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

by David Turell , Wednesday, May 10, 2023, 00:03 (562 days ago) @ dhw

I shall divide our exchange into each of its sections.

DAVID: I accept that the OT presents an accurate account of ancient Jewish history. Recent rabbis have softened God's image as portrayed. That is my starting point in my approach to God.

dhw: I have offered alternative explanations for your God’s use of evolution, and you say that most religions would reject them. You then tell us that you reject most religions and have your own brand of theism. Your response totally ignores your double standards.

I have no double standard for your God-theories. I find them totally unacceptable as highly humanized. It is not a sleight of hands on my part to start with the OT as a basis for thought and then modify as I see fit from other studies. Your human God is your preferential approach.

dhw: Since Adler does not support your theory that your God deliberately created 99 out of 100 species that were irrelevant to his alleged single purpose of designing sapiens and our food, his book is irrelevant to your defence of a theory which is so irrational that you describe your God as a “messy”, “cumbersome” and “inefficient” designer.

Adler's book instructing how to think about God has NOTHING to do with any evolutionary theories. His other book on the appearance of humans tears into Darwin theory as supporting the appearance of humans as highly unusual under that theory, therefore God did it.

DAVID: As for your skewed view of God's evolution, we must accept that God chose a cumbersome prolonged process for His own reasons. You've told us direct creation is more sensible. God should have listened to you.

dhw: You have agreed that direct creation would be more sensible if God’s sole purpose was to design us plus food. Hence my alternative logical explanations. So why “must” we accept YOUR view of God as a cumbersome designer, when it is perfectly possible to find logical explanations for his design of ALL species?

Because the history is one of a cumbersome evolution.

DAVID: Based on Adler's instruction's, you have no concept of how to think about God.

dhw: You have agreed that Adler does not tell us to think of God as a messy, cumbersome and inefficient designer.

Adler makes no issue of how God conducts evolution. Stop inventing negatives.

DAVID: Exactly, God thinks in a similar fashion, but not precisely as we do.

dhw: Nobody knows how God thinks (if he exists). If you believe he thinks in a similar fashion to us, how does that support your theories, which make no sense even to you (you can't think of any reasons why he would act the way you make him act), and how does it invalidate my theories, which make perfect sense to both of us but to which you object on the grounds that they make him more human than the cumbersome, inefficient blunderer you envisage?

DAVID: I do not see God as an inefficient blunderer. That is your distortion of my presentation to try to explain why He used evolution.

dhw: You have just repeated: “we must accept that God chose a cumbersome prolonged process for his own reasons”, and you have repeatedly used the words “messy” and “inefficient”. Please stop contradicting yourself.

An honest appraisal. I accept God warts and all.

DAVID: That distortion includes the now red accusation above. I accept God's actions without question, while all you do is endless questioning, most of which have no answers but can be accepted on faith.

dhw: You accept your interpretation of God’s actions without question, and you can think of no possible reason why he should have acted that way if his sole purpose was the one you impose on him. I question your theory endlessly because you yourself find it incomprehensible. I offer various alternatives which you agree fit in with the history of life, but which you reject solely because you think your cumbersome designer is more godlike than a God who knows precisely what he is doing.

Our difference is enormous. I accept God as I see Him. My approach to God is entirely comprehensible to me, if not to you. Stop demanding I give you God's reasoning. I can't!!!