Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, August 30, 2022, 12:01 (606 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Since the past produces/evolves the present, the past forms are required. They all produce the current food webs/ecosystems.

dhw: Please explain why God had to specially design brontosauruses in order to produce the current food webs/ecosystems.

DAVID: Silly question. Bronto is a tiny part of the entire process.

But you insist that your God individually designed every single life form, ecosystem, lifestyle, natural wonder etc., and every single one of them is/was a “tiny part” and is/was an “absolute requirement” for sapiens and our food. Since you have no idea why your God had to specifically design each “tiny part”, past and present, extinct and extant, in order to fulfil his one and only purpose, which was to design us and our current food webs, you can only repeat that your theory “makes sense only to God”, i.e. not to you or anyone else.

DAVID: God's creation pattern is to evolve all forms stepwise: the universe from the BB, the Earth from its origin, life from its start to final sapiens from Erectus, etc. It is perfectly obvious pattern.

dhw: I’m not disputing stepwise evolution! I’m disputing your equation of your own single-minded, “firsthand” design of a single plan with what you believe to be your God’s countless “firsthand” designs which had no connection with what you believe to have been his single plan but which can be explained by my alternative theories.

DAVID: I know about your imagined theories which fit a humanized God.

dhw: All theories, including those concerning the existence and nature of God, are “imagined”, since nobody knows the truth. Your “humanizing” argument has been discredited so many times by your own “humanizations” that there is no point in responding to it. And you have dodged the whole issue of “secondhand” design, in which you illogically equate your own single-minded plan and direct execution with your version of God’s plan and his roundabout ways of fulfilling it.

DAVID: I'm sorry I understand the problems of design by a designer you don't. I've done many designs, and although I am not God, I know the equivalent problems secondhand has at my level.

But your level is not God’s level. You have a single goal, and if you can implement it yourself, you do so directly. For you, no point in getting someone else to do it (= secondhand). You try to apply this logic to God. What doesn’t make sense to you or me is the fact that you impose a single goal on him (designing us plus our food) but find that instead of implementing it directly, he designs countless life forms that have no connection with his goal, and even his goal (sapiens) is designed in stages with features that need to undergo change after change. If you wish to design a house, you do not begin by designing a bicycle, a motor car and an airplane. And you do not provide your house with bits and pieces which you will later change into different bits and pieces. The obvious conclusion: God’s goal and/or methods of achieving his goal can’t have been anything like yours.

DAVID: Of course, many branches of evolution did not lead to humans but to the necessary food webs we all recognize. All part of a necessary arrangement.

dhw: Once again you are telling us that every single life form that became extinct over 3.X billion years was individually designed as “necessary” or an “absolute requirement” for us or for our current "food webs". And yet you tell us that your God designed the Cambrian species, from which we and many of our fellow animals (and foods) are descended, without any precursors.

DAVID: God can design any stage any way He wishes. God chose to evolve us, as history shows.

We agree that humans evolved and God can do what he likes. That doesn’t mean his purpose and method were such that they make no sense to anyone but himself!

DAVID: I accept it all as God's plan, noting God evolves all His creations for His own reasons.

dhw: What you accept is your own version of your God’s plan, along with all its illogicalities, and your version of events “makes sense only to God”. You dodged my request above, so I’ll make it again. Please tell us which of your theories “make sense only to God” and therefore not to you.

DAVID: What God did is for His reasons. Live with it.

If he exists, of course I can live with it. What I can’t live with is your theories, which make no sense even to you. I understand your reluctance to answer my question. That speaks for itself.