Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, September 14, 2022, 10:31 (588 days ago) @ David Turell

Ecosystem importance

DAVID: I view the way you cling to cell intelligence as a means of reducing God's direct control of evolution.

dhw: Of course. One possible explanation for the higgledy-piggledy comings and goings of life forms and ecosystems is that this is what your God wanted: a free-for-all (though with the option of dabbling if he felt like it). It is your obsession with the idea that God wanted total control that leads to most of the contradictions in your theories of evolution.

DAVID: Why shouldn't an all-powerful God keep total control?

The question is not “why shouldn’t he?” but “did he?” and “did he want to?” Your response to all the logical contradictions in your theories concerning God’s “total control” ends up in your admission that you can’t explain them – they “make sense only to God”.

DAVID: Let's understand belief: every organism on Earth is here because God desired to put it here. Even dead ends were desired, and how proven is it as dead ends they didn't play an advancing role?

dhw: Let’s understand your beliefs: your God’s one and only aim was to design H. sapiens and our foods, and so he individually designed countless organisms and foods that did not lead to us (dead ends), “extinct life has no role in current life”, but every dead end was an “absolute requirement” in preparation for H. sapiens plus food. “How proven is it” that every single dead end played an advancing role in the individual design of H. sapiens plus food?

DAVID: It is obvious to me the entire current ecosystem provides food for all.

But you keep insisting that all the past, extinct dead-end organisms (and their ecosystems) which did not lead to us and our ecosystems were specially designed by your God as an “absolute requirement” for us and our current ecosystem. Please, please stop this silly dodging.

DAVID: And we human are here. God reached His goal. Your obsession with past evolutionary branches is unreasonable. God did all of this and He knows exactly what He is doing.
And later:
DAVID: A designer can do what He wishes. Stepwise or jump ahead. You don't understand the concept.

We humans are here, lots of other species are here, and countless numbers of other organisms were here, and had no connection with us although you insist that your God specially designed ALL of them in preparation for us. Why is it unreasonable to question such illogicality? I have no doubt that if God exists, he knows exactly what he is doing and knew exactly what he was doing in the past, and of course he can do what he wishes. And I see no reason why what he does should only make sense to him and not to us when there are other theistic explanations of life’s history which make perfect sense even to you.

dhw: Please explain how the brontosaurus was an “absolute requirement” for us and our food.

DAVID: Narrowness again. Every organism put on Earth was a desired result by God. You can't analyze God down to the last dot and tittle.

dhw: A free-for-all, or humans arrived at through experimentation, or arrived at as a new idea after all the preceding dead ends, could also be a “desired result by God”, and it is you who try to “analyze to the last dot and tittle” by insisting that every extinct, dead-end dot and tittle (trilobite, brontosaurus, moa) was specially designed for the one and only purpose of preparing the way for us and our food.

DAVID: Again, your total purpose is to humanize God's thinking.

The weakest of all your dodges. My “total purpose” here is to find logical theistic explanations for the history of evolution. Nobody knows your God’s true purpose, methods or nature, but there is absolutely no reason why – if he exists - your God should not have endowed us with some of his own thought patterns and emotions and logic, as you have agreed many times. What you fight against is any “humanization” that differs from your own, even if it provides logical answers to the questions arising from your own theories, which “make sense only to God”, i.e. not to you.