Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Monday, April 29, 2019, 13:15 (1816 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: It is perfectly logical to assume God chose to evolve humans as His means of creation. It requires no further speculation.

dhw: For anyone who believes in God and evolution, of course it is logical to assume that he chose evolution as his means of creation! And he used it to create not just humans but also billions of non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders, and that is the problem for your anthropocentric interpretation of life’s history, which you cannot solve and therefore try to gloss over.

DAVID: If God chose to evolve humans from the start of life (and you agree He had that right of choice), He had to do it through all the levels of complexity until He arrived at humans. Taht is what evolution implies and, in fact, requires. To me you are totally confused in your objection.

If he “had” to arrive at humans by specially designing all levels of complexity step by step (in contrast to the biblical version of direct creation), his powers must have been limited, and “all levels of complexity” do not explain why he also specially designed the billions of non-human life forms and styles and natural wonders extant and extinct. Once more: you have no idea why he chose this method of designing the only thing he wanted to design, and yet you insist that it is logical. In your next comment, once again you skate over the massive problem set by your COMBINED hypotheses by focusing on only one:

DAVID: I've ignored it because it makes no sense. Adler's long book was exactly to establish our specialness as fully demonstrating our role as God's endpoint. It comes across as an extremely important philosophic concept. You might get a copy and read it.

I have no objection to the argument that we are special, and I accept the possibility that humans are your God’s endpoint. What I do not accept is the argument that your God specially designed the whale’s flippers, the cuttlefish’s camouflage, the monarch’s lifestyle and the weaverbird’s nest, and did so for the sole purpose of providing food until he could specially design us. Does Adler also offer this interpretation of your God’s method of producing humans? If he doesn’t, then my disagreement is not with Adler but with you.

DAVID: […] The God I envision is very firm in his resolve. Yours is squishy. And later: Your view of a mamby-pamby God is not mine.

dhw: The idea that your God may have created something for his own enjoyment does not deprive him of his firm resolve or of his power. Why on earth you should consider that your own proposed analogy of a painter enjoying his art makes the artist squishy and namby-pamby I don’t know.

DAVID: Why should I bother repeating that evolution is obviously developing from single cells to the human brain with all those forms necessarily in between? How else would God do it? Your objections are totally illogical.

This is not an answer to the point I have raised - why is enjoyment squishy and namby-pamby and without resolve? But in any case you yourself have no idea why the whale’s flippers multiplied by millions of other examples were “necessary” in order to get the human brain to evolve from single cells.

DAVID: We have discussed a plethora of possible logical reasons for God to create humans. The only thing we can safely say with assurance is that He wanted to do it.

dhw: The only reasons you have come up with are that God wanted us to admire his works, and also wanted to have a relationship with us. Please give us your other proposals, and explain to us why these are not “squishy” or “namby-pamby”.

DAVID: I view God very differently than you, as you try to imagine Him. I see Him as totally purposeful while you constantly fill him with human thought patterns.

There is no contradiction between “totally purposeful” and purposes that we humans can understand! Are you now saying it’s not possible that your God enjoys his creations, wants our admiration and wants a relationship with us?