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

by David Turell , Monday, April 10, 2023, 16:31 (381 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your bolded mantra above is a distortion of the fact that evolution occurred, Raup pointed out the necessary survival rate showing it was cumbersome. As the creator God ran the show because He wanted to.

dhw: You challenged the theory that God is not all-knowing on the grounds that most religions believe he IS all-knowing. How does that distort the fact that evolution occurred? Do most religions ask you to worship God for his inefficient, cumbersome, messy handling of evolution as pointed out by you and Raup? Of course if God exists, he would have wanted to run the show the way he wanted to run the show. How does that prove that he ran the show the inefficient, cumbersome, messy way you and Raup say he did? I have pointed out that your insistence on God’s omniscience is highly controversial among religious thinkers, as it entails the massive problems of free will (linked to predestination) and theodicy (why would an omniscient God deliberately create evil, knowing all its terrible consequences?)

There are many opinions of God's personality, no better than the one I developed for myself with help from Adler, as important any 'experts' you presented. Evolution is a messy process and yes, religions don't dig into the problems, they just accept it at its surface. It worked.

DAVID: I had to look up Augustine and Pelagius. Thank you for the education. I follow Thomist thinking within Catholicism. The Bible, Adam and Eve are not part of my theology, nor Does Whitehead impress me. I follow the Catholic philosopher Ed Feser for some of his thinking. But I have my own brand of theism I follow.

dhw: A delightful confession from someone who criticizes my logical theistic explanations for evolution on the grounds that they contradict “what most religions believe”, and then proudly informs us that he has his own brand of theism, even to the extent of excluding the Bible and no doubt also the Koran, which form the basis of three major religions! (I used the Adam and Eve story as an illustration of the two problems, not as history.)

My own manifesto is above.

DAVID:I do not perceive the warts you apply to my God.

dhw: Please explain to us why you do not regard as a "wart" his inefficient, cumbersome and messy method of fulfilling his purpose by designing 99 out of 100 species that are irrelevant to that purpose.

I accept what God did as His valid choice of method, for His own reasons. It worked, we are here.

DAVID: God evolved us by the historical system we know. As you pointed out years ago, using evolution to create us does not make as much sense as direct creation. We are exploring that issue now.

dhw: The issue is not simply why God chose the historical system of evolution that we know (I've offered you three logical explanations), but why, if he only had the one purpose you impose on him, he proceeded to create 99 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his purpose. Stop dodging!

Repeat, no dodge. The method of evolution is just what you decry! The objection makes no sense. My God wishes to evolve us and did.

QUOTE: "Since most of the universe is beyond the Hubble radius, all those galaxies are forever out of reach. As time goes on, those galaxies will, one by one, disappear entirely from view. Not through any cheating of the laws of physics, but through simple (and inevitable) stretching."

DAVID: dhw wonders why God made it so big. Because that is what God wanted.

dhw: The usual edited version of what I “wonder”, leaving out the question why your God would have designed thousands of millions of galaxies if his sole purpose was to design our galaxy containing our planet containing us and our food. If he exists, maybe it would make more sense if he didn’t design every galaxy and every species, but set in motion all the processes of galaxy and species formation, and watched the results with interest.

More derision about our necessary food!! God doesn't make sense to you, as you hopelessly use human logic to understand God!! Yikes!! As God evolved the universe, He knew exactly what would happen. His favored Milky Way appeared about two billion years after the BB. Your human God would start it and watch. My God is hands on and His 'interest' is doing it.

Retina cells

QUOTE: “Our results indicate that living organisms' visual system has adapted to cope with natural constraints to improve the efficiency of their neuronal code.'"

The same comment might be made about the evolution of all organs and organisms: all “systems” adapt (or in some cases innovate) to cope with their environment in order to improve their efficiency in the struggle for survival.

DAVID: such complex organization requires design in my view. Our eyes don't mimic cameras, they mimic our eyes

dhw: Our eyes certainly came before cameras, so if anything, cameras imitate our eyes! I agree with the logic of the design argument, as does the theory that intelligent cells – possibly designed by your God – did the designing. (I don’t understand your last comment. Our eyes ARE our eyes!)

We have 'camera' eyes, but they don't work like the ones we invent.