Evolution took a long time (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, February 04, 2017, 13:24 (2849 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: 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: : My complaint is you keep pushing me to analyze possible desires and motives that God might have. I don't logically know of any. My comments are just guesses that have no importance. I have simply concluded, as I've said before, humans are here. From that I've concluded God wanted that result. I propose nothing more. Because I do not want to humanize Him, as Adler warns He is a personality like no other personality. You are the one who struggles with humanization and create double standards.

Nobody "logically knows" anything about the origin of life and evolution, whether God exists or not, and if he exists what he is like or what his intentions were in creating life. But because of our enhanced consciousness, we ask ourselves all these questions, and we try to find logical patterns to explain our existence. That is why you and I have been questing away together for the last nine years, examining each other’s hypotheses. You actually believe in certain hypotheses: that God exists, that he created life and evolution in order to produce humans, that humans matter to him, and that he is a tough love God, and in your own strange way you communicate with him. I have not “pushed” you into these beliefs, and you have every right to believe what you wish to believe. However, I think I also have the right to challenge certain assumptions, especially if they do not seem to me to have any justification.

Your original explanation of the course of evolutionary history (that God either programmed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder, extant and extinct, 3.8 billion years ago, or personally intervened for the purpose of producing humans) seemed to me to be riddled with illogicality. At least you have now explicitly allowed for possible autonomy, “with God correcting whenever necessary”. We shall no doubt come back to that subject again.

The current point at issue is that you and Adler claim to know that God does not think like humans. You believe his whole purpose in creating life was to create humans, but we mustn’t ask WHY he created humans. You ask why he would have given us consciousness of him if he didn’t want a relationship with us, but we mustn’t ask WHY he would want a relationship with us. Over and over again, you tell me that you see purpose in everything, but I mustn’t ask what that purpose is. You assume that the being who you believe created good and evil, love and hate, and all the other facets of our existence has no experience of them within himself. Why should you assume that these are human inventions and that the inventor of humans, who according to you has total control over what comes into existence, is not himself inherent in all facets of that existence? If there really is one supreme being who created the universe and life, then of course he is not human. But that does not mean he has nothing in common with humans. All we can do is speculate. Your beliefs as listed above are your speculations. I speculate (without belief) that if God exists, he may (note the hypothetical nature of the auxiliary) have created life in order to relieve his boredom. You say: “Both Adler and I do not accept anything human about God. Why do you?” I don't "accept" it. But I accept that it is possible. What authority do you have to reject the possibility that there is something human about him? It is just as presumptuous to proclaim that he has no traits in common with humans as it is to proclaim that he does have such traits. We can only look at our world and try to extrapolate explanations from what we see. If God exists, why – in our speculations – should we NOT view the creation as a reflection of its creator?