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

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 16, 2023, 17:54 (345 days ago) @ dhw

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

dhw: 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!

Developed equals created in my mind. Evolution is not simple creation. And the final appearance of humans with huge brains is a total surprise if following Darwin guidlines.

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?

dhw: 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.

Experimenting implies searching for a solution. Where is the direction an all-knowing God would have?

DAVID: Coming up with new ideas means direction change.

dhw: 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.

Where is the direction of purpose in your scenario of a wimpy God?

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

dhw: 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.)

So the individual organisms invent and if God doesn't like it, He dabbles them away?? Directionless activity!!!

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?

dhw: 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.

God's evolution happened. You can't just dismiss it.

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.

dhw: 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.

What did you expect? My belief in God is very firm.

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

dhw: 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.

Again a distortion of my belief: God, a brilliant designer (you agree) chose to evolve humans by evolving them over a long period of time. There is much evidence God can directly create (the Cambrian), but His final chosen method remained drawn out over 3.8 billion years.