New Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, February 04, 2025, 18:02 (76 days ago) @ dhw

First life

dhw: I might just as well ask why your all-knowing, all-powerful God took so LONG to develop life.

You have completely ignored this obvious point.

You've asked me about my surprise as to when lie appeared. Do you know how long is necessary?

dhw: Just as I can ask why your all-knowing, all-powerful God took so long and designed so many irrelevant species and ecosystems if his one and only purpose was to design us and our food.

DAVID: Your usual total distortion of the history of evolution. All that evolved is here today for our use.

dhw: Your usual astonishing disortion of the history of evolutiion: has nobody ever told you that approximately 99% of what evolved is NOT here today? Only approximately 1% of what evolved is here today. And even the fact that we are able to use whatever is here today does not mean that whatever is here today was specially designed for us to use!

Yes, I'm fully aware just 0.1% survived, but look at the glorious result: the magnificent variety of living resources for human to use.

T-cells and immunity

DAVID: from our cancer society: in a nation of over 300 million about 600,000 will die this year of cancer. Where are dhw's millions? Let's see support.

dhw: You always seem to forget that your nation is not the only nation in the world. The 600,000 cases of God’s failed instructions are enough in themselves to prove the appalling inefficiency of your God’s so-called "instructions". As for the world, try this for size:

"The American Cancer Society released its Global Cancer Statistics, 2024, report which estimates that approximately 20 million new cases of cancer were diagnosed in 2022 and approximately 9.7 million individuals died from cancer during that time. Moreover, the number of global cancer cases is predicted to reach 35 million by 2050."

DAVID: I prefer a reasonable view: In 2050 when the Earth's population will be 10 billion+ of course the total will increase. Current death rate: 0.00000032% of Total Earth population.

dhw: You asked me where were my millions, and I have told you. Cancer is only one of the diseases that kill us, and so there are many more million examples of your God’s instructions proving inadequate. Please give us your own explanation for the failure of your God’s instructions, if it is not inefficiency.

Fully explained previously: side effects of God's good works. He gave us life. Should He take it back?

Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism: design evidence

DAVID: Compare your brain to that of a living cell. Which one can see design and perform it.

dhw: I don’t understand your second sentence:

DAVID: It means Brain vs. single cell

dhw: I have pointed out that the brain is a community of cell communities, all of which cooperate with one another. If your God gave our brain cells autonomy, why do you think he was incapable of giving autonomy to all cells?

It was not required While you constantly plead for nonexistent intelligent deigning cells.

Extremophiles

DAVID: another study that demonstrates the tenacity of life. It is ecosystems all the way down. In a universe fine-tuned for life, the outcome is not surprising.

dhw: I don’t know about the universe being fine-tuned for life, since ours is the only planet we know that actually hosts it. […] I have no idea why your God would want to create so many different ecosystems all the way down and all the billions of years back, solely in order to design and provide for us humans. But of course, you have no idea either.

DAVID: No, I don't. Have you forgotten all the fine-tuning philosophy?

dhw: Considering that approximately 95% of the universe is unknown to us, and the only life we actually know of us is ours, I think it’s a bit premature to say that the whole universe is fine-tuned for life.

At least this portion certainly is.

dhw: And we needn’t dwell on your absurd belief that every species and ecosystem for the first 3.X000,000,000 years of life’s history was specially designed for the sake of the humans who were not even around at the time.

All evolutionary preparation for our arrival.