and knows exactly what He is doing and where He is headed.

dhw: I know your contention, and that is why I’m surprised that you think a God in tight control who knows exactly where he is headed should find it necessary to intervene in order to “change course”. For instance if, as you claim, his one and only goal was to design sapiens plus food, it would make sense that if he found that what he was designing did not lead to that goal, he would change course. Hence the theory of experimentation. […]

DAVID: We have agreed that God dabbling along the way is a reasonable concept.

Yes indeed, extremely reasonable, as it explains the many changes of direction which indicate that he had not got everything planned from the start, or did not know exactly where he was heading.

Chixculub

DAVID: An amazing sudden environmental change that forced evolution into totally new directions. […]

dhw: […[]I would suggest that evolution being “forced into totally new directions” fully supports the point that your God did NOT specifically design every single extinct life form and econiche as preparation for and part of “the goal of evolving (= designing) humans” plus our food, or if he did, he got it wrong and kept experimenting until he got it right.

DAVID: Thank you for agreeing adequate food supply is an intimate part of evolution.

I can’t imagine anyone disagreeing. It’s the “totally new directions” that denote the illogicality of your theory.

“Humanization”

DAVID: But please finally recognize, the huge bush not related to producing humans is their food. Without it the current human population would starve.

dhw: Of course we current humans would starve without our current bush! But yet again you edit out your theory that every PAST organism and PAST food bush was preparation for us and our food bush, although you agree that the past was for the past, and extinct life has no role in current life.

DAVID: Isn't the concept of evolution that the past leads to the future, the past the precursor? But you keep it sliced up in your mind.

That is a concept of time. You keep agreeing that most past life forms and food bushes did not lead to us and our food, so please stop hiding behind vague generalizations.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: Of course, He didn't want errors, but this high-speed system is the only one that produces life. An all-knowing God would recognize the best system available and use it.

dhw: What do you mean by “available”? You seem to have forgotten your belief that nothing was “available” until your God created it. What is your objection to the proposal that instead of designing a system containing “errors” he did not want and, in some cases, was incapable of correcting, your all-powerful God designed precisely the system he wanted to design. After all, every life form dies, so he must have deliberately built means of death into the system – unless you think death was another of the “errors” he couldn’t avoid.

DAVID: Of course He designed the system He wished to have. Thank you for recognizing all organisms are designed to die. I made exactly that point here years ago in response to some quote of yours that needed correction.

So why do you keep harping on about “errors” and your all-powerful God’s efforts – often in vain – to correct them?