Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, August 10, 2022, 11:22 (625 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Why must I repeat an argument you ignore? It is not just our food. All animal organisms must eat, and all the branches in ecosystems develop a huge food supply for the now huge human population. True or false?

dhw: All the branches in which ecosystems? You have now decided to leave out the whole of pre-human history! You have agreed that the majority of extinct branches of life forms and ecosystems did NOT lead to us or our food.

DAVID: I don't know how you can claim I agreed. I have constantly said evolution is a continuum, and the past must lead to the future. All ecosystems have a role in feeding us.

You wrote: “The current bush of food is NOW for humans NOW. There were smaller bushes in the PAST for PAST forms.” (The block capitals were your own.) And “Extinct life has no role in current time.” Yes, evolution is a continuum which produced countless branches of diversified life forms and ecosystems long before humans came on the scene. (Why have you used the present tense in your last sentence?) I must confess I find it hard to believe that you yourself now reject your above statements and believe your God designed every single PAST and extinct life form and food bush throughout 3.X billion pre-human years as an “absolute requirement” for himself to design the current us and our current food bush.

DAVID: Of course, the God you invent carries your innate foibles.

dhw: The God you invent acts in a way which makes no sense to you (it “makes sense only to God”), and you agree that all my alternative versions have him acting in a way that fits in logically with life’s history. Your only objection to my different versions is that they entail thought patterns and emotions like ours, but you agree that your God probably/possibly has thought patterns and emotions like ours.

DAVID: Why can't you see a God in charge of creation creates exactly what He wishes for His own reasons.

I have always agreed. We simply disagree on what he created and why he created it.

DAVID: We can only try to interpret His reasons from that viewpoint. Therefore, it 'makes sense only to God' is a logical starting point.

The key word is “only”. Why do you assume that his reasons will not make sense to us?

DAVID: 'Thought and emotions' must be expressed allegorically which means not in any way equivalent to ours.

I have no idea what you mean by “allegorically”. A couple of days ago, I asked how your God could have created love if he had no idea what love was. You replied: “For once you are thinking about God in a reasonable way. Of course, he knows love and every other emotion.” Please explain how his love is an “allegory”.

DAVID: The personality of the God you present is very humanizing as you now seem to agree, and the God I present differs greatly.

I agree that both of us present a God who has thought patterns and emotions like ours. I asked you a direct question:
dhw: why do you think a fully purposeful God who enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, knows love and every other emotion, wants our recognition and wants to have a relationship with us (all your terms) is less human than a fully purposeful God who enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, knows love and every other emotion, and experiments and/or tries out new ideas?

DAVID: Back to experimentation or changing course with new ideas. A purposeful God creates to determined endpoints He has identified. He is not a humanized God as you keep insisting.

I have included various thought patterns and emotions we have both listed, plus your God's very human desire for recognition and a relationship. My additions are comparable to your humanized version, which has him pursuing a single purpose and knowing exactly how to achieve it (you once compared yourself to him when talking about your own designs), whereas mine, in this case, have him either experimenting or trying new things. Unfortunately, your version has him incomprehensibly NOT pursuing his single purpose, because he spends 3.X billion years specially designing lots of different things that are not connected with his purpose, but in any case, why do you think your single-minded God is less human than my more open-minded God?

dhw: I have quoted your own proposals concerning your God’s thought patterns and emotions, and I fail to see how these can preclude self-interest.

DAVID: I have said God does not create for self-entertainment. He creates to create not to satisfy Himself.

I have never used the pejorative term “entertainment”, but in any case, you are certain that he enjoys creating, and I don’t see why his enjoyment should preclude the possibility that he might have created things because he wanted the enjoyment of creating them.

DAVID: Thinking about God requires some guidelines if religious teachings are ignored. Adler, as a philosopher of religion does just that and I follow those guidelines he provides.

I know you do, but I’m afraid that doesn’t help you to explain theories which you yourself regard as inexplicable and which make no sense to you – since they ”make sense only to God”.