Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, August 22, 2022, 08:57 (822 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your usual complaint. I view the entire Earth and its inhabitants as serving our needs.

dhw: Quite apart from the blinkered human chauvinism of your comment, it is absurd to argue that throughout the 3.X billion years of life when we weren’t even there, the entire planet and every life form on it served our needs!

DAVID: My comment concerned the present.

It always does, and that is how you try to dodge the question why your God specially designed all the PAST life forms and econiches that did NOT lead to us and our food, if his one and only purpose was to design us and our food.

DAVID: Don't you realize my point? Your very human God allows you to create very human suppositions about how your humanlike God works His purposes. On that basis of course they are logical.

dhw: Why is it always “very” human?

DAVID: Because your God directly seeks entertainment [dhw: I always object to your use of this derogatory term], especially free-for-alls, has to experiment, suddenly decides to change course, and you claim He is not very human. There is no sense of directionality and clear purpose a proper form of God should have.

dhw: These are all alternative explanations for the history of evolution, and you agree that all of them fit in logically with that history, whereas your own explanation (the theory bolded above) makes no sense to you (it makes sense only to God).

DAVID: The usual distortion. My strict point is I cannot know God's reasons for His actions, but of course they make sense to Him. But I can analyze His actions to discern His reasons. What is nonsensical about this approach?

There is nothing nonsensical about the approach. Nobody can know God’s reasons for his actions (if he exists), but we both develop theories about his actions and his reasons. Yours is that his actions were to design every individual life form, econiche etc., including all those that had no connection with us, and the one and only reason for designing these life forms that had no connection with us was that he wanted to design us and our econiches. That is one of the theories which you tell us, not surprisingly, make sense only to God.

dhw: You have absolutely no authority to decide what constitutes a “proper” God, but in any case, my alternatives do offer a sense of directionality and a clear purpose. These simply differ from your versions of direction and purpose.

DAVID: And are clearly humanized purposes as listed.

And according to you, his theoretical, humanized purpose in designing all those unconnected life forms etc. was to design us so that we could recognize him and his work, and maybe have a relationship with him, though you are also sure that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, but the reason for creating them could not possibly be that he enjoys creating and is interested in what he creates.

dhw: I keep pointing out all the possible “human” attributes you ascribe to your God […]

DAVID: Of course, God has some human like attributes but they don't drive His purposes.

How can you possibly know that?

DAVID: […] for cell intelligence I have all the ID folks agreeing with me, led by many PH.D. doing active science research on the subject.

dhw: You dismissed the theory as “purely hyperbolic descriptions”, and I have every right to point out that there are scientists in the field who disagree with you and with your ID-ers.

DAVID: And you picked out some old scientists on Google and blew up Shapiro out of proportion because from your rigid point of view cell must be highly intelligent and design new species at will, all to avoid God.

dhw: They are not all “old”, their findings are not invalidated by age, and I have reproduced Shapiro’s views as quoted in your own book, that cells are “cognitive entities” which produce “evolutionary novelty”. And please stop pretending that I am avoiding God when I ALWAYS allow for the possibility that it was your God who invented the intelligent cell.

DAVID: God's so-called intelligent cells are simply following His provided instructions.

That is your theory, and other scientists believe that cells have an autonomous intelligence of their own, but of course that does not exclude the possibility that your God designed their autonomous intelligence, just as you believe he designed our own.