Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 22, 2023, 15:39 (610 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Please note I have changed my descriptive approach. What, on the surface, looks like mistakes and failures is actually planned limited adaptability. Thus, neat planning.

dhw: So you are indeed now withdrawing your vehement criticism of an inefficient God who blunders from one mistake to another. At last. We are therefore left with the theory that he deliberately designed the 99% of life forms which did not lead to his one and only purpose, and deliberately designed them in such a way that they would not survive. Why might he have done that? We agree that he would not have done anything he didn’t want to do, so he must have had a reason. And by your own admission, you can’t think of one. I have offered you three possible explanations which fit in with your new theory that your God did not after all blunder into one mistake after another. Perhaps you will take at least one of them more seriously.

dhw: You prefer to ignore all of this, which is understandable because it doesn’t make sense to you and you have no answers. This part of the discussion does, however, continue on the "More miscellany" thread.

I'm tired of giving essentially the same answer when you bring up your humanized God and His weak way of acting. God is highly purposeful and direct in action to reach His perceived goals. He never needs outside help.

dhw: Meanwhile, we are still left with your self-contradictory insistence that a supposedly all-powerful God had no control over the environment, and therefore depended on luck to provide the right conditions for him to fulfil what you insist was his only purpose:

DAVID: As for environment, hot. cold, or warm; wet or dry; forested or grassland; high or low altitude, all easily designed for, BUT as God advanced/evolved biochemistry He arranged for a necessar oxygen supply from cyanobacteria to provide it.

dhw: So your theory now is that all 99% of life forms irrelevant to his purpose were easily designed in response to environmental conditions over which he had no control, but you simply don’t know why he bothered to design them, and then all of a sudden he realized that he needed more oxygen to fulfil his one and only purpose, so he did design this particular environment (the Cambrian), though he still carried on designing lots and lots of life forms that had no connection with his one and only purpose).

A perfect description of how messy evolution was. God chose this mechanism for His own reasons. Easy to understand, as His choice. As for your snide oxygen remark, God knew well in advance it would be needed.

dhw: […] One moment he watches with interest, and the next moment the words mean he’s not interested..

DAVID: […] Adler describes at length how to think about God when our terms cannot be exactly applied to God, thus allegory.

dhw: Nobody can possibly know what terms can or can't be applied to God - that is why we have different theories. But we know what WE mean,so please tell us what YOU meant when you said you were sure he enjoys creating (otherwise he wouldn’t have done it) and watches us with interest if you didn't mean that he actually likes creating, and he actually observes us and wants to know what we're doing.

I allegorically meant exactly what I wrote.