More about how evolution works: multicellularity (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, November 04, 2016, 18:03 (2722 days ago) @ dhw

I respect this as a good reason for believing in him: the works are too complex to attribute to chance. This is one reason why I am able to wear a theistic hat.

DAVID: As for your hypothesis which is obviously anthropomorphic, I see purpose, not a spectacle for enjoyment.

dhw: This is a total non sequitur. The purpose you see is your hidden God designing every form of life and natural wonder in order to produce humans so that they and he can have what you call direct relations. (You refuse to answer how one can have direct relations with a hidden being.) Enjoyment IS a purpose, and it would explain why your God remains hidden and why he might invent a mechanism that provides the unpredictability so essential to a good story.

We don't know God's nature. You've admitted that. Enjoyment is a human emotion. I don't even know if God loves us. I've said that. He may be emotionless. As for relating to him, what about prayer? It is you who humanizes him! See you comment below:

dhw: And you still haven’t explained why my hypothesis is more of a supposition than yours, and what aspects of it do not fit in with life as we know it. ”Anthropomorphic” is a non argument. Nobody knows God's true nature, if he exists, but many of the religious books you have read will tell you that “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 6). That's as good a speculation as any, and your idea of having relations with God presupposes common ground, doesn’t it?

Again, common ground with God does not exist! That was explained to Abraham. I am in His image, as you know I believe, through consciousness only. Your hypothesis does not accept God, humanizes Him, and thinks survival and improvement are necessary drives for bacteria, which have needed no for help to go into every weird environment. And it is obvious that 'natural chance' evolution never needed human to appear.

dhw:But you have missed the whole point. He can sacrifice control if he wants to (and will fully know what he is doing). My hypothesis is that he did precisely that, because the unpredictable is more enjoyable than the predictable. You believe he gave humans free will. That is the same process of sacrificing control. I presume you think he did so because he wanted to test their faith in him. How anthropomorphic is that!

Again, giving God emotions and humanizing Him. Of course He can loosen controls. He did give us free will, but I view it as a challenge, not a test of faith. Again you have proposed He 'wants'. He's never told us. You are continuously humanizing Him.

dhw: I don’t have a problem with faith in tight control. I only have a problem with your refusal to consider the implications. Firstly, if he is in tight control, don’t tell me extinctions were the result of bad luck. ...Secondly, if he is in tight control, don’t tell me that the organisms which he designed and which died through being “inadequate for the stress” (your words) were not designed in such a way that they were inadequate for the stress! If he is in tight control, and organized their extermination, he must have known that their design would not stand up to the new conditions. This is not a matter of faith or of not having a positive answer. It’s simple logic. As for positive answers: Chixculub was Raup's "bad luck" for the dinosaurs and good luck for the survivors; or God got fed up with dinosaurs and decided to try something different. They both fit in with what happened, don't they?

Your interpretation is not incorrect. My point is organisms are adapted for current stresses if they are surviving at the time. Of course, God can change the stresses. And once again God 'got fed up'! Note how you give Him human thoughts! I don't even try