Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, January 14, 2024, 12:18 (104 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Your once all-purposeful God is now a purposeless zombie. If God had no motive for creating life, why did he bother? And if he had no motive, how could his motive have been to design us and our food? And you still haven’t told us why your earlier might-be purposes (to be worshipped, recognized, have a relationship with us) are less “needy” and less “human” than the purpose of enjoyment and interest? […]

DAVID: Let's be clear, purpose is not motive.

More silly language games. Both purpose and motive are the reason why you do something. According to you, your God’s purpose for creating life was to design humans plus our food. His motive for creating life was his desire to design humans plus food.

DAVID: We know God purposely produced humans through a process we call evolution.

Assuming your God exists, we can assume that he produced ALL life forms through a process we call evolution. Once more: According to you, his purpose for producing all life was to produce humans, and his motive was the desire to produce humans.

DAVID: We don't know why God chose that method, since we know He can create directly (the Cambrian). (dhw's bold)

We don't "know" that your God chose your purpose or your method! And your two theories combined - purpose/motive = us plus food, method = to design 99.9 out of 100 species with no connection to us, though you “know” he can create directly - make absolutely no sense to you.

DAVID: Whatever motive God had it was not self-serving.

And there you go again, with your pretence that you know exactly what and how your God thinks. Back to the bolded questions you refuse to answer.

DAVID: Our emotions mimic His, so we can only guess at His. I still firmly reject your humanizing approach.

Of course we can only guess, but you believe our emotions mimic his, and yet you firmly reject even your own humanizing guesses in which our emotions mimic his.

99.9& versus 0.1%

DAVID: Our [direct human line had a loss of ancestors at the 99.9% level, per Raup.

dhw: Yes! Of course the loss of 99.9% of our direct human line (= our ancestors) fits the history. And so we can now dismiss all the nonsense about the 99.9% of evolution producing us, and accept that only 0.1% of past species led to us (plus food). And we remain stuck with 99.9% of past species which you believe your God deliberately designed and culled, and which had no connection with us or our food but came to a dead end. Agreed at last?

DAVID: What we are stuck with is a history of evolution produced by God, in which 3.8 billion years of life resulted in survivors in mathematical terms are 0.1% of all who ever lived.

Thank hou for confirming that humans plus food are not the descendants of 99.9% of organisms that ever lived, and yes, we are stuck with your absurd theory that your God deliberately designed 99.9 out of 100 species that had no connection with the purpose/motive you impose on him.

DAVID: Note this new approach:
https://phys.org/news/2024-01-life-earth.html

QUOTES: "[…] how much life has inhabited this planet since the first cell on Earth? And how much life will ever exist on Earth?
In the end, we were able to estimate that about 10^30 (10 noninillion) cells exist today, and that between 10^39 (a duodecillion) and 10^40 cells have ever existed on Earth."

Estimating the number of cells that exist and existed has absolutely nothing to do with your nonsensical theories of evolution, and I’m sorry, but I do not believe there is any reliable method for counting the number of individual specimens of every species that ever lived in the course of 3.8 billion years.

The immune system

dhw:do you believe that the cell communities of which all multicellular organisms consist can respond to the demands of their environment without being conscious of their environment? Yes or no, please.

DAVID: Yes, they automatically respond to stimuli they receive.

(See “Miscellany Parts One & Two".)

Theodicy

DAVID: […] God is perfect.

dhw: […] Since your God is all powerful, then of course he sets the criteria for perfection. If he decides to design murderous viruses, or to chuck an asteroid at you and me, he can still call himself perfect. And you and Godel can pretend you know all about God’s attributes, while at the same time you tell us at the start of this thread that it’s all guesses, so how the heck do you “KNOW” he is whatever you want him to be?

DAVID: Welcome to the vagaries of faith.

The vagaries of faith lead you into presenting illogical guesses as if they were facts, and then you reject logical alternative guesses on the grounds that they contradict your own illogical guesses. This approach is harmless in the context of theodicy, but has alarming practical repercussions in other contexts, since it is the foundation of all prejudice: you have an opinion, and no matter how illogical it may be, you stick to it. I have no problem with faith so long as it doesn’t turn into prejudice.