Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, December 10, 2022, 08:03 (712 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] you have your God specially designing all the forms that did NOT evolve into the only forms he wants to design. Why? Apparently so that he could make them disappear because all evolutions must have dead ends, and he found that his own “failed experiments” were cluttering up the available space!

DAVID: What you complain about is actual evolutionary history. I say God created it in order to produce humans. You accept descent with modification, the same evolution in question here. So when I say God did it with purpose, suddenly evolution is filled with all sorts of mistakes. What a crazy complaint! OK with Darwin, but not if God had a hand in it.

The actual history of evolution is that single cells evolved into countless life forms, vast numbers of which disappeared, while others developed into new species leading to all the life forms we know today, including humans. For the sake of our discussions, I am accepting that God exists, in order to probe his possible purpose, methods and nature. Of course I agree God must have had a purpose. But why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God design life forms that had no connection with the only life forms he wanted to design? Your answer for the last couple of weeks has been that mistakes must happen in all evolutions, “all evolutions advance from failed experiments”, and God has to make his earlier failed experiments disappear in order to make room for his successful ones. It is YOU who make the dead ends into “mistakes”, by insisting that your God’s only purpose was us and our food. The dead ends would not be “mistakes” if he did not design them - for instance, if his purpose was a free-for-all (and he could dabble if he felt like it). You have no answer to the bolded question above. Your earlier answers have also included the proposal that I should ask God, because you can’t be expected to know his reasons.

https://massivesci.com/articles/evolving-toward-extinction/
QUOTE: ""But nature does not always make the right choices. Sometimes those choices lead to evolutionary dead ends."

dhw: The above quote could hardly be clearer. You believe your God specially designed all the dead ends. So in your theory we must substitute the word “God” for the word “nature”: God does not always make the right choices. […]

DAVID: [...] God totally controlled evolution which always will produce dead ends.

dhw: If your God controlled it, then you are telling us that he actually wanted to make wrong choices!

DAVID: No, He knew there would be failed forms due to bad luck.

There you go again! According to you he designed all the forms. Your all-powerful, all-knowing God deliberately designed them knowing that chance would turn them into “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong choices” – because they would not lead to what he intended. As for bad luck, by definition that is chance taking over – pretty odd for a God who “totally controlled” evolution.

DAVID: Whatever appears is God's intent. We appeared at the end of evolution. Ergo, we were His final intent. Again you turn Adler's argument on its head.[…]

Our discussion is not about what Adler said or didn’t say, or about proving God’s existence. Our disagreement is about the theory that your God designed every single extinct life form, lifestyle, strategy etc., including all those that had no connection with us and our food, as necessary preparations for us and our food. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: I don't dodge. You have completely distorted the discussion by accepting Darwin evolution as is (with a qualification about chance mutation) but discovering all sorts of errors if God did it with purpose. So, God's purpose makes evolution suddenly all wrong?

It’s not evolution or God that is made wrong! Your theory is that an all-powerful God has to make mistakes because all evolutions are full of mistakes, and in this case he actually designs them knowing that they are mistakes. It makes no sense to me or to you, as you admit when you say it “makes sense only to God”!

DAVID: Where were the errors when you were a happy Darwinist, before we met.??? I don't dodge, but it is difficult to follow your reasoning about God, since you view Him as very humanized in thought pattern.

I have no idea why you keep harping on about Darwin and about “humanization”, except that these are convenient ways to dodge the issue, which in case you have forgotten is the question why an all-powerful God would deliberately design life forms that had no connection with the life forms he wanted to design. One day you tell us he did so because all evolutions must contain mistakes. The next day you blame me for pointing out that you are saying your God – who you believed designed the whole of evolution - made mistakes.