Goldylocks zone planet: very few must exist (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 14, 2017, 08:52 (2811 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I don't know, but if He set up an evolutionary system, He didn't ever have to experiment. Not authoritative if it follows the first premise.
dhw: I notice you have omitted to say that the purpose of all his plans and dabbles was to produce humans. I don’t know how “having to dabble” fits in with pre-planning but not with experimentation.
DAVID: You know my thoughts about His purpose of humans. Why waste space? Dabbling only exists, in my mind, because I do not know how all-powerful he is. And you know that also.

It is your thoughts about his purpose that create all the anomalies in your arguments, as below.

DAVID: Your questions have helped my take my thoughts beyond the observation that God uses evolutionary methods, which is obvious from the history we see. If He is all-powerful then He shouldn't have to use evolutionary processes. So perhaps it is a choice, not a necessity.

So either a) he has the power and knowledge to design every single life form, lifestyle and natural wonder, but has to wait 3.X billion years until he is able to dabble the one thing he really wants: the pre-human brain (but you discount him experimenting – he just knows he can’t do it until he can do it); or b) he chooses to design every single life form, lifestyle and natural wonder because he wants to, and not because he can’t yet dabble the human brain. Exit the “balance of nature” argument (to keep life going until he somehow acquires the ability he needs), and enter confusion: if he CAN do it, why DOESN’T he do it? (Possible answer: because he wants the ever changing spectacle, and maybe humans are just an afterthought. Can you think of another answer?)

DAVID: Either way it follows that He waited until our solar system appeared and arranged for life to appear.

Which makes him just as reliant on chance as our atheist friends. You realized that, of course, and came up with your afterthought, in which – also in company with our atheist friends – you have lots of other living worlds. I’m not against the hypothesis. It simply illustrates the general confusion.

dhw: NB If most theists disagree with your hypothesis, you can hardly use my agnosticism as an argument against my own.
DAVID: Most theists follow the Bible. I am a theist like no other theist. And you are a pure agnostic like few others.

You are indeed out on your own with your brand of theism, which makes it all the more absurd that you should denigrate my hypotheses on the grounds that I am an agnostic. But oddball theist and pure agnostic, we are united in our quest for enlightenment, and long may we continue to jostle along with each other!