Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, October 02, 2022, 12:18 (565 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

If these discussions are to continue, I suggest we agree that such words as the above mean what we mean when we use them, though of course we can ask for explanations if the context makes the meaning unclear. See below.

DAVID: 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.

DAVID: 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:

But why, according to you, did he “have to” produce dead ends which did not lead to H. sapiens plus food if his one and only purpose was to produce H.sapiens plus food? Your answer is that your theory “makes sense only to God”, i.e. not to you or me. 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.

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

The “experiment” theory is that, just like your own humanized God, he knows exactly where he’s heading, but evolves (by which you mean designs) different creations in order to find the right formula for what he wants. Now please give us your own theoretical reason for his designing dead ends that did not lead to his one and only purpose, which you have previously ”explained” as making sense “only to God”.

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.

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

Unless of course it was not produced intentionally by God, but was the product of a free-for-all which was produced intentionally by God (if he exists).

DAVID (from “More miscellany”): For this discussion accept God produced all fossils in evolution. My theory is giant ecosystems which created dead-ends when no longer needed.

“No longer needed” for what? You keep telling us they were ALL needed to enable him to achieve his one and only purpose of designing us and our food! They obviously weren’t if they came to a dead end! But thank you so much for supporting the theory of a free-for-all, in which ecosystems “create” their own dead ends – which can only mean that the organisms of which they consist could no longer find means of survival when for some reason their living conditions underwent a change.