Watching asteroids; possible damage (Introduction)

by dhw, Saturday, March 04, 2017, 13:22 (2604 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID (on Friday 3 March): Your supposed limitations again. We don't know if He has any limits at all. He could be all-powerful per the Bible. (dhw’s bold)
dhw: They are not MY supposed limitations! Your God’s limited powers were YOUR explanation for why he couldn’t dabble humans earlier and had to design everything else in order to keep life going!
DAVID: What I have clearly said is God has chosen to use evolutionary methods for the universe, for the Earth and for life. That does not indicate He has any limits. Where I have definitely suggested limits are the asteroids as they may be necessary.

Once again you make clear statements and then retract them. Here is my statement and your reply::
dhw: (Feb.: 28) But what apparently you do know is that whether or not he could/did control the environment that influenced evolution, he could and did control every life form, lifestyle and natural wonder because they were all necessary to keep life going until he could fulfil his purpose of producing humans…
DAVID: If I'm convinced that He wanted to produce humans, it all makes sense to me. That He used evolutionary processes is obvious to me. Which means apparently He had to. He began the universe which then evolved. He created life which then evolved. That is a pattern for God's methods. He chose them because He couldn't do direct creation as the Bible suggests in Genesis. (dhw’s bold)

If in order to produce humans he had to use the roundabout method you impose on him and couldn’t do direct creation, he was limited.

DAVID: I'm sorry I've confused you. My stance is expressed clearly above. Your no limitation approach might never arrived at humans.

My theistic approach does not involve God having limitations or having no limitations, and allows for him dabbling. It focuses on the actual history of evolution and tries to extrapolate God’s possible intentions.

Dhw: Your objection to this reverts to:
DAVID: And you are humanizing Him again. I don't know He needed an entertaining show.
dhw: I did not say that he needed it but that he wanted it, just as you say he wanted to create humans. It is impossible to discuss your God’s intentions without humanizing him, as you have discovered in your own attempts to explain why he wanted to produce humans. But of course we don’t “know”. We are simply trying to find an explanation that fits the history of life, and your own makes no sense to you unless you impose limitations on your God’s powers.
DAVID: There is a giant difference. We don't know why He wanted humans. That seems to be His purpose and as a person like no other person it does not make Him human. Wanting entertainment is human. And finally I have no idea whether He is limited. I make perfect sense to me, point after point.

Nobody is claiming that God is human, but that does not mean we can't have any attributes in common with him. If he exists, it is not unreasonable to ask why he might have created the universe. Your insistence that he did so in order to produce human beings leads you to contradiction after contradiction, which I will list once more if you cannot remember them all. But for now, let me ask you a personal question: since you are not prepared to ask why God wanted to create humans (your own answers having led to highly confusing hypotheses), and since you believe it possible that he doesn’t even care what happens to individual humans, why is it so important for you to establish that he planned the universe and the whole of life for the sake of humans, as opposed to their being perhaps the result of his experiments or of an afterthought?