Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, February 12, 2023, 11:51 (433 days ago) @ David Turell

Evolving a universe for life

DAVID: dhw appears to have little recognition God evolves everything; here is how the universe it was done:
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/quantum-reason-neutral-atoms/?utm_campaign=swab...

DAVID: ALL OF IT IS EVOLUTION!!! GOD EVOLVES EVERYTHING. It is ALWAYS His pattern of creation. dhw take notice!! Complex quantum rules are skipped so dhw is comfortable.

Of course the universe evolved! Just as we evolved and every other life form evolved. I doubt if there is a single atheist who does not believe that the universe and life evolved. What I object to is the theory that your all-powerful, all-purposeful, all-knowing God would deliberately design 200 billion trillion stars plus all the dead ones, and millions of now extinct organisms, knowing in advance that 99% of his designs would be mistakes and failed experiments, because all he wanted to produce was one species (homo sapiens) and its food.

DAVID: God's 'mistakes' actually progress in any evolutionary system. (dhw's bold)

dhw: […] how many of God’s evolutionary systems do you know? The evolutionary system we know tells us that 99% per cent of his designs came to a dead end, i.e. made no further progress, and that is why you call them mistakes and failures. Please stop contradicting yourself.

DAVID: You keep ignoring: BB, evolve universe, evolve Milky Way, start life on Earth which evolves Earth, evolves life!!!

Answered above, but in any case your comment is not an answer to mine.

DAVID: The dead ends demonstrated what were necessary adaptations to evolve onward. They led to the improved 1%.

dhw: The dead ends became dead because of new conditions – they did not demonstrate what conditions were necessary for their survival! Only the 1% of survivors showed the necessary adaptations, which you believe your God then worked on, but even then the process repeated itself, with him designing another 99% of blunders.

DAVID: Why do you ignore Raup? He described evolution as 99.0% failure to survive, didn't he?

How many more times? We agree that 99% failed to survive! But you say their failure to survive was due to your God making mistakes, conducting failed experiments, because none of them led to his only goal, which was to design us and our food. And you blame him for the messy history of evolution.

DAVID: No blame. Failure to survive is part and parcel of the system He chose to and was successful with.

How many more times? “Failure to survive” is not synonymous with your God making mistakes! According to your theory, his system produced 99% mistakes and 1% success. And you have said explicitly: “Once God appears, He is responsible for all the messy aspects of evolution, Yes, He is. The whole of evolution is a messy process of successes and failures. [...].” (11 December 2022) Unless you consider mistakes and failures and mess to be praiseworthy, I would suggest that responsibility = blame.

Permian mass extinction – not so widespread (transferred from “More miscellany)

DAVID: this fits my approach that God was not fully in charge of all factors. He took advantage of these changes to advance evolution.

dhw: Thank you for confirming your God’s lack of control. An opportunistic God who takes advantage of conditions outside his control in order to evolve new life forms, 99% of which are mistakes, clearly depends on luck to provide him with the conditions that will allow him to design the only life forms he wants to design.

DAVID: God never needed opportunity!!! He easily handled all conditions that appeared.

But unfortunately, because these conditions were unsuitable for the purpose you impose on him, 99% of his easy handling apparently produced mistakes and failed experiments. And what is even more degrading is that according to you, he actually knew that he was going to make mistakes but still went ahead! And so we come back to the question you dodge, and dodge, and dodge again:

dhw: Why do think countless mistakes, failed experiments, mess, lack of control, dependence on luck etc. are the attributes of an all-powerful, strong, always-in-control God, whereas a God who gets what he wants without making any mistakes is to be considered “wimpy”? .

DAVID: Never dodged. My all-powerful, all-knowing, all purposeful God stays on course and produces everything He wishes to produce. Compared to your mind-changing wimp of a deity.

He stays on course by designing 99% of life forms that are off course, but he wishes to produce his mistakes and to conduct experiments he knows will fail. That apparently makes him all-powerful and all-knowing. My three alternative theistic explanations of evolution (successful experimentation, new ideas, or a free-for-all) offer us a God who remains all-powerful and all-purposeful (but not all-knowing, as he wants to try out new things – which does not “mean mind-changing” if his purpose is to learn something new), and who produces everything he wishes to produce without making any mistakes or conducting any failed experiments. Why is your mistake-making blunderer more godlike than my faultless alternatives?