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

by dhw, Monday, May 16, 2022, 10:35 (920 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You have rigid approaches in your thoughts about your humanized God. I have never seen you change, but I do. […]

dhw: I don’t even know if God exists, but in these discussions on the possible purpose, method and nature of your God, I offer a variety of theories of evolution which you agree are logical […] You have never deviated from your fixed belief that your God created life with a single purpose: to design H. sapiens and his food bush, and all other life forms were designed in preparation for ours. I would call that “rigid”.

DAVID: I wish you would stop a 'rigidity' of comments in bold on my quote about your type of God theories: I agreed they only fit a very humanized God's actions.

And you agree that your God might possibly have thought patterns, emotions and logic similar to our own. Therefore you agree that my logical theories are possible.

DAVID: I have reached a fixed set of beliefs by opening my mind up to new ideas about Darwin evolution and God, leaving behind an amorphous collections of vague acceptance of previous thought.
And under “More miscellany”: “Why can't you realize I have no contradictions in my train of thought?”

Thank you for acknowledging that your set of beliefs is fixed – i.e. rigid. At one time, of course you were flexible enough to consider ideas different from those you held originally, but now you have closed your mind. The result is a fixed belief which is so illogical that you are forced to acknowledge you cannot explain it and it “makes sense only to God”.

DAVID: God as designer creates the gaps He wishes to create. The contradictions exist in a Godless approach.

dhw: It is perfectly feasible that if God exists, he would create the gaps he wishes to create. But if there are gaps, the process is not continuous! If you tell us that humans are descended from species which your God designed de novo (with no precursors), you can hardly go on to argue that there is a continuous line from bacteria to us. The fact that all life is biochemical does not explain the gaps. Your self-contradiction has nothing whatsoever to do with belief in God!

DAVID: You see it totally backwards. Believers in God see the gaps as proof of His doing. Why was Darwin so disturbed? God's form of evolutionary process is what you confuses you. Only a designer can create the gaps in phenotype, in a process He creates.

I have just pointed out that this is a perfectly feasible view. However, it contradicts your insistence that evolution is a continuous process, as explained in the bold which you have ignored. And if it is not continuous, and we are descended from specially designed species with no precursors, how does that support the view that his one and only purpose from the outset was to design us? You can’t explain it. “It makes sense only to God.”

Schroeder

dhw: […] I simply take as my starting point the possibility that God’s wishes. method etc. etc. might not be as senseless as you make them out to be. […]

DAVID: The problem is your refusal to accept that we believers are content with what God created and the way He decided to do it. We don't question His reasoning, to which we are not privy. We try to understand it. We try to help you in your muddle, but your brain can only see contradictions because of the confused way you think about a god you humanize by giving him human wishes.

You talk as if every Jewish, Christian, Muslim, African, Indian, South American “believer” believes in your combined theories of evolution, which “make sense only to God”. You also try to divert attention from the contradictions in your own beliefs by dismissing my alternatives. These are two separate issues: 1) the flaws in your reasoning (not God’s), and 2) your attempts to dismiss the logic of my alternatives on grounds of endowing God with human attributes (though you agree that these are possible) – which in fact is precisely what most believers do, or have you never heard of believers who think God watches over them, loves them, judges them, wants them to worship him etc.? You have frequently expressed your negative view of the way religions “humanize” God, but perhaps you don’t count religious people as “believers” and only you know how to think about God.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Excellent news. Perhaps eventually you will acknowledge that your own rigid theory of evolution is riddled with contradictions, and you will open your mind to alternatives which you have already agreed are logical and indeed possible.

DAVID: Still at it!!! Your 'possible God type' is nothing I can recognize as possible.

What “God type”? If, for instance, you believe it is possible that God enjoys creating and watches his creations with interest, why is it impossible for you to “recognize” that God might want to enjoy creating and watching his creations with interest?