Watching asteroids; possible damage (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, March 06, 2017, 13:18 (2820 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: You have based your whole interpretation of evolution on the rigid premise that God planned humans from the start. And so I am asking why this basic premise, which leads to so many self-confessed "wanderings all over the place" … is so important to you.
DAVID: Because I reached this conclusion which feels so right to me after reading endless books that humans are the desired endpoint. We differ in that I have developed faith in that I am right and the idea of a supreme power does not offend my sense of logic.

The idea of a supreme power does not offend my logic either, and that is not what we are talking about. For the sake of argument, I am accepting the existence of your God. I will also accept that humans are special, in view of their enhanced consciousness. Once more: what I am disputing is your claim that he planned humans right from the start and geared the whole of evolution to producing them. I have offered alternatives to your preprogramming and dabbling scenario: 1) He wanted to produce a being with consciousness like his own, but didn’t know how to do it, and so kept experimenting (which fits in perfectly with your new belief that your God may be limited in his powers. 2) He wanted to produce an ever-changing spectacle, and humans came into his mind as an afterthought. Both these scenarios explain the higgledy-piggledy nature of life’s history. Why, then, is it so important to you that your God should have planned humans right from the start, when this hypothesis leads to so much confusion, as below?

DAVID: ...why dangerous asteroids? He must have had to include them as He evolved the universe. Therefore limited to some degree.

“Must have” means he is limited. Then you go on to say: “I don't know that God's limitations, if any, required that He use an evolutionary process.” Why “if any” if he must have had to use asteroids? If he is forced by his own laws of nature to use asteroids, what else might he have been forced to do? You answer this question yourself in the following exchange:

Dhw: …his ability to dabble makes even you wonder why he couldn't have produced us more directly. It just doesn't make sense.
DAVID: Guess what? It doesn't make sense to me either, but He did not directly create humans. (Followed later by the explanation:) He may simply could not do it any other way and is not as all powerful as the Bible proposes.

Limitations are your explanation for why he couldn’t produce us more directly and therefore had to design every other life form etc. If you use limitations as your explanation for his having to create everything else, but then you argue that he may not be limited, you are once more confronted with the non-sense of your scenario! That is why I keep asking why it is so important to you to believe humans were planned from the very beginning.