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

by dhw, Sunday, May 21, 2023, 08:40 (550 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: We humans look at evolution as cumbersome over direct creation.

dhw: Your generalisation that “we humans” see evolution as cumbersome is absurd.

DAVID: Are you and I human as we humans? That was my reference.

My apologies. I thought you were talking about humans in general, and not just you and I. But your statement remains absurd, because I do not regard evolution as cumbersome. It only becomes cumbersome when you insist that your God’s one and only purpose was to design us and our food, and for some unknown reason chose to design 99 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with us and our food. That is why I have proposed three theistic alternatives that remove your criticism of your God as having designed a messy, cumbersome and inefficient method.

DAVID: All forms of God must evolve life to fit the known history pf creation. Your twist is to invent a guy who, unsure of Himself, is experimenting, inventing new ideas for goals which helps explain the broad expanse of the tree of life by blaming a weak God.

I offer three different logical versions that fit the known history. I do not regard experimenting as a sign of his being “unsure of himself”. If he really designed every species (as you believe), he was remarkably successful – they are all wonderful in themselves. But he is not all-knowing. I do not regard a God who experiments, invents new wonders, enjoys his own inventions and discoveries, as being weak and to be “blamed”. Blamed for what? Doing what he wanted to do? It is you, with your totally illogical theory of a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method who are “blaming” him.

DAVID: You are asking does God know what my free will, will conclude? I suspect God knows my thoughts in advance as I freely make them.

dhw: Then I suggest you do not “accept” that God is all-knowing, but you “suspect” that he is. Hardly grounds for dismissing a theory which suggests that he may not be all-knowing.

DAVID: I'll remove the word suspect and change it to it is likely God knows my next thought as I develop them.

dhw: That is another of your bad habits: the moment I point out the implications of your statements, you try to change them: hence your desperate efforts to escape from his having thought patterns and emotions similar to ours, his enjoyment of creating, his interest in his creations, his failed experiments, his cumbersome inefficiency, the possibility of cellular intelligence, and now a suspicion which turns overnight into likelihood.

DAVID: I do not desperately escape. I still think our thought patterns mimic His, He enjoys creating, He is interested in His creations, etc.

Thank you. Then please stop criticizing my theories on the grounds that I “humanize” some of his thought patterns, and that you do not believe that his motive for evolution might be the enjoyment of creating and providing himself with things he can be interested in.

dhw: Your own theory has him starting out with a purpose, deliberately designing 100 individual organisms of which 99 are irrelevant to his direction (= directionless), and so he either dabbles them away or, even more directionless, lets chance destroy them for him (he doesn’t control the conditions which determine whether an organism lives or dies).

DAVID: A distortion of what evolution accomplishes. You have just presented a God who has no idea as to what is the outcome.

dhw: I have just presented your theory. Which part of it do you now reject?

DAVID: None of it.

dhw: Then please stop pretending that I distort it!

DAVID: In this way: that 99% of all evolved organisms must disappear is not a defect of the system.

So why do you call the system messy, cumbersome and inefficient? Please answer. In PART TWO of “More Miscellany” you give the following non-answer:

DAVID: I simply answering your question, why did God use evolution?

That does not explain why you call his design messy etc. Please answer. I have already answered your own question over and over again with three possible reasons: 1) because he was experimenting to see if he could create a being like himself; 2) experimenting to see what new wonders he could make with his invention of life; 3) because he wanted to see what new wonders his invention could create for itself.

DAVID: God does not need to control every aspect of climate or weather systems, as His design ability allows Him to design for any condition existing.

But he can only design organisms that will be able to cope with current conditions, as a result of which he designs 99 out of 100 that have no connection with his one and only purpose! They die out when the conditions over which he has no control make it impossible for them to survive. Isn’t this one if the reasons why you call his method messy, cumbersome and inefficient?