More miscellany Parts One & Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Monday, September 30, 2024, 19:49 (17 days ago) @ dhw

Disordered proteins (and glue your predator)

DAVID: I view God as finished with His creations, but is still here watching how it all works.

dhw: I’m glad to hear that your God is still interested in watching how it all works. Very human of him. Why do you think he’s still interested enough to keep watching?

Don't you maintain interest in your creations?

DNA hunts pathogens

DAVID: No. The bugs are pretty smart in your proposed current free-for-all. (dhw’s bold)

dhw: So the bugs outsmart the omniscient God who created them?

DAVID: In your fairytale view of God.

dhw: We are discussing YOUR view, and your twisted logic! If God gives full instructions which are automatically obeyed by the cells, and the instructions fail, then that can only be because the invading bugs have outsmarted God!

That is why theodicy exists for discussion. The bugs God produced are pretty smart as designed.

Early mammalian evolution

DAVID: God used evolution as His choice of method. Is that wrong in your view? We are here running the Earth, not God's purpose?

dhw: Yet again: if God exists, yes, he chose evolution as his method to achieve whatever was his purpose. But you yourself question why he would have designed and had to cull 99.9% of species that had no connection with the purpose you impose on him. Hence your ridicule of his inefficiency. I have offered you three alternative theistic explanations for the comings and goings of species (experimentation or a free-for-all out of enjoyment and interest in creation and its possibilities, or experimentation for a partcular purpose), and your only objection to these is that they entail human attributes contrary to those you wish him to have – all lumped under “humanization”, which you have at last recognized as ridiculous because even your dog can have human attributes without being a human being.

What I have bolded is a clear example of purely human wishes driving your 'God'.

Biochemical controls

DAVID: The systems for producing life may be limited to only one! God would knows that. You cannot use what does not work, can you?

dhw: You still insist that your omnipotent, omniscient, first cause creator of life was subject to some kind of objective, outside law. You simply cannot believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, first cause creator might just create what he wants to create.

Still obfuscating the issue. No limitations law exists! Only one solution works and God took it by design.

Walking fish

dhw: Necessary for what? Do you think your God designed the walking fish for the one and only purpose of serving us?

DAVID: All ecosystems create he useful Earth we have.

You used the word “necessary”, and you tell us ad nauseam that your God created absolutely everything extant and extinct for our sake. Please tell us why the walking fish, fly-eating fungus, weaverbird’s nest and brontosaurus are/were necessary for our existence.

All part of Earth's overall ecosystem. Necessary ecosystems demonstrated here constantly.

The microbiome in the brain

DAVID: […] another example of bugs wandering into bad places. Which leads into the usual theodicy discussion.

dhw: It’s another example of bugs that attack us and bugs that defend us, and all of them are simply fighting for their own survival in their own particular ways. Your theodicean explanation varies wildly from blaming God for creating them, prevention of boredom, being forced to use the only system available to him, inability to rectify the mistakes in the system he created (but faith in humans to do what he, despite his omniscience, can’t do), and being so perfect that we should forget about the imperfections.

DAVID: You still fail to accept, God have us life the only way He could.

dhw: You still fail to accept that (a) an omnipotent God is more likely to create what he wants to create than to be forced to create something he doesn’t want, and (b) since your version has him knowingly creating all the sources of evil, how does this fit in with the concept of an all-good God who created everything out of himself?

God wanted to create the life we have. He knew it was the only system that would work. And you imply you know more than God about what would work.