New Miscellany 1: evolution, atheism, future (General)

by David Turell , Monday, May 26, 2025, 20:07 (7 days ago) @ dhw

Evolution and “culling”

DAVID: God is faith not rationality! You only want proofs that do not exist.

dhw: As usual, you fall back on the question of God’s existence, which is not the issue here. You have irrational faith in the theory that your God is an inefficient designer, whose sole purpose was humans etc., as bolded above. When will you stop dodging?

How can I dodge when I am following Adler's teachings who used our appearance through evolution as his proof of God. Your whole distortion of evolution is a dodge.

Animal minds: Insect tool use

DAVID: All I can say is God designs the complexities of biochemical life.

dhw: I wish that was all you did say, but it isn’t. You insist on imposing a single goal and an illogical method on him, and you insist that innovations, lifestyles, strategies etc. were either set out in a book of instructions 3.8 billion years ago, or have been the results of his direct dabbling, and could not possibly be the result of his giving biochemical life the intelligence to design its own modes of survival.

DAVID: All I see in biochemical life is a very careful design of the reactions, all of which in total produce life. In all cases there is minor adaptability, or major in existing extremophiles, but we do not see new speciation.

dhw: Of course we see speciation! But we can’t explain it! One explanation is that the cells are intelligent. But you insist that your God must have designed every species, and…here we go again… he must have done so solely in order to design humans plus food, although 99.9% of them were irrelevant to humans plus food and had to be culled. When will you stop dodging?

Same distortion. Evolution culls!!!

Atheism

DAVID: I prefer my version of God over yours neither of which is "TRUE". You want exactitude and never dare dip your toe in faith. The chasm is too big for you.

dhw: Nobody knows the truth. As an agnostic, I recognize that we cannot have exactitude, but we can at least offer theories. You have faith in your own theory, that your God is a messy, inefficient designer. I point out that there are other theistic theories which fit in logically with the history of life but do not ridicule your God. Your only argument seems to be that I ought to have faith in your theory.

You don't have to accept my God. I just don't like any you have invented.

End of evolution?

DAVID: From what we see now, that is the future presuming the Earth survives all possible damages.

dhw: You think that in a million years’ time, everything on Planet Earth will be the same - providing nothing changes! Not much of an argument, is it? And you asked: “What ‘new conditions’ do you imagine? I see none.” And because you see none, you can state with certainty that evolution is over, although it may not be over if conditions change!

We've only been here 315,000 years with enormous civilized developments. What we develop is what will change in the future. The conditions of the Earth seem stabilized. Do you think there will be super humans?