The Mind of God (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 09, 2015, 18:09 (3574 days ago) @ dhw


> dhw:Overdoing anything is usually a mistake, but if it is right for you to speculate about God's purposes, it is right for others to challenge those speculations. It is you who refuse to wait until “evolution's mechanisms are more clearly delineated”, and who insist that God's purpose for evolution was to create humans, and that God preprogrammed the first cells with every innovation and lifestyle for the next 3.7 billion years, or gave demonstrations to the weaverbirds on how to build their nests.-I've answered this objection of yours in the balance of nature post today.-> dhw: As for the complex genome controls, there is no reason to suppose that these are not also part of an autonomous mechanism. After all, you remain convinced that the astonishing complexities of the human brain (thank you for the latest post on the subject) serve to make us autonomous and not automatic.-Once again, those genomic and brain complexities cannot have been developed by chance. IMHO we are autonomous.
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> dhw:In our efforts to find coherent reasons for the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution, we have each created patterns. You say God planned things to fulfil a particular purpose (humans). It seems to me just as reasonable to speculate that the operator actually aimed for higgledy-piggledy, or didn't know what he was doing, or was experimenting, as it is to speculate that his goal was humans.-I understand your speculation. I look for a reasonable explanation as to why humans are here. I still maintain we are different in kind, not degree. As for 'didn't know what he was doing', hard to accept that in view of what did appear from the point of the Big Bang. 
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> DAVID: I really do not know why God did what He did. I don't know how bonded He is to us, if bonded at all. We are here. There must be a cause, and perhaps a reason. There may be no reason and no emotion involved.[/i] 
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> dhw: Thank you for an excellent summary of our situation - but the discussions between you and me have not been about whether God is bored, playful, callous, but about whether evolution fits the pattern you have imposed on it.-All I have really imposed is purpose. Humans are here. We really don't know the 'why' or the 'how', except both of us see evolution as the underlying process. You are unwilling to accept purpose. That is your right, but it hard to avoid the appearance of purpose.-> dhw: Possible motives for a free-for-all have been incidental. On different threads and at other times there have certainly been discussions - especially with Tony - centring on the problems of evil and suffering, and the image of God that emerges from life as we see it, as well as from the bible. And why not? If we can study life in order to ascertain whether God exists, we can also study life in order to gauge the nature of the being that might have created it and us. The curiosity that motivates the one quest also motivates the other, even if we might never know the answers.-Agreed.