Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 10, 2022, 17:17 (712 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: 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.

I've inserted a bold into your comment. It is the same false approach. Evolution is a result of God's actions, all the successes and all the dead ends. He chose to evolve us, and you complain about His method. Evolution requires dead ends. Not all approaches will work but many will advance. Your complaint still boils down to "why evolve us when direct creation is so much more efficient". But that isn't what happened and evolving toward a desired goal is what God did. Our appearance is Adler's proof of God, a highly logical argument.

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: 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.

A God in full control produced the known history of evolution. You are simply picking apart what seems wrong to you about the process. Take God out of the picture and suddenly the process worked correctly??? Just as I commented at the start of this entry .

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.[…]

dhw: 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.

No dodge: my position is God evolved us, starting from the presumption God is in charge of creating our reality. Evolution occurred, God did it.

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?

dhw: 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”!

All evolution has a goal and will have dead ends along the way.

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.

dhw: 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.

No, you are wrong. Once I insert a purposeful God into the standard history of evolution all sorts of mistakes in evolution turn up. Take God out and what do you think of evolution now. Mistakes, yes or no?