Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, September 27, 2022, 20:09 (786 days ago) @ dhw
edited by David Turell, Tuesday, September 27, 2022, 20:21

Nature of God

DAVID: It is not silly games. It is a philosophical point that God is not human and human terms do not aptly apply.

dhw: You don’t need to be a philosopher to realize that an eternal, immaterial, sourceless mind which creates a universe is not human. If you wish to discuss its purpose, methods and nature, it is impossible to do so without using “human terms”, and why shouldn’t we? For example, when you say your God has “full control”, we both know you mean God making something happen the way he wants it to happen.... Why does this not “aptly apply”? If the terms you use don’t mean what we both think they mean, there is no point in any discussion of God’s purpose, method and nature. Is that what Adler and other religious philosophers have taught you?

Of course, we must discuss Him in our terms. It is all we have. But at the same time, we must do it realizing, we do not know to what extent those terms actually apply to God. Have you read about the philosophy of how to think about God to provide a background for your position?

dhw: Do you disagree that the only being qualified to tell us how to think about/imagine God is God himself, if he exists? […]

DAVID: God is telling us about Himself indirectly.

dhw: If God exists, we can only extrapolate our theories about him from our human interpretations of history (of the universe and life). Presumably that’s what you mean by “indirectly”. These interpretations can only be subjective (hence the thousands of books on the subject), but if our human terms may not mean what we think they mean, then as above there is no point in any discussion. Meanwhile, do you agree or disagree that the only being qualified to tell us how to think about/imagine God is God himself, if he exists?

He is and tells us through His works.

Design and purpose

dhw: And cells, as we know from some eminent scientists, can be viewed as autonomously intelligent entities, and if your God designed them as such because he WANTED a free-for-all, who are you to say he is not a good designer? In your own theory, he only WANTS to create H. sapiens plus food, but before he does so, he designs countless dead-end species and foods that have no connection with his one and only purpose. Is that what you call a “good” designer?

DAVID: God is a great designer of what looks like evolution.

dhw: So now evolution apparently isn’t evolution! Meanwhile, please answer the questions I asked above.

God is a great designer. You criticize His approach, but it worked. We are here.

dhw: Some past forms have led to present forms, but you have agreed that the past is full of dead ends that have led nowhere. Thank you for agreeing that it is nonsense to claim that we are descended from organisms that had no precursors (i.e. that did not evolve), and yet we were your all-knowing, all-powerful, can-do-whatever-he-wishes God’s one and only purpose from the very beginning of evolution.

DAVID: Same non-answer as discussed above.

dhw: Not even discussed. You merely repeated the nonsense that ALL the past leads to the present, though dead ends lead nowhere.

Dead ends were part of ecosystems no longer necessary as species become extinct.

DAVID: As for God's purpose to produce humans, the presence of human is used to prove God in that natural evolution is not capable of producing us.[…]

dhw: [..] (a) you have quite rightly argued that ALL the complexities of life can be used as evidence of God’s existence, and (b) we are not discussing God’s existence here. We are discussing your theistic interpretation of evolution, which is riddled with the contradictions I have listed over and over again, and to which you reply that we cannot know God’s reasons, and your theories “make sense only to God.”

DAVID: Same silly distortion of my statement that only God knows why He evolves His creations.

dhw: So please explain why he designed dead ends that had no connection with his one and only purpose, and why he designed H. sapiens in itsy-bitsy stages when he was perfectly capable of designing species without any precursors. These are the two theories which you have previously told us you can’t explain, and only God knows his reasons.

You are discussing God's design of evolution, and as a designer everything appearing is His wish. God did it His way, not your way.