Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, February 28, 2023, 08:55 (422 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You always fall back on Adler’s evidence for God’s existence – a theory and argument which I find perfectly reasonable. Our dispute is over the theories listed above, in which you make your inefficient and cumbersome designer God responsible for countless mistakes, failed experiments, wrong choices, faulty designs – all carried out in full knowledge that 99% of his work would not lead to his one and only goal, and was not even necessary, since you say he could have designed us and our food from scratch if he'd wanted to.

DAVID: We assume He could create us outright since He made direct creation of life.

You have omitted your belief that we and our foods are descended from Cambrian species that had no precursors. This leads you to the absurd theory that your God’s one and only purpose from the very beginning was us and our food, and therefore he designed countless species that did not lead to us or our food.

DAVID: But His history is quite clear: Big Bang, then evolve the universe; start life, then evolve humans; start the Earth, add life and have them evolve the Earth. The conclusion is God prefers to evolve His creations.

I have never questioned that all these things evolved, including us and our food, and if God exists, then of course he created the process by which the universe, Earth and life evolved. But evolution does not mean your God’s only purpose was us and our food, and it does not mean he directly created all species, lifestyles, strategies, natural wonders etc., let alone that he created them as absolute requirements for us and our food although 99% did not lead to us or our food, or that he created them all, knowing that 99% of them would be “mistakes”, “failed experiments”, “wrong choices” caused by his faulty designs.

DAVID: I've described evolution as a messy process. Since we are here God managed it successfully. I do not end up with your description of a bumbling God as a result. I see him as a brilliant designer handling a cumbersome method.

But your “brilliant” designer designed the cumbersome method and you have acknowledged that he is responsible for the mess! You make a mockery of language as well as of your God. In my language, a brilliant designer is not one who invents a method which results in his designing 99% of mistakes and failed experiments in his messy attempts to produce a species he could have produced directly if he’d wanted to.

DAVID: My previous comments have driven you to defend a 'pure' faultless God, a strange position for an agnostic.

Your comments are so full of contradictions that you are forced to acknowledge that you have no idea why your God would have invented such a faulty method, and I should go and ask him why he did it. My agnosticism has nothing to do with any of this. I doubt if many of your fellow believers would accept your version of a cumbersome, inefficient blunderer, and even you are trying desperately to pretend that what you see as his blunders do not make him a blunderer.

DAVID: I understand your invention of brilliant-designer cells who do the work for Him placing Him at a position of secondhand blame so His dainty fingers are clean. Evolution is a methodology of creation we and God both use. Its use in advancing lifeform's complexity is cumbersome and must require death.

Why the “dainty fingers” sarcasm? Once again you are smearing your God with dirty fingers. I have given you three possible interpretations of evolution which show him doing precisely what he wants to do, without mistakes, failed experiments etc., and your only reason for rejecting them is that you believe your blunderer is less human and more godlike than my fault-free versions. Why have you brought in death? We know that every individual organism dies, but that has never been our subject (though we can discuss it if you want to). Individual deaths have nothing to do with the creation or extinction of species.

DAVID: In one sense this is a failure, but with a sense of purpose, death is really a step into the future. When I apply purpose to God's form of evolution the point is no longer an issue of survival. Survival is secondary and viewed as lasting long enough to get into a situation requiring speciation. At that point God steps in and does it.

Individual death will only be a step into the future if there is an afterlife for the individual. The extinction of a species means it has no future. Only survivors can pass on the cells which will eventually undergo the changes that will lead to new species. Call survival secondary if you like, but without it, your God (who remember does not control the new conditions that cause extinction and limit his scope for design) can only continue his work by designing organisms de novo. So yes, according to you he steps in and designs another 100 organisms of which 99 fail to survive because of his faulty design and inefficient method. But in your language, faulty design and inefficient method earn the accolade of “brilliant”.