Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Thursday, January 07, 2021, 14:30 (1204 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your contorted complaint is simply a recitation of what evolution does, and it is my belief God does it, by designing all stages.

dhw: You have no idea why, if his sole purpose was to design H. sapiens, he first directly designed millions of life forms and econiches that had no connection with humans.

I don't need to know why. You do, and can't explain it either. It is just God's choice.

dhw: But still you refuse to leave it at that, and you continue to ignore the COMBINATION of your beliefs that makes no sense even to you. If you stick to the above agreement, we can end this discussion.

It makes perfect sense to me. As long as you keep misinterpreting and telling me how I should think I'll keep responding. God chose his methods for His reasons. Sim ple, logical.

Cambrian Explosion

DAVID: And the human breakaway from apes is estimated by science as over six million years. Are you purposely sticking to four million out of some sort of defiance against me?

dhw: The more websites we consult, the hazier it all gets. I’m not defying you, and I’m quite happy to accept six million years. It makes no difference to my argument. This is the website I consulted:

Human Evolution: A Timeline of Early Hominids [Infographic ...

earthhow.com/human-evolution-timeline/

(My apologies: owing to my technical incompetence, I can't get a direct link. I'm sure you'll know what to do!)

QUOTE: "For about 4 million years, human evolution has been a long, long process. From the early hominids to modern humans, we are in the process of evolving at this very moment.
About 3.9 – 2.55 million years ago, Australopithecus Afarensis was the earliest form of hominids.
Archaeologists dug up fossils in the Afar Triangle of Africa, hence the name “Afarensis”."

The difference in time is the pre-hominins that existed after the breakaway. I won't bother to list the species for this discussion.

Cosmology

QUOTE: "But the meaning of eROSITA’s mushroom clouds is clear: Something went bang in the center of the Milky Way around 15 million to 20 million years ago, around the same time hyenas and weasels were emerging on Earth.”

DAVID: It all gets complexer and complexer and God has not explained why all the weirdness. But is always tums out the weird is necessary, and makes us agree God knows what He is doing and how everything we see must be necessarily designed for creation.

dhw: I really don’t know why a bang in the centre of the Milky Way 15-20 million years ago “makes us agree that God knows what he is doing”, or what it has to do with creation, since life goes back thousands of millions of years.

The issue is the Milky Way evolution starting from 1.8 billion years post Big bang, a,l in preparation for us starting only six mya

Genome complexity

QUOTE: "Starting as a single cell, organisms undergo millions of generations of divisions to ultimately generate the bones, heart, brain and other components that make up a living being. The mainspring within this intricate process is the transfer of DNA through each subsequent cell split within discrete packets called chromosomes."

DAVID: This is another example where all parts must be designed to appear at the same time for life to continue, not step by step. Chance developments cannot do this.

dhw: The quote highlights the continuity of evolution through the activities of cells, and I agree with you: belief in chance requires blind faith, and the complexities of the cell are the strongest evidence for design. However, I need not repeat the problems I have regarding an eternally conscious, sourceless designer.

Would you be happier with a flesh and blood designer, the kind we can easily recognize?