Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, October 01, 2022, 16:09 (782 days ago) @ dhw

Nature of God

DAVID: That God is a very different personage does not mean we can't analyze and debate.

dhw: We can’t analyze and debate if you tell us that the words you use, such as “full control”, “enjoyment”, “interest”, might not mean the same to your God as they do to us.

DAVID: We can debate because those are the only words we have!

dhw: So when you say your God wants and has full control, enjoys creating, is interested in his creations, probably/possibly has thought patterns and emotions like ours, and is kind, please don’t tell us these words may not mean what you and I think they mean.

They mean exactly what they mean to us, but at the divine level there may be a difference we cannot perceive. Just a philosophic point.

dhw: You keep agreeing that the dead ends were part of ecosystems which were required for the life forms that existed at that time but by definition did NOT lead to us and our food. No, I cannot accept that your God “had to” create countless dead ends which had no connection with humans, solely in order to create humans (plus our food). That doesn’t make sense to me or to you (it “makes sense only to God”). Accept that your premise is senseless and therefore either his purpose or his actions must have been different from those you impose on him. Then “your confusion will disappear”.

DAVID: No your confusion continues. At each stage of evolution, the living animals had to have ecosystems for food support. Those ecosystems became ends as evolution moved to new stages.

dhw: I said before that I’m suspicious of your use of the word “stage” which suggests a series of consecutive sections leading to a particular conclusion (i.e. sapiens plus food). This is misleading. Yes, every organism that ever lived required food, but the vast majority of organisms and their ecosystems were NOT stages on the way to sapiens plus food. They came to a dead end. And that is why your theory that we and our food were your God's one and only purpose makes no sense to you or to me.

If God made the sort of dead ends you posit, He felt it was part of what He had to produce as He controlled evolution. As below:

DAVID: God, as designer of evolution, created everything He had to create.

dhw: I suggest that he didn’t “have to” create anything. Who forced him? I suggest he created what he wanted to create, and so, if he exists, either he wanted dead ends, which means that humans can’t have been his one and only purpose, or perhaps he set out wanting to create a being with thought patterns etc. like his own, but had to experiment before hitting on the right formula.

Again, a humanized God who wanders along not sure of where He is headed as He evolves His creations.

DAVID: When an ecosystem has outlived its usefulness it disappears. A definition of a dead end.

dhw: Ecosystems are only “useful” to the organisms that live in them (and which are a part of them – the other part being the environment). An ecosystem disappears when conditions are such that the organisms can no longer survive. A dead end leads nowhere, which is why it is absurd to say that your God designed every dead-end ecosystem as an “absolute requirement” for us and our ecosystems.

Handled above. Everything in the fossil record was produced intentionally by God.