David's theory of evolution: God's error corrections II (Evolution)

by dhw, Sunday, October 11, 2020, 13:20 (1286 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Your total objection is to my assertion God designs all of evolution stage by stage.

dhw: That is NOT my total objection! You continue to play the game of picking on ONE premise instead of the total combination of premises. All of evolution means every single life form, econiche, natural wonder etc. that ever existed. Yes, it is possible that he designed every single one. But here is the objection:you tell us that he only wanted to design ONE life form (H. sapiens), and that every single life form he designed before humans was “part of the goal of evolving humans”, and yet the vast bush of extinct life “plays no role in current time”. And he apparently designed all the others in order to provide food for humans who were not yet there! These are the non sequiturs that make up the total objection.

DAVID: The red bold is your made-up distortion. Humans are His desired goal of ultimate animal/plant evolution. God knew how to get there by evolving from bacteria to us. Stated multiple times.

If humans are his desired goal, then humans are the only life form he wanted to design (apart from those needed to feed us)! The question is why he got there by evolving (= directly designing in your theory) millions and millions of non-human and now extinct life forms in order to get to the only life form he wanted to design! Now look at all your other answers:

dhw: It is NOT your belief in God that I am questioning, but your interpretation of God’s intentions and method of fulfilment.

DAVID: Which is humans as the ultimate goal by evolving them from bacteria.

If humans are the ultimate goal, then humans are the life form he wanted to design. So why did he design 3.x billion years’ worth of now extinct life forms which had nothing to do with humans?

DAVID: The prime discussion is your rejection of my view of God as the creator.

dhw: It is not our prime difference and you know it! Every single alternative explanation I have offered you allows for God as the designer! You reject them all because they “humanize” God, not because they don't accept God as the designer.

DAVID: But design stops you from becoming an atheist. It is your struggle, not mine. We go round and round and will continue to do so. We are oceans apart.

dhw: Yes, I accept the logic of design, as opposed to chance, and you are quite right – the existence of God is my struggle, not yours. But this discussion has nothing to do with the existence of God, and we will go round and round until you stop dodging the issue bolded in my first response above.

DAVID: Nothing dodges. Open your mind to my position that humans are the end-point goal. Humans are God's goal in His creation by evolving from bacteria. Of course in doing this He anticipated designing every stage of plants and animals.

I neither reject nor accept your position that humans are the end-point goal. But if humans are the end-point “goal in His creation” why is it a distortion to say that he only wanted to design one life form (apart from those we eat)? My objection is to the combination of that premise with the other premises I keep listing. Now consider the logic of your last statement. His goal in creation was to design H. sapiens, and so he knew in advance that he would design every stage of every plant and animal that has ever existed, 99% of which have now disappeared. What is the logical connection between every extinct plant and animal that ever existed and the direct design of humans? (Please don’t forget that according to you every stage of humans was also specially designed, with operations on legs and brains and skulls and pelvises)…And please don’t tell us that every plant and every animal through the whole history of life was necessary to provide food for humans, although the vast bush of extinct life “plays no role in current time”.

I think the only way we can put a stop to this discussion is if you go back to your earlier acknowledgement that you have no idea why your God would have chosen such a method to achieve his one and only goal, but that is your belief and you are going to stick to it. Then we need only refer to it if you continue to tell us that, for instance, God directly designed this or that natural wonder as “part of the goal of evolving humans”.