Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, February 03, 2017, 16:12 (2850 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: So the human population matters to him, but later you say “We really don't know if He cares about individuals.” What is the human race if it’s not a collection of individuals? Frankly, if he doesn’t care about individuals, he may as well be a spectator or not there at all, but please tell us exactly what you think “matters” to him about humans.
DAVID: I don't know what 'matters' to Him. That is the whole point of my approach. I can only interpret Him from what history shows us, without Bible interpretation. All I know is humans are here. I think God guided evolution. Therefore He wanted to achieve the appearance of a human population. The rest, His 'feelings' ( a humanizing attempt) are beyond me. I see his purpose, nothing more. I follow Adler who also did not know if He cared about individual prayer! You are muddled by religious thought.

You know that humans matter to him, but you do not know if individual humans matter to him and you are not prepared to discuss what exactly does matter to him. This has nothing to do with prayer and religious thought. It is a blanket refusal to consider the implications of your own personal view of your God, as outlined below.

dhw: How can you discuss God’s intentions without humanizing him? Your God is a tough love parent, who expects us to solve problems like you taught your kids to budget – but this is not “humanizing” him? As for a God who you regard as being in total control but who “had to allow” tradeoffs, what forced him? Do you think he was incapable of inventing life and evolution without inflicting disease and untold suffering? Tough love parenting isn’t much help to a dead child. You view God as a “serious operative”. Why shouldn’t he be “serious” about relieving his boredom?
DAVID: You are listing my guesses about God. These are just guesses.

Of course they are just guesses. You asked me why he would sacrifice control by giving organisms the means to direct their own evolution, and I gave you a guess. You volunteered your own belief “in a tough-love God who expects us to solve problems.” You believe in your humanized guess, so why is it unacceptable for you if I make a different humanized guess? Back to your double standards.

DAVID: God is a personality like no other personality, and cannot be compared in any way to human thought or action. Again I am paraphrasing Adler. You need to read his book to understand my approach. Adler was a world famous philosopher, far more knowledgeable than I am, so without training in his area of expertise, I follow him.

See below for more of these authoritative statements about your God. I don’t know why I should have to read Adler to answer questions about your beliefs. You are a big boy now, David. Stand up for yourself, or reconsider your Adler-based beliefs if you can’t defend them.

Dhw: And may I ask what communication you have with your God? You keep telling us he is hidden, and you don’t know if he has thoughts and feelings like ours. Do you nevertheless talk to him and get a response?
DAVID: I pray in my own strange way. I feel my life is guided for a purpose my whole life. Opportunities and directional guidance appeared all through my life. You appeared in my life, and look what has happened! I understand this idea in retrospect. It is unquestionable to me.

So perhaps in your own strange way, you believe that God does care about you as an individual, but in your unquestioning devotion to Adler you daren’t say so. In my quest for purpose (which you constantly accuse me of avoiding), I have asked what purpose you think your God has in seeking a relationship with us. You asked why else he would give us our consciousness, and I gave you an answer which you don’t like. If it is fair for you to ask me to guess his purpose, why should I not ask you to do the same?

dhw: In answer to your own question, what could provide greater variety of entertainment than an organism so advanced in its consciousness that it has almost unlimited potential powers of creation and destruction?
DAVID: God is all purposeful. Only humans need entertainment. God is NOT human in thought. Stop humanizing Him.

All purposeful does not exclude the purpose of deliberately creating a show for himself. How the heck do you know that God is NOT human in thought? You seem to think that you and Adler between you actually know your God’s mind! Maybe your God specially created humans “in his own image”, i.e. with a consciousness that enables them to “communicate” with him, and so why should you assume that we have no thoughts/feelings in common? Stop pretending you and Adler know how God thinks. Your authoritative assumptions have no more validity than my hypotheses.