Balance of nature: human and theological implications (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, January 18, 2025, 18:16 (4 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: The controversy is not about “snowball” versus “warming”! You and Watts have both acknowledged that the planet is getting hotter! The controversy is over the degree of danger that this presents.

Agreed.

DAVID: Your current approach is still panic, still pure propaganda.

dhw: How can it be “pure propaganda” if you accept that climate change is real? Do you honestly believe that we should continue -perhaps even increasingly - to burn fossil fuels, cut down the forests, stick to current forms of transport and methods of agriculture which poison the air and the soil through the accumulation of greenhouse gases? Please answer.

See above. 'Degree of danger' is the issue. Those of us with me think the degree is small.

DAVID: Slow and steady can happen, but lining up nations is not an easy job.

dhw: I’ve explained above precisely why this is not an easy job, but it’s a job which requires action now, to be continued as quickly and smoothly as possible. The fact that it’s difficult does not mean that the danger posed by climate change can be dismissed as panic or propaganda!

Back to your panic mode of propaganda.

Symbiosis

dhw: […] it was Lynn Margulis who pioneered the vital importance of this process in evolution. She also championed the theory of cellular consciousness. [...] But the origin of "the conscious cell" remains an open question. Maybe it was designed by your God.

DAVID: The use of symbiosis is widespread. A carefully coded DNA with full instructions can produce the appearance of cellular intelligence.

dhw: In other words, you disagree with Margulis and all the other scientists who support her theory, which of course you are free to do!

DAVID: Of course I do. You agree with scientists avoiding God as a source.
And:
DAVID: No one knows! Some of us choose.

dhw: After all these years, you still don’t know the difference between atheism and agnosticism. “Maybe it was designed by your God” does not mean God was not the source. Agnostics simply don’t know. The options remain open. Your alternatives to a God-sourced intelligence are a 3.8-billion-year-old book of instructions, or endless ad hoc interventions […]

No response. May I take it that you have finally understood the difference between atheism and agnosticism?

I know the difference as I see it. Agnosticism grudgingly suggests a God might exist.

God and evolution: weaverbirds

DAVID: The nests are not learned behavior as previously discussed. The snake skin is.

dhw: […] I have no idea why you think these birds are intelligent enough to design their own means of protection but have to have lessons from God on how to build their own homes. […]

DAVID: All cavity nests come from design.

dhw: I am suggesting that all nests come from design – i.e. by the birds that build them. Do you believe that your God only gave courses in cavity nest-building, but all other nests were designed by the birds themselves?

The ecosystem may require a cavity for more protection.

Octopus nervous system

DAVID: Design takes a working mind.

dhw: Agreed. Hence Margulis’s theory of the conscious cell. If nothing else, this would remove the astonishing anomaly of an all-powerful, all-knowing, messy, inefficient God.

Note the agnostic speaks like an atheist. The version of agnosticism I get from you is 90% athism.