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

by dhw, Tuesday, May 16, 2023, 09:08 (346 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: According to you, your God was “first cause”. He was not confronted by an existing choice of methods. He designed his method! And someone who designs a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method can only be a messy, cumbersome, inefficient designer. Please stop blaming me for your criticism of your God.

DAVID: Still stuck in your biases. God achieved brilliant designs using a cumbersome method He developed. BUT the cumbersome interpretation is my human interpretation.

Why “developed”? If he was your all-powerful and all-knowing first cause, he must have designed it. (“Developed” sounds a bit like learning as he goes along, which would be anathema to you.) I agree with you completely that if he exists, he achieved brilliant designs, and it is only your human interpretation that renders them cumbersome, messy and inefficient! That is what I’m objecting to!

DAVID: God may not have viewed it that way as He chose to do it. He did not choose direct creation generally but did do it in the Cambrian and other isolated examples.

He chose to do what? According to you, his one and only purpose was to create us and our food. He was perfectly capable of doing so directly, but instead he chose to design 99 out of 100 life forms that had no connection with his purpose and eventually disappeared. And your all-powerful, always-in-control God also restricted himself to designing whatever new species would fit in with conditions over which he had no control. All this has led to you condemning his method as messy, cumbersome and inefficient. But you refuse even to consider any alternative to a theory which makes no sense to you (you say it makes sense only to God).
I went on to list my alternatives.

DAVID: Once again we are exposed to a directionless God of your imagination.

dhw: I have just listed his basic directions.

DAVID: How is there direction if He relies on experimentation which can cause direction change?

If his purpose was to produce a being like himself (plus food), experimentation was directed towards producing a being like himself (plus food). No change of direction.

DAVID: Coming up with new ideas means direction change.

If his purpose was to find out the potential of his invention (life) by experimenting with it, there is no change of direction if he experiments to find out the potential of his invention.

DAVID: And allowing autonomous events in creation can easily mean direction change. 'Directionless' fits.

If his purpose was to find out what his invention was capable of producing by itself, there is no change of direction if he found out what his invention was capable of producing by itself. (Always remembering that he could dabble if he wanted to.)

DAVID: Using comparisons of how each of us views God's thoughts and emotions does not smooth over the difference of my God who is powerful, purposeful, direct in creating exactly what He wants. Stick with your wimp if you wish.

dhw: My versions of a possible God are that he is all-powerful and purposeful, and he creates what he wants. Your God only wants to design us and our food, and therefore he designs 99 out of 100 species that have no connection with that he wants to design, and you call this direct. You regard his method as messy, cumbersome and inefficient, which apparently means it is brilliant. You turn language and logic on their head.

DAVID: As above, a human interpretation is necessarily not God's. He used His evolutionary system to create our brain. Brilliant design, isn't it?

Yes. In all my alternative theistic interpretations, the designs are brilliant. But none of them have him using a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method which involves 99 irrelevant designs out of 100.

DAVID: I don't have your problem of requiring exactitudes. Life doesn't really offer them at the theological level of thought. If it makes sense to God, as you note, it is OK with me to accept God's illogical method of evolution.

dhw: I don’t require “exactitudes”, but at any level of thought, I do require arguments that make sense. I do not note that your arguments make sense to God: I note that YOU think they make sense ONLY to God, which is a confession that they make no sense to you.

DAVID: Your lack of understanding is amazing: anything God does is OK with me.

But you don’t know what God does! You imagine that he uses an inefficient method to achieve the goal you imagine he has! If I say God experiments, will you accept my theory because anything God does is OK with me? Your statement actually means that only your theory about what God does is OK with you.

DAVID: Once again you demand I read God's mind! How? The God you imagine is a mishmash of weakness.

I don’t demand anything. You volunteered your theory about God’s inefficiency, and you volunteered the information that your theory makes sense only to God (and therefore not to you). Your belief that a God is “weak” if he does precisely what he wants to do (= my theories) sits uneasily with your theory that a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method denotes all-powerful, all-knowing brilliance.