Miscellany (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 23, 2020, 11:12 (1213 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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?

Why do you keep playing the same silly trick as above? In itself, the premise that your God directly designed every organism is not illogical. What is illogical is the premise that he did so although his one and only purpose was to design H. sapiens plus food supply. You have no idea why he would have directly designed the 99% of organisms and food supplies that had no connection with humans, and you agreed to leave it at that.

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

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

I don’t think your belief in the human soul (dualism) is the result of your studying six thousand years of Jewish theology. All of a sudden, though, you can’t decide whether ants have souls until you are told by Jewish theologians what you should or shouldn’t believe!

Strange quark stars may exist
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: 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.

You have agreed that the quest for improved chances of survival in changing conditions provides a reasonable explanation for changes which might lead to speciation. I have agreed that the existence of a designer is a reasonable explanation for the complexities of life. Neither theory proves anything, so should we stop proposing theories until they have been proved? The whole point of all our discussions is to test how feasible the different theories are. You and I will never know which ones are true, unless the theory of an afterlife proves to be true, and then we might learn more.

Our galaxy has ancient clusters:
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!

DAVID: 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.

Of course we don’t have answers – that is why we have theism, atheism and agnosticism! You are the one with fixed beliefs, none of which are proven, and I’m sorry, but telling me that the appendix is useful does not help me to understand why I should accept your fixed belief that there is a God whose sole purpose was to design H. sapiens, and who in order to fulfil that purpose designed billions of galaxies and millions of life forms and natural wonders, 99% of which appear to have had no connection whatsoever with humans.

Thank you for the other articles you have posted. I have nothing to add.