Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, October 22, 2022, 08:22 (761 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...] By giving us free will, your God sacrifices control of his creations, even giving us the ability to destroy them all. So you can believe in a free-for-all of which he does not know the outcome (humans controlling the world), but you can’t believe in a free-for-all of which he does not know the outcome (life forms designing their own means of survival in a constantly changing world). I wonder why your otherwise all-knowing God didn’t want to know what we humans would do while he watches us with interest.

DAVID: We have become dominant, and God knew that would happen. He gave us free will. Obviously, we control our future and God wanted it that way. We are on our own by His choice. (dhw's bold)

The history of life has produced countless life forms etc., some of which have evolved into the life forms etc. that exist today, while others have been dead ends that have ceased to evolve into anything. One theistic explanation for the dead ends (which you can’t explain) is that your God gave all life forms the ability to design their own means of survival. Some failed while others succeeded. They controlled their future and God wanted it that way. They were on their own by his choice.

DAVID: Please think! To evolve humans required 3.8 billion years and many necessary ecosystems along the way. The dead ends.

dhw: Please think! Dead ends do not lead anywhere and were NOT necessary if your God’s sole purpose was to design us and our food!

DAVID: Still not thinking. We were evolved. How does evolution work unless ecosystems support it all along the way from 3.8 billion years ago? As organisms disappeared so did ecosystems.

Still not thinking. All life forms except the very first were evolved. Some ecosystems supported those life forms that eventually evolved into us and our current ecosystems (although you deny this – see below re the Cambrian). Other ecosystems and organisms (the vast majority) from 3.8 billion years ago did NOT evolve into us and our ecosystems, and yet you insist that your God designed them all as “absolute requirements” for us and our ecosystems.

DAVID: You still don't like the idea God chose to evolve us. ..

dhw: I have no objection to the fact that we evolved, or to the theory that if God exists, he chose to evolve us! My objection is to the illogical theory bolded above, which you keep dodging! I have offered you three logical theistic alternatives to explain the facts of history, but you reject them on the grounds that they suggest human thought patterns different from those you want him to have.

DAVID: I have every right to criticize your form of God.

Of course. The reverse is also true. And I have every right to point out that your criticism is based solely on the fact that you endow your vision of God with different humanizing thought patterns from those that I propose.

DAVID: ...Fine. Let's imagine direct creation of humans. They must have food you'll agree. The giant bush of evolution would need to be produced in a Big Bang of immediate creation for the proper supporting ecosystem.

dhw: According to you, that is precisely what he did during the Cambrian Explosion, and you even go so far as to specify that we ourselves and the animals we eat descended from those life forms, which had no predecessors. Your view of the Cambrian completely contradicts your theory that every pre-Cambrian life form and ecosystem was “necessary” to produce us (plus our food).

DAVID: You don't understand the Cambrian shows the best evidence for a designer we have, other than the designed complexity of any living biochemistry.

I understand your use of your theory as evidence for the existence of God, and I understand your desire to divert attention from the contradiction I’ve just pointed out.

dhw: According to you, your God had only one purpose, and all his past actions were devoted to its fulfilment, although most of them did not lead to its fulfilment. That is tunnel vision, and his dead-end actions can only mean that he is a bumbler (or bungler) – i.e. he was confused and didn’t know what he was doing. I would not subscribe to such a derogatory view of your God, but apparently you do!

DAVID: Pure distortion. We are the final fulfillment of an evolutionary process.

We are the latest product of evolution. Who knows what will happen over the next few thousand million years? But this has nothing to do with the fact that your attack on my theories presents your own version of a tunnel-visioned God who bumbles along producing life forms that have no connection with what you believe is his purpose.

DAVID: Your muddled distortion of decrying ecosystems as dead ends when they are necessary to exist and then disappear as stages of evolution appear and then disappear is unreasonably illogical.

Past dead end systems were necessary for the life forms that depended on them, but they were not necessary for us and our ecosystems. I have generously left out your muddled pretence that this somehow means I don’t understand the importance of ecosystems and the manner in which we are destroying our own.