Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, June 13, 2020, 11:35 (1385 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I dodge nothing. You first agree that God could have chosen to evolve humans, and then you express surprise that so many forms over so many stages took place first!

dhw: My surprise is that an all-powerful God whose sole purpose (your theory) was to evolve (in your vocabulary = directly design) H. sapiens, directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of life forms that had nothing to do with H. sapiens. This is the central point which even now you are still dodging.

DAVID: You have invented a so-called dodge. Once again, from history, with God in charge of creating history. it is obvious God chose to evolve humans by first creating previous forms over the time required. You imply God should have directly created humans. It didn't happen that way.

dhw: You are still dodging! It is obvious that there were millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders etc. thousands of millions of years before humans. It is not obvious from history that your God directly designed them all (etc.)

DAVID: The bold is your problem, as usual. Of course there is no absolute proof God did anything. But it is my belief He created reality and everything I explain follows logically from that. […]

And so you continue to dodge: God created reality, his sole purpose was to create H. sapiens and apparently it follows logically that he directly designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches etc. before directly designing various humans before directly designing H. sapiens. And you think this is a logical sequence.

DAVID: …you are correct about God's interests. I certainly assume God is interested in all his evolutionary creations as they formed econiches, as He worked His evolutionary way to create humans.

dhw:I do not question the importance of the balance of nature for the survival of any species, including humans. I question your theory that for 3.X billion years your God had to design loads and loads of different ecosystems, the vast majority of which are extinct and had nothing whatever to do with humans, because although humans were his only purpose, for reasons you cannot even begin to fathom he had decided not to design them for 3.X billion years.

DAVID: Same unreasonable objections to my beliefs. It is impossible to evolve humans from bacteria unless the stages of evolution occur in the order they did. That is what God had to do to eventually produce us.

Same dodge: bearing in mind that your God is apparently “direct designer of all that appears”, why did he directly 3.X billion years’ worth of extinct non-human life forms and econiches before directly designing the first humans? It doesn’t make sense!

DAVID: (under “importance of ecosystems”): In dhw's confused state he does not seem to recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems:
https://phys.org/news/2020-06-recovery-sea-otter-populations-yields.html

dhw: Of course I recognize the importance of balanced ecosystems! You even reproduced my argument as quoted above, and then immediately ignored it!

I hope you will now once and for all stop trying to use the need for balanced ecosystems as an explanation for your God’s design of 3.X billion years of life forms and ecosystems that had nothing to do with humans.

Under "intelligent design":
DAVID: Evolution is a system of taking from the past and repurposing in the future. It took 3.8 billion years to get from bacteria to humans.It is obvious the time was required.

dhw: All agreed, including the fact that it took 3.X billion years to get from bacteria to humans, and it is obvious that this was the time it took, because this was the time it took. How does that explain the disconnected theory bolded above?

DAVID: The only disconnect is you don't accept my faith that God created reality in the manner history instructs us.

If God exists, I have no doubt that he created reality in the manner history instructs us. But history does not instruct us that he directly designed every life form etc., as now bolded above as many times as I can manage in one post.

DAVID: You cannot get rid of my belief system, which is what you are attacking. And you certainly won't accept that Adler, one of the premier educators and philosophers of the 20th century, established a powerful book that carefully outlined all the logical reasons for identifying humans as God's prime purpose.

With my open-minded approach, I have offered you two logical explanations of evolution which DO identify humans as a prime purpose. These explanations remove the disconnect in your theory, as bolded above – a disconnect which you have never been able to explain.


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