Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, September 18, 2022, 16:35 (795 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: All of the possible reasons for actions by God indicate a personality requiring those actions. Your 'one of my theories' indicate you do not have a set description of God. You are amorphous in your concepts of God. I have one set view based on my reading/studies. I see your list of God's desires as showing a humanized God, not on showing the purposeful, selfless God I envision.

dhw: Of course, actions will reflect personality. All of my theories show a purposeful God, but since nobody can possibly know his personality, we can only offer theories. One minute you complain that my theories entail specific “human” characteristics, and the next you say they are “amorphous”! You yourself have no doubt that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, and you even have him wanting our admiration, and you have no more proof of your “selflessness” than I have of my proposal that these human attributes suggest self-interest. Now please explain why the desire for full control is not human, whereas a desire to create autonomous beings is human.

God's 'full control' is a way of saying God maintains full control of His creations always. It is an allegorical thought on our part because that aspect of God's non-human personality may not represent desire.

DAVID: Same old discussion from you. 1) Adler taught me how to think about God.

dhw: How does Adler know that God is not human in any way, though he probably has thought patterns and emotions in common with us?

Adler is a famous philosopher of theology. What is your authority for your thoughts about God?

2) God used a process of creation that looks like evolution in the Darwin sense. That continuous process led to us and all the ecosystems of food supply, which supply is tenuous, and tells us all branches are necessary.

dhw: That continuous process led to us and to our current tenuous ecosystems but also to all the tenuous ecosystems that came to a dead end and did not lead to us and our ecosystems. Why do you think he designed all the tenuous ecosystems that did not lead to ours, if his only purpose was to design us and our tenuous ecosystems?

Old ecosystems supported old bushes of life. Evolution is an advancing set of systems. Why do you dwell on the past constantly when we now live in the evolved ecosystems of the present provided by God to serve the huge human population He anticipated.

DAVID: 3) you have no concept of a designer. He can produce in simple steps or giant jumps (Cambrian) at His will. The Cambrian for thinking folks implies design, not your weird twist on it.

dhw: I have no doubt that your God could produce in simple steps or giant jumps at his will. And that is why I am asking you why you think he chose to design H. sapiens – who you say was his one and only purpose right from the start of life – in itsy-bitsy stages. Your answer is that you don’t know,.

And my reasonable response is He chose to evolve us in stages. And I gave you evidence of His preferences: He evolved the universe from the BB. the Earth for life from its beginning and evolved life. Stop ignoring the evidence!! I do know!!!

DAVID: Can you offer us any authority on agnosticism philosophy besides yourself?

dhw: No. I do not believe that there is any “authority” on theism, atheism, or agnosticism. But I suspect you are simply trying once again to distract attention from my criticisms by asking me for a reading list. I can’t give you one. However, as I wrote on the Blechly thread: "If our ideas are based on other people’s findings, it is up to us to defend them – not to issue a reading list."

You are your own authority. I'm not.