Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, October 18, 2022, 09:07 (555 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I have never used the word “entertain” but have stuck to your own terms: you are certain that he “enjoys” creating and is “interested” in his creations. Why are you sneering at your own beliefs, which include your agreement that your God probably/possibly has patterns of thought and emotions like ours?

DAVID: Your version of your God shows Him being entertained by a free-for-all. I'm allowed to interpret Him as you describe Him.

A free-for-all is one of my alternative explanations of evolution’s history, though without the word “entertain”. Of course you are “allowed” to tell us he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, and I can’t see why you think I should not be allowed to use your belief as a clue to his possible purpose for creating life.

DAVID: What God knows about His goals does not affect my free will.

dhw: If God knows “all outcomes”, he knows what is going to happen to his creations, and he knows what decisions individual humans are going to take (some of which may well affect the future of the world, since even individuals are capable of destroying it). In that case, free will is an illusion - hence the theological problem of predestination.

DAVID: I didn't say 'all outcomes', you did! God has goals and knows how to reach them does not imply God knows my thoughts in the next month. Stop distorting.

Your exact words were: “Everything He created is required and He knows all outcomes as He evolves creations.” I also note your continued use of the plural “goals”, although you insist that your God had only one goal, which was to design us and the ecosystems which provide us with our food. There is no distortion on my part.

DAVID: You agree God can create anything He wishes! What we see is exactly what God did. Everything IS connected to us in the ecosystems we use for food. And those ecosystems, the experts say are becoming inadequate. That means all parts are required.

dhw: Yet again, you are focusing on our current ecosystems, and ignoring the history of life which produced countless extinct life forms and ecosystems which had no connection with humans and our current ecosystems and foods, although you claim that your God created all the dead ends as an absolute requirement for the fulfilment of his only purpose, which was to create us and our current ecosystems and foods. The fact that we are destroying our current ecosystems is totally irrelevant to your theories about your God’s past actions and single purpose, which are so illogical that you say they “make sense only to God”, i.e. not to you.

DAVID: More distortions. Your God has the same dead ends!!! What makes sense to God is one single point: His reasons for choosing to evolve us rather than directly create us.

Of course he has the same dead ends! And that’s why it’s nonsense to claim that his one and only goal was to design us and our current ecosystems, and therefore he designed all the dead ends that had nothing to do with us and our ecosystems! And the second thing you can’t explain is why, if we and our food were his only purpose and if he was capable of direct design, he chose to design us in itsy-bitsy stages. You admit to that illogicality, and you try to dodge the dead-end illogicality.

DAVID: Of course, God makes no sense to you. You constantly transform Him into a tunnel-visioned bumbler, who creates lots of unnecessary organisms on the way to His desired outcome, humans.

dhw: It is not your God who makes no sense to me, but your theories, which you admit make no sense to YOU! It is YOU who have created a tunnel-visioned bumbler etc., exactly as you describe him above!

DAVID: I've admitted nothing of the sort. Stop distorting what I write.

I know you haven’t admitted it. That’s why I keep having to point it out to you! Your God is tunnel-visioned because you insist he could only possibly have had one purpose: to design us and our food. And your God is a bumbler, because in order to fulfil his only purpose, you have him designing countless life forms and ecosystems that have no connection with it! I offer alternative interpretations (the opposite of tunnel vision): maybe he wanted a free-for-all; maybe he did want us but was experimenting to find the right formula; maybe like many creative artists he kept getting new ideas as he went along and eventually hit on the idea of humans. Each of these alternatives provides a logical explanation for the dead ends and for the different stages of our own evolution.

DAVID: I have given you a reasonable answer. He chose to evolve us from bacteria. As for goal, humans are a most unexpected form of naturally occurring evolution. They must be God-produced. (Adler logic) Your human logic is not God's logic.

dhw: Unexpected by whom?

DAVID: By any clear-thinking human.

Any “clear-thinking human”, according to you, will also say that every form of life is “unexpected”, so why do you use that argument in your attempt to prove that humans were your God’s one and only purpose?