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

by David Turell , Saturday, May 14, 2022, 15:34 (922 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I've told you I am not certain God has to enjoy what He creates. That He MIGHT enjoy it, is as far as one should go.

dhw: But you keep changing your tune whenever I quote you....And I also noted: “I’m sure He sees what is going on with His own level of interest, unknown to us.” The modification to “MIGHT” came later, but in fact it makes no difference. You are still allowing for the possibility, and so you can hardly dismiss the theory while at the same time agreeing that it is possible.

You have rigid approaches in your thoughts about your humanized God. I have never seen you change, but I do. I also have certain rigid rules about viewing God, but as we bounce ideas off each other my reasoning changes as your quotes show. I started my studies in this area of thought forty years ago and I am still evolving, following what continues to appear in print.

DAVID: I view evolution as a continuous process run by God, and from my viewpoint, the quotes are exactly reasonable in that context. I will stick to that viewpoint.

dhw: Your usual vague generalisation, which is contradicted elsewhere. Here you harp on about continuity, and in the next breath you’ll harp on about the gaps, which for you provide evidence of your God’s existence. Gaps, in case you hadn’t noticed, are the opposite of continuity. But of course there is continuity, in so far as different life forms have continuously come and gone, every branch developing from earlier branches, but that does not mean that every past life form, branch and ecosystem was preparation for and led to humans and our food – your fixed belief which is contradicted by the above bolded quotes.

There is no contradiction. God as designer creates the gaps He wishes to create. The contradictions exist in a Godless approach.

Schroeder

DAVID: I engaged myself into a study of my soft agnosticism by reading the thoughtful works of others: Denton, Schroeder, Adler are major influences.

dhw: Interesting, but doesn’t answer the questions raised by your inexplicable theories of evolution, which apparently aren’t covered by these thoughtful works.

DAVID: If you read them, I am covered fully.

dhw: Then please tell us how they explain your God’s purpose in designing the countless life forms and bushes that did not lead to his one and only goal of humans plus our bush, and why God chose to design his one and only goal (H. sapiens) in dribs and drabs though he was perfectly capable of designing species directly.

Simple. All the folks I quote accept what God did as what He wished to do. Your human reasoning that God could/should have directly produce humans implies you know better than God how to create. We simply accept His acts. I repeat, you do not know how to think about God as we do.

dhw: I offer alternative interpretations of his possible purpose and method. I have no idea why you consider your guess at enjoyment and interest, or my guesses at an experimenting or “learning” God (see Schroeder and Whitehead) to be a human "perversion".

DAVID: We totally differ and will never see eye to eye.

dhw: Obviously not if you close your eyes to the flaws in your theories and dismiss any logical alternatives for no reason other than the fact that they suggest human thought patterns, although you consider it possible (originally “probable”) that your God has similar thought patterns to ours.

God is not human. Any real similarity exist only as possibilities. Your note of my change from 'probably' to 'possible' fits my position in our discussion perfectly. By the way, our entries differ in preparation. I simply respond to you in stream of consciousness off the top. In that way my reasoning grows. I am still on my search.