RE: Is biological evolution a ball rolling up a hill all by itself?
Surely, evolution is more than "just movement." Evolution is growth and progress, as evident in the change from amoeba to man.
Compared to amoeba, reptiles or even certain mammals, mankind is an intellectual wonder. And as this "movement / evolution" continues, mankind will transcend our current status to .... who knows what.
As for the assertion that nothing can evolve to "God," that raises a very relevant point. For all its advances and development and evolution, mankind remains a very limited being.
Therefore, the mystics may be right when they state that we are evolving towards the divine. Maybe we will transcend our current biological, temporal, and spatial limits.
That will most likely take a very long time, and it might take forever. On the other hand, it might just take a movement out of time.
Yes that is the crux. Implicit in the notion of evolution is that things are getting better. They are not. You cannot evolve to your cause. Evolution is just going uphill. Step back and look at the rise and fall of species, of empires, of you and me. Everything rises and falls.
As JC is supposed to have said "dust to dust" or as it says in the Tao Te Ching, "the Self watches as the Ten Thousand Things rise and fall". Or another of JC's "Before Abraham was I am"
Not denying the state of Enlightenment, God, i.e. realising the cause. Simply that the notion of a limit becoming limitless is impossible.