More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, September 08, 2024, 09:00 (11 days ago) @ David Turell

Black holes needed for life

DAVID: My belief makes God real to me.

dhw: As you have told us many times, your starting point is what you wish to believe, and so you focus only on possible evidence for your belief. Atheists will focus on the absurdity of an unknown, sourceless being designing billions of lifeless stars etc. in order to design one tiny fraction of this infinity for the sole purpose of creating us and our contemporary species. This (among other considerations) will make God unreal to them. Would you regard this approach as acceptable? If not, why not? NB I am not attacking your faith or theirs. I am only attacking the fact that all of you pick and choose your own so-called "evidence" and attack one another for doing the same!

DAVID: My evidence is irrefutable. Life's highly complex biochemical design requires a designer.

But apparently a conscious mind capable of designing universes, galaxies, dinosaurs, elephants, termites and conscious brains does not require a designer. Why do you think first cause, ready-made superintelligence is more likely than first cause, primitive intelligence that evolves? (Reminder: I accept the logic of both approaches, which is why I remain agnostic.)

Bacterial intelligence

dhw: Presumably then your God has given all bacteria instructions on whatever movements they should make in their on-going battle for survival. So did he give them instructions to infect us with fatal diseases?

DAVID: No, a side effect of His good works.

dhw: Sorry, but that is not an answer. If good bacteria survive by unthinkingly obeying God’s instructions, does that mean that your God only gave autonomous thought (intelligence) to bad bacteria?

DAVID: Bad bacteria carry the same instructions as good bacteria. Why do you differentiate?

How can they be the same instructions if the bad bacteria kill instead of cure? Either your God instructed them to kill, or they autonomously rebelled against your God’s instructions. Or, of course, all bacteria, good and bad, were given the ability to design their own means of survival.

Zombified flies

DAVID: [..] we've met these guys before in zombified ants. All parts of necessary ecosystems.

dhw: Necessary for what? Do you honestly believe that your God could not have created us humans and our food without specially designing the complexities of the fly-munching fungus?

DAVID: All part of necessary ecosystems of support.

dhw: Again, necessary for what, and to support what? (Let us not forget that your God’s one and only aim from the very beginning was to design us and our food.)

DAVID: You've answered your question. For us and our food supply.

So your God specially designed the fly-eating fungus as part of our food supply. Can’t see this recipe catching on. Can you?

Kamikaze termites

DAVID: The biochemical complexities can only come from a designing mind.

dhw: One designing mind may have designed other designing minds, like ours, or those of our bacterial friends and enemies. And we still have the same problem as above: Termites evolved millions of years before us. Explosive rucksacks necessary for the design of humans and our food?

DAVID: Eventually, yes. For all the ecosystems supporting us.

Your God specially designed explosive rucksacks, fly-eating fungi and weaverbird nests because they were necessary for our existence. You don’t find this just a little far-fetched?

Butterfly wing colors

DAVID: butterfly wings are beautiful. Their purpose might be a God-given aesthetic item to enjoy. (dhw's bold)

(So he knows all about enjoyment, bu can’t possibly enjoy anything himself? See below.)

dhw: I love it! Butterflies evolved a long, long time before we did, so if your God designed them, might it not be a sign that his purpose in designing them was to create an aesthetic item that HE could enjoy?

DAVID: Does God need enjoyment from something already in His mind's eye?

dhw: Why do you always talk of “need”? Would you collapse and die if you didn’t have the beauty of butterfly wings to enjoy? Do you think artists don’t enjoy creating something tangible that they think is beautiful? Your God would hardly have carried on creating if he didn’t enjoy it. Why is that impossible for you to believe?

DAVID: Does God need a human form of enjoyment? NO. Only you would make Him in that image. You invent God's needs.

And you simply ignore the fact that enjoyment does not denote need. What, in heaven’s name, is wrong with your own earlier proposal that your God might enjoy creating and be interested in his creations?