Return to David's theory of evolution PART 1 (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, July 12, 2022, 08:43 (648 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: What is logical is I trust God knew how to do it. My analysis of God and evolution tells Adler and I God had a goal of producing humans by evolving them.

dhw: Why do you say “a” goal? At the very centre of our disagreement is your insistence that your God’s one and only goal was to evolve (by which you mean design) H. sapiens and our food, and so he proceeded to design countless life forms, econiches, natural wonders etc., the vast majority of which are extinct and did NOT lead to sapiens and our food.

DAVID: Your comment still makes no logical sense. The process of evolution presents a series of discarded forms and many branches which do not lead specifically to humans, but necessarily form the ecosystems which provide food for life to continue.

Of course every ecosystem provided food for every species, but once again, as usual, you have left out the part of your theory which makes the rest illogical: namely that according to you, God’s one and only goal from the very beginning was to design sapiens plus food, and so it makes no sense to have him individually designing all those forms, branches and ecosystems that did not lead to sapiens plus food. Why do you continue to dodge when you admit that you can find no logical reason why your God should have used your version of his method to achieve your version of his goal?

dhw: What is logical is that your God, if he exists, would have known what he wanted to do and would have known how to do it. That does not mean he only wanted to produce us and our food, but two of my alternative theistic theories actually allow for the possibility that we were or became “a” goal and also explain what you can’t explain: why he may indeed have designed and then discarded all the unconnected life forms etc. (experimentation, or new ideas as he went along). However, you reject these on the grounds that they entail human patterns of thought, although in the past you have agreed that he certainly/probably/possibly has patterns of thought similar to ours.

DAVID: Continued disconnected illogical view.

You agree that your version “makes sense only to God”, and you have always agreed that my alternatives fit in logically with life’s history. There is no point in your parroting my criticism of your theory (disconnected and illogical) if you agree that my alternatives are connected and logical. If you’ve changed your mind, please tell us which parts are NOT logical.

DAVID: Same confusion regarding how to think about God. I fully accept God doing what He wishes for His own, unknown to me, reasons.
And later:
DAVID: I'm sorry you are so confused about the issue of how to think about God as I do.

If God exists, then we must all accept that he did what he wished and we can only guess at his reasons. That does not mean that we must “think about God as you do”, and accept that he did what YOU say he did (designed every individual life form) for what YOU say was his reason (they were all an “absolute requirement” in preparation for his design of sapiens plus food). Please stop pretending that you know “how to think about God”. Only God knows that, if he exists!

ID

DAVID: What makes perfect sense to us, if not you, is accepting God as the designer of evolution.

dhw: Yes, that is what I have always thought was the point of the ID movement: to show that life is too complex to have arisen by chance, and therefore there must be an intelligent designer. And I accept that this makes perfect sense. But you claim that they all believe the theory bolded above, which you say “makes sense only to God”, i.e. not to you or them. Do you now wish to withdraw that claim?

DAVID: No.

We therefore have it on record that according to you all ID-ers believe in a theory which “makes sense only to God”. I strongly suspect that some of them would be surprised.