Miscellany (General)

by David Turell @, Tuesday, December 22, 2020, 15:21 (1192 days ago) @ dhw

Fine tuning

DAVID: My view of God is He creates history, therefore He evolved us from initial bacteria. Logical.

dhw: Yes, that is logical. For the thousandth time, what is not logical is your belief that your God individually designed every life form, econiche, strategy and natural wonder extant and extinct as “part of the goal of evolving humans”, even though 99% of them had no connection with humans. You have admitted that you have no idea why he would have used such a method, you reject all alternative methods, and we agreed to leave it at that. So please stop all this backpedalling.

It is my firm belief God designed all stages of evolution, because the complexity of the organisms and the complexity of the changes requires it. If this issue is illogical why does it keep you agnostic?


Egnor’s latest

dhw: I asked if YOU thought ants had souls.

DAVID: I follow Jewish thought. If they accept ants, I do.

dhw: A most unusual approach: You believe what you’re told, although you don’t know what you’ve been told. Anyway, I always thought you preferred to think for yourself rather than accept the teachings of the established religions.

DAVID: I accepted animal souls long ago. One of the few points.

dhw: Why do you have to study Jewish doctrines before you decide what you believe about ant souls?

Over six thousand years of theology offers some points to consider.


Strange quark stars may exist

DAVID: Survival of the fittest is just an observation, proving nothing.

dhw: “Survival of the fittest” is the result of the process (natural selection), and that is not the point of the argument, which is that trying to improve chances of survival in ever changing conditions is the CAUSE that drives evolutionary change. Thank you again for agreeing that this theory is reasonable.

DAVID: The only drive is a resulting adaptation within species. No proof it drives evolution.

dhw: For the umpteenth time, it is a theory. Nobody has proof. But since we know for a fact that organisms change themselves in order to improve their chances of survival in new conditions, the logic of the theory cannot be faulted.

Flat Earth is also a logical theory, but proves nothing, as is the issue of everything revolves around the Earth. What appears logical doesn't have to be.


Our galaxy has ancient clusters:
DAVID I can't answer your weird inference as to why the universe is so big. God has His reasons. […]

dhw: Not an inference but a question, and why “weird” since you believe your God’s sole purpose in designing the whole universe was to create us humans? You can’t answer […]

DAVID: No need to know an answer. God creates and evolves as He sees necessary to reach His goal, us. We eventually discover the answer to most questions.

dhw: There is no “need” to know the answer to any of the fundamental questions we discuss on this forum. But if someone proposes a theory, we discuss it. Your non-answer reminds me of Dawkins, who adopts the same attitude: “If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural.” Elsewhere, he says atheists not have faith! Only the much maligned agnostic (Darwin was one of us) seems able to view both sides of the argument!

Some of your questions are obviously seeking answers in areas where we are not advanced enough to have answers, providing an implication God doesn't exist or he doesn't know what He is doing. The appendix is one of the best examples I know of this spurious approach. You see appendices in every direction.


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