Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Monday, May 06, 2019, 11:37 (1811 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I'm sure God knows/knew about all of our attributes which the magnificent brain He gave us allows. I will still insist, God does not think as we do.

dhw: If he exists, of course he is different from us, but if these attributes form part of his thought – as they obviously would since he would be the first cause of everything – then it is clearly absurd to dismiss them as possible factors that may guide his purpose.

DAVID: All we can do is guess at God's thoughts. Our individual concept of who God is, His attributes, etc., will color our perception of Him and His thoughts.

dhw: No disagreement there. And I really can’t imagine you believing in him and yet not having a personal, humanized perception of him. But since you keep insisting on his purposefulness, you can hardly complain if I try to analyse what his purposes might be, and how they fit in with the historical facts of life’s history.

DAVID: It may surprise you, but I sincerely try not to have a human view of God. In my books I pointedly stress not using the Bible and its descriptions of God just for that reason.

Yes, this was an admirable trait of your books. It is your dogmatic and illogical combination of purpose and method (specially designing millions of life forms etc. in order to specially design just one) that creates the problems here, but fortunately - if I remember rightly – you did not promote this particular combination in either of your books.

DAVID: I've agreed with Adler, it is definitely not clear if God answers prayer or reacts with us in any personal way. My belief in God offers strength for me to live life properly. And I'll stick with the Adler argument, humans are so unusual as a result of evolution, they most reflect God's prime purpose.

No problem. I simply find it inconsistent that you go on and on about God’s purposefulness, and then refuse to consider different concepts of purpose to fit in with the history of life as we know it. Why is it so important for you to tell us that his purpose for producing life was to produce humans if you don’t care about his purpose for producing humans?