More "miscellany" (General)

by dhw, Monday, August 29, 2022, 07:59 (577 days ago) @ David Turell

Vocalisation

DAVID: Programming new blueprints for cells to follow is an unnecessary way of doing it. I'm sure God could do it if He decided to. But hands on in much easier.

dhw: Where have you found programming new blueprints in my theory? It’s you who have him offering billions of blueprints in your 3.8-billion-year-old programme for the whole of evolution. Hands on is dabbling, so have we said goodbye to that old programme of yours? Why is it easier to perform millions and millions of hands-on operations to produce millions and millions of eventually extinct organisms than it is to leave them to do their own thing?[/i]

DAVID: Red question: blueprint is just a way of describing instructions for creation.

I know. And you have him providing his instructions for every individual innovation, lifestyle, natural wonder etc, either in a 3.8 billion-year old book, or through individual dabbles. And you reject the possibility that he gave cells the means of doing their own designing, although we know they can design minor adaptations autonomously, and we humans can invent all kinds of novelties autonomously.

DAVID: Blue question: God, in charge, has goals. Individuals creating may not follow His goals.

I’m always interested in your plural goals, as you only ever present one: sapiens plus food. I agree that if this was his goal, the easiest way would have been to directly create humans plus food – as in Genesis. But we evolutionists argue that he didn’t do that. He went all round the mulberry (or whatever) bush to get what you say he wanted. So maybe his only goal was not us and our ecosystems but a free-for-all, for which he designed the appropriate autonomous mechanisms. Much easier than having to design each of the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings that failed to lead to your version of his goal. Don’t you agree?

DAVID: Our theories about God (IDer's plus me) are perfectly logical and comes from the approach that comes from our concept of God

dhw:I can’t believe that all ID-ers accept your theory that the designer specially designed every single life form and ecosystem throughout life's history solely in order to design hominins and homos and ultimately sapiens plus food, which were his only goal from the beginning. But I have no doubt whatsoever that they all believe in Intelligent Design. Is that what you mean?

DAVID: ID means God designed everything!!!! The designer is God.

And do they ALL believe that he designed every single life form, natural wonder etc. as an “absolute requirement” etc., as bolded above?

First walking ancestor

DAVID: We have no way of knowing the thought patterns of Lucy or how she attempted ground travel. Your bold is suppositions. All we know is bipedalism appeared.

dhw: Agreed. Hence our theories. You asked why it happened, and I gave you two possible answers. You suggested God “designed the change”. Now please explain why you think my suggestions are unlikely.

DAVID: They leave out God.

God could have given them the intelligence to respond autonomously to unfavourable local conditions by descending from the trees in order to find food, or simply to go exploring land-based regions in the hope of finding nice things to eat. After all, you believe he gave their descendants the autonomous intelligence to design rockets to the moon, and hunting for food is hardly rocket science.

Lungworm

dhw: My question would be why your kind and all-powerful God designed these dangerous animals if he knew they would make us poor humans ill or even dead. I suggest they are simply part of a great free-for-all in which what is good for a lungworm may be bad for a human.

DAVID: Yes, 'what is good for a lungworm may be bad for a human'.

dhw: We agree. That doesn’t answer my question, but it supports the theistic concept of a free-for-all in which organisms use their God-given intelligence to do what is good for them rather than that of a programme designed by a kindly God only to do good to us humans, but accidentally slipping out of his control and killing us instead.

DAVID: Your point is wrong. The 'bad' organisms are free to do whatever they wish.

A good definition of a free-for-all.

New view of Big Bang

QUOTE: Although many laypersons (and even a minority of professionals) still cling to the idea that the Big Bang means "the very beginning of it all," that definition is decades out of date.

DAVID: […] this means the hot inflationary period is all we can see of a beginning for this universe. We can assume a start but it is hidden.

dhw: We can assume nothing. But you assume an eternal form of immaterial consciousness without a beginning, so why can’t someone else assume eternal forms of materials and energy constantly creating new combinations which eventually led to the universe we know?

DAVID: Pure materialism reaches mentation!!!

As unlikely as pure mentation came from nowhere!!!

Extreme extremophiles

I can’t thank you enough for these amazing articles. The richness and sheer ingenuity of living things is mind-boggling, regardless of religious beliefs or non-beliefs. I don’t know how you manage to keep up with all these discoveries, but they are an education in themselves.


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