causation (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, June 14, 2014, 11:54 (3596 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw:...All of these contradictions disappear if you remove the philosophical shackles of evolutionary anthropocentrism, or alternatively the decisive know-it-all-from-the-beginning infallibility of your God. And neither of these solutions requires you to be an agnostic or an atheist!-DAVID: Thanks for the advice but it doesn't answer the issue of humans appearing against all odds.-Dhw: Removing the second set of shackles does. But instead of making your God decisively infallible, as you want him to be, it allows him to learn by experimentation and experience.-DAVID: The problem is we do not know God personally. I don't presume to know if he is infallible or had to experiment.-This, dear David, is music to my ears. Less than a fortnight ago you were dismissing the idea of experimentation as defining "an indecisive God so it is a nonstarter", while God not thinking of humans till later on in evolution "is less indecisive, but no less a wrong approach, since it makes God dither." Well, you are young (at heart) and impulsive, but when pressed are open-minded and courageous enough to switch from 100% to 50%. You would make a good agnostic.