Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, September 14, 2022, 18:11 (589 days ago) @ dhw

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?

dhw: The question is not “why shouldn’t he?” but “did he?” and “did he want to?”

You have reduced the discussion to a human level while God is not human. History is what God produced. What we see is exactly what He wanted. I have shown you the structure of our food supply. I have demonstrated humans as an extraordinary endpoint. You pick this apart by presenting your very humanized form of a God, who experiments, enjoys free-for-alls, etc.

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.

dhw: 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.

A total non-answer to my point of how a designer works. I'll repeat. We cannot know God's reasons but must analyze His works. You and I seem to have a total disagreement about how to view those works. The discussion of food supply goes back to Malthus!!

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

dhw: 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.

I'm not dodging. God must have His own way of creating for His own reasons. We see He evolved whatever he wished to create. Yes, or no? What He created are endpoints. Yes, or no?

I see nothing human in my version of God. His thought patterns, logic, and emotions must be allegorically discussed, since He is a person like no other person. Your 'making sense' complaint is totally illogical. I accept reality as God's creation. I analyze it for His possible reasoning. I've offered my views from the point of seeing God as totally purposeful. You don't like that form of God. Every person has a personal form of God. Yours is humanized and your conclusions are logical only on that basis. Offer me the same courteous view.