Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, January 15, 2023, 09:15 (676 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Still blind to the interpretation I see. An all-powerful God chose this method and was not afraid of its messiness, because as you note, it fits history, and He had full control of necessary designs. You described my God in such a way, I used the word 'bumbling' to fit your tortured description.

Once more: according to you, your God invented a method whereby achieving his one and only goal depended on conditions beyond his control, and so he designed countless life forms that could cope with those conditions, although 99% of them were “mistakes” and “failed experiments” which had nothing to do with his one and only goal. And according to you and Raup, extinction and survival were due to luck, not control. In your terms, the “necessary” designs – i.e. those that led to his goal – amounted to 1% of his designs. If this is not a “bumbling” version of God, I don’t know what is.

DAVID: Denigrate the God I envision all you wish. For me it shows how rigid your underlying agnostic prejudices about God skew your analysis.

dhw: It is YOU who tell us that he can only respond to environmental conditions which he does not control, makes countless mistakes, conducts countless “failed experiments”, and is responsible for what you call the “mess”. If that isn’t denigration, I don’t know what is – so why do you say YOUR theory shows my prejudices???

DAVID: What I said was your responses show your undrerlying rigid prejudices.

I have reproduced your theory, which shows your God making countless mistakes. How does that reveal prejudice on my part?

DAVID: As usual you bring up your humanistic God as an alternative. My God knows exactly what He is doing and does it.

dhw: I have no idea what humanism has to do with the discussion. Nor do I understand why you consider that a God who bumbles along making blunder after blunder as he responds to conditions beyond his control is less “human” than a God who enjoys creating and has new ideas as he goes along, or who deliberately creates a free-for-all and watches the outcome with interest (though allowing himself to dabble if he feels like it). Even with my own theory of experimentation, I never denigrated him as you have done with words like “mess”, “mistakes”, “failure”. I have the utmost respect for any scientist or inventor who tries out different ways of creating something new. And I’ll go even further. Even if the brontosaurus didn’t turn out to be a human or to be suitable for humans to eat, I’d say it was a huge success!

DAVID: All of God's designs in evolution are brilliant. our brain superb!! My theory does not denigrate God but shows His power over the system He chose.

It shows him depending on luck to provide the conditions necessary for what you believe to have been his one and only goal, and to provide him with survivors which he can eventually develop into us and our food. It also shows him having to design countless life forms, 99% of which are mistakes, failed experiments etc. How does this show his power over the system he invented?

DAVID: All of this discussion from my side is an answer to your very early observation as to why God would choose to use such an indirect way to create humans. I thought your point should be fully explored. And I've exposed that this indirect method is essentially very messy. God is not messy. God is not confused. He chose this and kept tight control.

According to you, your God invented a messy method which resulted in countless mistakes and failed experiments, precisely because he did not have tight control. 99% failure does not indicate tight control.

DAVID: We were His goal, and we are here, in our full glory and in control of the future of the Earth and hopefully from what the universe might try to do to us.

I am not denying that we are here.

DAVID: The 'humanism' is your constant repetition describing your humanistic God's way of preceding with an evolutionary process that theoretically might never reach humans.

I have offered three different theistic theories to explain how we got here. Two of them (experimentation – the one you favour, though in terms that denigrate your God - and having new ideas as he went along) have him designing us deliberately. The third is a free-for-all which indeed might theoretically not lead to us, although it leaves him the option of dabbling if he wants to. Once more, please tell us why your bumbling God with his 1% success rate and 99%failure rate is less human than a God who makes no mistakes, but enjoys creating and getting new ideas, or creates a system of autonomous life forms that do their own designing.