Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 23, 2023, 17:12 (126 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: The problem is you do not recognize how humanized your God is.

dhw: My different theories entail different human patterns of thought. One of them coincides completely with your certainty that your God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations, which provides a perfectly acceptable motive for creating. You can hardly complain about that. Another is I have him experimenting and/or getting new ideas as he goes along, which I would not regard as any more human than having him achieving his one and only purpose by messily, clumsily and inefficiently designing and culling 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with his purpose. Why do you think a 99.9 per cent failure rate is more godlike than a successful exploration of potentials?

Your experimenting God has the same 99.9% failure rate from the same evolution process! An omnipotent God does not need to experiment or change His mind.

DAVID: If God is considered in charge, of course He did exactly what history shows: evolution in just the way you describe!!!.

dhw: I have described three different ways in which your God might have produced the history: experimentation to achieve a specific goal (e.g. your version: a being like himself, plus food); experimentation to explore the potential of his invention, leading to new ideas; a free-for-all as a different way of exploring the potential. Motivation: the enjoyment and interest you are certain are among his thought patterns.

All a fully humanized personality you would invent as a God. Philosophers of religion would reject Him, as in 'How to think about God', Adler's book.

DAVID: I theorized a goal. Viewing naturally caused evolution a la Darwin, humans are a most amazing result. A theistic philosophic view of evolution uses humans as proof of God, and of His goal.

dhw: All life is an amazing result, but I agree humans are unique in their intelligence and degrees of consciousness. A theistic view of evolution can use humans and all the complexities of life as “proof of God”, but since you also believe that he is all-purposeful, you have no idea why, if humans plus food were his only goal, he would have designed 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with humans plus food. So perhaps he didn’t design them, or perhaps his goal was not confined to designing humans plus food.

My inability to know God's reasons for evolving us does not negate my conclusions that humans were His goal.

DAVID: Your analysis from a Godless point of view totally distorts your conclusion.

dhw: It is not godless, and there is no conclusion. All my alternatives allow for God, but they do not turn him into the messy blunderer described by your combined theories.

God is not a blunderer. He used a messy evolutionary system to successfully produce us.

DAVID: In the past developing humans only used what was easiest to obtain. Now with our current abilities we use everything on Earth, as God planned.

dhw: Off you go, careering away from the subject, which is not human progress and abilities but the sheer illogicality of a God who messily and inefficiently designs and then has to cull 99.9 out of 100 species that have no connection with his purpose.

Your usual complaint that God should not have evolved us. But He didn't use direct creation, did He, reserving that for the Cambrian?

DAVID: What is present now is God's obvious goal. I don't know why God evolved us, but a study of God's actions showed a steady pattern of evolution. He evolved the universe from the Big Bang; He started life and evolved it; He made the Earth and evolved it to be life friendly. Undeniable proof of His pattern of method. I await your answer.

dhw: If God exists, this is all a perfectly acceptable theory. I believe in evolution. Our dispute only concerns your illogical theory that your purposeful God designed the universe, Earth and life for the sole purpose of creating us and our food, and therefore he designed 99.9 species out of 100 that had no connection with us or our food (and in any case, he designed our Cambrian ancestors “de novo”, which would make it 100 out of 100 irrelevant designs prior to the Cambrian). That has been my answer throughout the years of this dispute, and still you continue to dodge the issue.

Your constant dodge is to complain about how God did it. We both see the same process. The difference is I see humans as a specific goal, and that bends you all out of shape. The result is your invention of an unrecognizable type of a humanized form of God's personality.
Adler's book is my guide in rejecting your theology.