Back to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, July 19, 2020, 12:57 (1371 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So he deliberately created death by old age and the death of the cells of which we are all made, but he did not deliberately create the various errors that result in any death other than these. He tried to stop all the unplanned deaths but couldn’t, although we are so smart that sometimes we can. Is that correct?

DAVID: Exactly my interpretation of known facts.

Well, it’s nice to hear that we humans are sometimes smarter than your God. I’ll keep in mind your God’s lack of control over his creations as useful support for my proposal that he may also have deliberately and generally allowed evolution to function without his control (apart from some possible dabbles).

QUOTE: "The authors describe some of the terrible things that happen when components fail.”

DAVID: My bold is God's recognition of probable molecular failures. Definitely not intended or planned by God on purpose. Very carefully designed.

dhw: […] according to you these causes of death are errors. And they are definitely not intended or planned but are very carefully designed! Can you honestly not see how illogical this is?

DAVID: Failures of molecule function never designed. As shown by many backup correction mechanisms.

So what were you referring to with your now bolded “very carefully designed”?

Under “Aging is built in”:
DAVID: Aging is a planned designed part of living. It has to be present to clear away room for coming generations. God plans well. Now certainly some deaths are mistakes, but the general intended path is from birth to death.

No one would dispute that ageing is part of the process from birth to death. But I don’t see how mistakes leading to millions of premature deaths constitute good planning.

DAVID: …and you rebuttal above refuses to accept the idea God can choose any method of creation He wants, something you always scurry back to when challenged with.

dhw: Of course your God can choose any method he wants! But that does not mean he chose YOUR method! Yet again, I have offered you alternatives which you accept as logical. Stop dodging!

DAVID: Your substitute methods are all humanizing: experimenting, spectacles, late decision to try out inventing humans.

dhw: Answered in my next comment, which you ignore by claiming I twist your arguments.

dhw: Your “humanizing” objection to my logical alternatives is invalidated by your agreement that your God probably has thought patterns similar to ours...

DAVID: In use of logic only!! We do not know His reasons for his purposes. Still distorting!!

Purposes ARE reasons! And I’m sorry, but your original statement was “He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought” (David’s theory of evolution Part Two, Friday 31 January). I kept the reference because (a) it is central to our discussion, and (b) it has always seemed to me a perfectly reasonable assumption. If your God created our faculties for thought and feeling, why would they be totally unlike his own? There is no distortion, and in any case my logical alternative theories are fully in keeping with your claim that his logic is similar to ours. It is only your theory that fails to find any similarity!

dhw: […] please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.

DAVID: God has chosen to evolve us, and you keep saying that is wrong. It is my theory.

dhw: If God exists, I have no problem with the theory that he has chosen to evolve us. My problem is your insistence that although you keep saying he is all-powerful and always in control (now qualified by his helplessness at the beginning of this post), and although his only purpose was to produce us, he spent 3.X billion years NOT producing us but instead directly designed (this is your idea of “evolving”) untold millions of now extinct non-human life forms, natural wonders etc. Please stop dodging, and please tell me which of your arguments I have twisted.

DAVID: My choice of God's method argument is what you twist (last bold). Your first sentence agrees with His evolving us. So what is wrong with it taking all the time it took?

dhw: What is wrong is not the time it took but your claim that although the only life forms he wanted to evolve were us and our food supplies, he chose to “evolve” (by which you mean directly design) 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms etc. in order to feed humans who did not even exist.

DAVID: Again a gross distortion in bold. To produce us by evolving us, He knew and understood full well everything else had to come first. God can think realistically, but you don't seem to. We were a goal to be reached starting with bacteria, God's reasons for that method unknown, but you can guess at them as you always wish.

Why did “everything else” HAVE to come first? Your answer: “reason unknown”! I have offered you alternative, logical reasons why everything DID come first. Only your explanation defies logic, so maybe it’s wrong! And what you have pointed out is not a distortion, since yet again you insist that “we were a goal to be reached”. (You’ve once more changed “the” goal to “a” goal, though you’ve never named any other goal.)