Miscellany (General)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 07, 2021, 14:13 (1172 days ago) @ dhw

Spiders lasso

DAVID: I agree. I view the strong webs as God's gift to spiders.

dhw: Hardly an agreement, but if you believe your God preprogrammed spiders and their strong webs 3.8 billion years ago, or alternatively popped in to operate on pre-spiders, so be it.

DAVID: I know. I find it illogical you can still consider chance causation or drag in panpsychism as a form of mind (God lite).

dhw: Hold on, hold on! I do not consider spiders to be the first cause! I would regard them and their webs as the products of evolution, as cell communities (possibly designed by your God) find their own ways of surviving. My scepticism concerns your fixed belief that although your God’s sole purpose was to design H. sapiens, he directly preprogrammed or dabbled every other life form etc., 99% of which had no connection with humans. And to be honest, even if the spider is essential to our human food supply and environment, I would still find it hard to believe your God programmed it 3.8 billion years ago, or popped in to operate on the cells of a bunch of pre-spiders.

Evolution is still a steady process from simple to complex, and the more complex reek of design, which you actively recognize and keeps you solidly agnostic. You are still all questioning with no answers. I'm happy with my answers and positions.

Fin to limb genes

DAVID: Our views are not that different. Yours: God might have; mine: God did it.

dhw: Your “God did it” means that he preprogrammed everything 3.8 billion years ago, or popped in to change fins to limbs and limbs to fins before the respective animals changed their environments. My “God might have” refers to the design of cells with the intelligence to “do it” themselves. I’d say there’s quite a difference.

DAVID: Your God 'cell intelligence' is really God one step removed.

dhw: More than one step. If God exists, I would remove the millions and millions of steps you make him take, either through individual programmes for every life form, econiche etc., or through individual operations carried out or courses given to millions of living creatures as he changes them from one species to another, or instructs them on how to perform their wonders.

Easier to take first hand control then drawing up second hand instructions.