Return to David's theory of evolution and purpose (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, February 17, 2024, 08:36 (70 days ago) @ David Turell

99.9% and 0.1%

dhw: Let us now forget about percentages, and consider each of your theories one by one. You have accepted that there have been species from which we and our food (our contemporary species) are not descended. Your theory is that we and all current species were your God’s purpose from the very beginning. You believe that he individually created every species that ever lived. You believe that he culled all the species that were not going to lead to contemporary species. QUESTION: Why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God deliberately, messily, cumbersomely and inefficiently design and then cull species which he knew were not going to lead to the only species he wanted to design?
In the past you have admitted that you don’t know the answer. But you refuse to accept the possibility that one or more of your basic premises might be wrong.
Please pinpoint anything in the above that you disagree with. If you accept its accuracy, we can end the discussion on percentages, which sheds no light on the question. […]

DAVID: No lines were ever sacrificed., which is your premise. What God destroyed were twigs/branches of lines He trimmed away.

dhw: It’s you who say that ALL the lines were deliberately designed and culled (now "sacrificed"), including the millions of “twigs/branches” that did NOT grow into the only ones he wanted to design. Stop dodging!

DAVID: When one trims a bush, He creates specific branches reaching to the desired tips.

This is getting silly. In your theory, he creates specific branches reaching to the desired tips, but he also creates millions of branches that don’t reach the required tips, so he cuts them off. Why does he create them in the first place? You have no idea. We must ask God to explain the messy, inefficient method you impose on him.

DAVID: How much the twigs came from some degree of automatic experimentation I see as a possibility.

dhw: This is a welcome concession, except that I have no idea what you mean by “automatic” experimentation. Assuming your God exists, either he would have deliberately experimented with each design, or he would have designed organisms to do their own experimenting. There’s hope yet! Do you now accept both these theories as possible?

DAVID: I can see some degree of automaticity in speciation may have created unwanted twigs.

Please explain what you mean by “automaticity” here? Do you mean that species were given the power to design themselves? Who or what would be conducting the experimentation?

Purpose

dhw: If your God exists, I have absolutely no doubt that he would have had a purpose in designing life. I’m not questioning your honesty, but I am questioning why you ridicule him by limiting him to one purpose and making out that bbbhe devoted himself to messily and inefficiently designing species that had no connection with his purpose. bbbAnd I question your assumptions about his nature, which frequently contradict your own views of his nature, e.g. he wants us to worship him, but he has no self-interest.

DAVID: First, my God did not produce us so we would worship Him. That worship might happen was quite a secondary thought.

dhw: How do you know? If you think he wants us to worship him, why do you think it couldn’t have been a prime purpose for his designing us?

DAVID: As above, a secondary event since we have free will to worship or not.

If he wants us to worship him, he would hardly get any satisfaction if he programmed us to worship him! Why is wanting to be worshipped a “secondary” event?

DAVID: Yes, I limit the possibilities; we are here running the Earth. That is the true endpoint.

dhw: “Endpoint” does not have to mean one and only purpose! We can worship him and still run the Earth. What would have been his purpose anyway, to have us running the Earth?

DAVID: That is what we are doing, running the Earth. As an endpoint, that was His plan.

Please answer my question. Why do you think he wanted us to run the Earth? And why should such a plan exclude the possibility that above all else, he might want us to worship him, and to recognize his wonderful work, and even to have a relationship with him?