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

by dhw, Thursday, May 25, 2023, 08:53 (546 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Still pursuing the image of a God who is just like us. We are not all-knowing and you now present your guy who is not all-knowing so your guy is mostly human.

dhw: How can a non-physical, eternal, sourceless being, who is powerful enough to create a universe, be “just like us”? You agree that he may have given us thought patterns and emotions like his. You yourself believe that he enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, just like some of us. Why should you assume that his enjoyment and interest is not enhanced by the pleasure of unexpected new discoveries, new ideas, learning during the process of creating? How does that make him “mostly” human? And why is such enjoyment more human and less godlike than the design of a messy, cumbersome, inefficient system which forces him to specially design 99 out of 100 species that have no connection with his one and only purpose?

DAVID: You are still struggling to show your imagined God is very human like us. And you have proposed God is not all-knowing like us humans. Your weak form of God is well-described. You don't need to convince us further.

No struggle, no weakness, and the God I am imagining is not “very human” like us, but we have been given some of his thought patterns and emotions – as you have agreed is perfectly possible. Your objections do not answer my own objections to the sheer illogicality of your theory, which even labels your God’s method as inefficient, and they do not detract from the fact that even you accept that all my alternatives provide logical theistic explanations for the history of evolution.

DAVID: My all-powerful, all-knowing God is nothing like yours, as the debate shows. My God used a slow, cumbersome system to perfection. Look at the wondrous bush of life in all its diversity. If it all worked out so perfectly, why should you complain?

In none of my alternatives do I complain! I am the one who praises the wonderful diversity of life and who suggests that this is what your God (if he exists) wanted and achieved. You are the one who proposes that your God devised a messy, cumbersome, inefficient method to achieve what he wanted, which according to you was nothing but us humans and our food. You are totally at a loss to explain why, being all-powerful and all-knowing, he didn’t design us and our food directly, but you refuse to consider any theory that differs from your own.

DAVID: The goal or end point of evolution produces naturally 99% non-survival. Since God chose that method, the results didn't disturb Him, as it does you.

dhw: What do you mean by “naturally”. If your God designed every species, where does Nature come into it? And how do you know your guy chose such an inefficient method and wasn’t disturbed by it, though it is perfectly possible – as I have shown – that he had a different purpose, chose a different method to achieve that purpose, and happily continued to do exactly what he wanted to do?

DAVID: I used 'naturally' as 'expected' as shown by Raup. Repeating how wonderful your human God is will not convince anyone who believes.

As “expected” by whom? Who laid down the law that says: "If thou wishest to create one species plus its food, thou must design and then get rid of 99 species out of 100 that have nothing to do with the one species plus its food”? Why do you think my wonderfully efficient designer would be less convincing than your messy, cumbersome, inefficient version?