Balance of nature: human and theological implications (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, January 20, 2025, 11:19 (1 day, 22 hours, 35 min. ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: Agreed.

dhw: This is a common practice of yours – to avoid the subject under discussion, or to dodge particular questions. You do the same in the next exchange.

DAVID: I agreed and you complain!

My complaint was that you had introduced a totally irrelevant subject (“snowball” versus “warming”) – a device you frequently use in order to dodge awkward questions. I’m glad you agree, and I wish you would stop dodging questions.

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.

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

You did not answer my question.

DAVID: Poisoning air and soil is more alarmist propaganda.

Does this mean you think we should go on indefinitely cutting down the forests etc.? (We needn’t go into the details of how modern fertilizers, pesticides and other chemical aids are poisoning air, soil and water. Just answer the question, please.)

dhw: The fact that the changes will be difficult does not prove that it is OK to continue present practices. Please answer my question above.

DAVID: I think I did.

Your answer was that agricultural methods are not poisoning air and soil. You have not told us if you think we should continue to cut down the forests etc.

Transferred from “erectus", which I think we can leave now:

DAVID: You spew alarmist propaganda and my answer is we can go very slow in any possible mitigation.

Neither of us is an expert in the field, but if you really believe that the current pollution of our waters, deforestation, the burning of fossil fuels and the noxious gases from current forms of transport (and agricultural methods) are harmless, then so be it. If you recognize the damage they are causing even now, would that not be sufficient reason to replace “very slow” with “as fast as possible”?

Theology

Symbiosis

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.

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

dhw: You have just agreed that “no one knows!” Agnostics accept that no one knows, and we can see the logic and the non-logic behind the choices made by theists and atheists. In our discussions, I offer various alternative theories, which include God as the designer – the intelligent cell being one of them. There is no “grudgingly”. But you stick to your own illogical theories (e.g. anthropocentric evolution, an all-powerful but inefficient designer, an all-good creator of evil (theodicy), selfless but might want to be worshipped), and you pretend that my alternatives, such as an experimenting God or a God who enjoys creating, or learns as he goes along, are atheistic!

DAVID: You always create a humanized God, never a real God-like figure.

How the heck do you know the “real” God? You agree that your God probably has human thought patterns and emotions, but in any case, a “humanized” God is still a God, so how can you claim that my theories demonstrate a “grudging” acceptance that God might exist? They simply offer a different version from your illogically all-powerful, all-knowing, messy, cumbersome and inefficient blunderer.

Octopus nervous system

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

“Maybe [the conscious cell] was designed by your God.” How does that constitute 90% atheism?

DAVID: Picking one simple agnostic example does not repute the 90% overall estimate.

How about the various theistic theories I offer to explain evolution? Do you think that theories about a possible God’s purposes, methods and nature denote 90% atheism? Sorry, but this is yet another of your digressions, in your desperate efforts to turn attention away from the massive contradictions that are all too evident in your own theistic theories.

DAVID: No one knows. Some of us choose.

dhw: Theists choose God, atheists choose no God, and agnostics do not choose. Got it?

DAVID: OK.

Thank you.

God and evolution: weaverbirds

dhw: You insist that your God designed the weaverbird’s nest. Do you believe that other birds had the intelligence to design their own nests?

DAVID: Yes, simple dish style.

Excellent news. You accept that your God must have given most avian cell communities the autonomous intelligence to design their own nests. Any idea why he might have chosen weaverbirds for special tuition during his single-minded quest to design us and our food?