Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Wednesday, November 23, 2022, 13:46 (729 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID:My theory makes sense to me and you tell me it doesn't? How do you read my mind? What a God does is perfect, making perfect sense to Him.

dhw: You keep repeating that you cannot know his reasons. That can only mean that you yourself don’t understand your theory (which "makes sense only to God”). But of course if God exists, what he does will make perfect sense to HIM! That doesn’t mean that he does what you say he does and why he does it is why you say he does it! Please stop dodging!

DAVID: We both see the same evolutionary history. My interpretation is not yours. I have the same right to reject your interpretation as you do mine. It is a standoff.

Of course you have the same right. That is not the issue. You keep telling me that your theory makes sense to you, and in the same breath you tell me that you do not and cannot know your God’s reasons for choosing such an illogical way of fulfilling his goal. Your theory “makes perfect sense to Him”, not to you! Please stop dodging!

DAVID: Which means I trust in God and accept what He has done. He evolved humans from Archaea. It had what you think are messy dead ends.. Your objection boils down to God stupidly decided to evolve us.

dhw: I also believe that we are evolved from Archaea, but you do not accept what he has done! You accept what you think he has done and why you think he has done it. We only know of one “evolutionary process” that has produced the history of life, and that process has resulted in countless dead ends, i.e life forms that had no connection with what you believe was your God’s one and only purpose. You know as well as I do that my objection is to your nonsensical theory. I have offered you two logical explanations for the dead ends (experimentation and the pursuit of new ideas) both of which allow for your God’s decision to evolve us, and even the third (a free-for all) gives him the option to dabble.

DAVID: Again you go off on your tangents. You've again introduced your woolly weak God.

You have agreed that all my alternatives fit in logically with the history of life as we know it. I can’t see why any of them make him weaker or woollier than a God who has one purpose, but designs countless dead ends because “any type of evolutionary process will necessarily have dead ends” (repeated under “problems for Darwin”). We only know of one evolution of life! If your God exists, he makes the rules, so you have him shackling himself by some obscure law of his own making: “No matter what thou wishest, thou shalt design dead ends.”

dhw: [My alternative theories] would even explain another of your contradictions: your belief that he designed Cambrian species which had no predecessors and from which we and our food supplies are directly descended, although you also say that we are descended from Archaea and all the dead ends that preceded the Cambrian.

DAVID: And again (!) a repetition of your misunderstanding of a designer God who can create gaps at will.

Of course he can, and that is why you can’t understand why he chose to evolve us plus all the dead ends instead of creating us directly, and why you tie yourself in knots to explain the above contradiction. (The fact that all life forms result from biochemical processes does not resolve any of your contradictions.) But we both accept evolution as a fact, so I have offered you two logical reasons for our evolution AND for the dead ends (plus a third which can also be made to fit), but you prefer to stick with a theory that makes no sense to you.

DAVID: My God does not ever experiment.

I know. You stick to your rigid beliefs even though they make no sense to you.

DAVID: Your hilarious complaint about the designed Cambrian gap shows your total lack of understanding a designer God. The gap is the prime example of the need for a designing mind. In his own say Darwin knew it.

Yes, the arrival of new species without any predecessors, just like the complexities of all life forms, provides a strong case for a designing mind. No issue there. But unfortunately for you, if he designed us and our food from scratch, it knocks on the head your rigid belief that he specially designed every single pre-Cambrian life form as an absolute requirement for us and our food.

DAVID: And you have misunderstood my wish to stop this ping-pong discussion. It is endless repetition of our positions.

It is also my wish, but so long as you continue to hammer home your message that your God individually designed every life form, ecosystem, lifestyle, strategy, natural wonder etc., and that every extinct, dead-end life form etc. was necessary for the design of us and our food, it will be impossible to stop. For more of your dodges see “More miscellany”.