Return to David's theory of evolution PARTS ONE & TWO (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, April 08, 2023, 07:36 (377 days ago) @ David Turell

HUGE APOLOGIES! I thought I'd posted this and the "More Miscellanies" responses yesterday, but I was actually interrupted by the arrival of an engineer who had come to investigate why my burglar alarm had suddenly gone off three times without cause, the last one having woken me up at 1.30 in the morning! Just after he left, my daughter arrived, and David's theory of evolution was well and truly off my mind!

DAVID:[…] The differences in us is each of our God's personalities. Mine is full of purpose, all-knowing, totally omniscient, and thus does everything exactly as He wishes.

Mine is full of purpose and does exactly as he wishes, but is not all-knowing. Yours wishes only to create us and our food and wishes to use a method which he knows is inefficient, cumbersome and messy, and you don’t know why he would choose to be such an inefficient, cumbersome and messy designer.

DAVID: Your guy is unrecognizable as a God. He HAS to experiment, allows free-for-alls to advance evolution uncontrollably, and as fun for Him to watch and enjoy, and, as you've described, He is not sure to create as humans.

Yours HAS to use an inefficient, cumbersome, messy method to achieve his goal. Mine doesn’t HAVE to experiment – he WANTS to experiment, either in order to create a being with thought patterns and emotions like his own, or to discover the full potential of his wonderful invention. Alternatively, instead of experimenting directly, he WANTS to create and watch a free-for-all (though he can intervene if he wishes). And he enjoys creating, as YOU have described, and is interested in watching his creations, as YOU have described. A perfectly understandable purpose for creating life in the first place.

DAVID: As for goal our extraordinary brain, the most complex item in the universe makes US THAT GOAL. Exactly Adler's point.

dhw: So all the other less complex life forms, 99% of which had no connection with us and our food, were deliberately designed for no reason you can think of, as a result of which your God is to be mocked as an inefficient, cumbersome, messy designer.

DAVID: NO!!! They were designed as part of an evolutionary system that is historical and, in my view, created by God. They were absolutely necessary as part of screening and culling.

Yes, your God – if he exists – created the historical system of evolution. But why was screening and culling (i.e. the creation and destruction of species irrelevant to his one and only purpose) necessary for your all-powerful, all-knowing God to create the only species he wanted to create? You have no idea. It makes no sense. Therefore there must have been another reason for his creation of the 99%. I have offered you three logical reasons, and two of them even incorporate your idea of his purpose (a being with thought patterns and emotions like his own).

DAVID: Again, a so-called God who doesn't know how to make a human!!! God chose to evolve step-by-step so the biochemistry has to be developed that way.

Again a so-called God who knows precisely how to make a human (plus food) and therefore designs 99 out of 100 species that have nothing to do with humans (plus food), thereby proving himself to be an inefficient, cumbersome, messy designer who, being omniscient, knows just how inefficient and cumbersome and messy he is.