Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Sunday, May 12, 2019, 09:05 (1804 days ago) @ David Turell

I am combining this post with the one on “bacterial intelligence”, as they now cover the same ground.

DAVID: I've simply chosen to accept God's choice of method to create what He desires to create.

dhw: If God exists, and since we both accept that evolution happened, we both accept that he used evolution to create what he wanted to create. Our disagreement is over how he used evolution and what he wanted to create.

DAVID: We both see the same history of evolution. You are the one fighting with God's choice. It cannot be explained, just accepted.

Yet again, I am not fighting your God’s choice but your interpretation of his choice.

DAVID: If you accept the possibility that God ran the progressive complexity of advancing evolution, and humans are the current last event, than obviously they must be accepted as a goal. You are arguing that other goals might be coming.

That is absolutely not what I am arguing! My argument is that if H. sapiens was the only goal (you keep switching to “a” goal, but refuse to acknowledge any other goal), it makes no sense to claim that your always-in-control God specially designed millions of other life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders, and did so in order that the life forms could eat or not eat one another before he specially designed the only thing he wanted to design. Please stop trying to divert attention away from a scenario concerning which you admit that you “have no idea” why he would have chosen such a method.

dhw: As usual, you have avoided the point of the [free will] analogy, which is your claim that your God does not wish to relinquish control. If he is prepared to let humans go their own way, why should he not be prepared to let evolution go its own way, perhaps in order to see where his experiment will lead, though always allowing for a dabble?

DAVID: Your analogy is very weak. It implies that now that humans have free will, we will run our own further evolution. Not at all likely.

I don’t know why you are unable to see that the analogy concerns God’s willingness to relinquish control. If he allows humans to take their own decisions, he is not controlling each individual destiny. You have even said you think he watches us with interest. So maybe he also created a system through which organisms did their own designing, and again he could watch the results with interest. The analogy concerns his willingness to relinquish control.

dhw: Perhaps now you will respond to the point that relinquishing control could be part of a purpose, and that producing humans is hardly a purpose in itself without there being a purpose for producing humans!

DAVID: We have discussed many times the many possible purposes God might have had to produce humans. They are all logical assumptions, but must remain just that since God is not talking to us. We continue to differ in our individual views of God's personality, in which I see Him as highly purposeful and very assured in how to reach His goals. That is not your view.

If he exists, I would also see him as highly purposeful and very assured in how to reach his goals. And I have offered you logical alternatives concerning his purposes and his methods. The only option you have offered for these is so illogical that even you have admitted time and again that you have no idea why he would have chosen it. So maybe he didn’t.