Theistic evolution vs. Darwinism (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, June 13, 2013, 17:42 (3989 days ago) @ David Turell

The plot so far: In response to Tony's post about purpose, I wrote that IF I believed in God, "the most likely purpose for me would be God relieving his boredom". This brought down on me the wrath of David: "You are worse than religions' presumption they can apply attributes to God. [...] How do you know he is bored? [...] How do you know He did it with purpose?" (Of course I never claimed to know or even believe any such thing!) In response to Tony, however, David wrote: "God wants us to have freedom of choice and to learn from the mistakes that we make. God is a God of tough love, the only kind of approach that reaches a mature morality." I see this as one rule for agnostics (I shouldn't even speculate about God's mind) and one rule for theists (David knows exactly what's in God's mind), and I have demanded equal rights for agnostics.-DAVID: You are speculating without study, other than relying upon Darwin who studied and came up to a different conclusion than Wallace who studied the same stuff.-Dhw: What on Earth has that got to do with Darwin? What have you studied that gives you the authority to make such a statement about God's wishes and God's kind of love?-DAVID: Darwin jumped to conclusions that have not been born out. His friend Wallace reached exactly the opposite conclusions from the same data. My study of the science leads me to my conclusions about God. I have as much authority as Darwin had.-There is absolutely no link between Darwin's theory of evolution and your theory that "God wants us to have freedom of choice and to learn etc.", and "God is a God of tough love"! Leave Darwin out of it! You have pontificated about God's purpose where all I did was speculate. I intend to report this case to the Bush-Blair Institute for Double Standards.-******
 
David:[...] the purpose is to show the audience here how science can lead one to easily presume there is a greater power running the show.-dhw:[...] you yourself have always acknowledged that science cannot answer any of the fundamental questions about the origin of life and consciousness ... let alone about the supposed consciousness, nature, purposes, creative techniques of first-cause energy ... and so if an "educated kind of guessing" is to turn into belief, you have to take a leap of FAITH. -DAVID: I have never claimed that science has all the answers, especially to the areas you mention. At some point Darwin took his defective leap of faith about an evolutionary mechanism. Theories are theories, and laws are accepted truths about how nature works. God is not subject to laws, but considering Him allows theories, based on science. Faith is always a leap.-I thought we had agreed that there IS an evolutionary mechanism (the intelligent cell/genome) and that the defect lay in Darwin's reliance on random mutations. As for theories, atheist interpreters of Darwin draw atheist conclusions from his theory; theist interpreters draw theist conclusions. These conclusions are not "based on science", because there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that chance can create life and the mechanisms of evolution, or that there is a hidden quantum mind which has designed them in order to teach humans the lessons of tough love!