God and evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Wednesday, March 22, 2017, 14:14 (2801 days ago) @ dhw

David: Either God is limited or He chose the possible delay in time. It is a simple either or, not something that lacks sense.[/i]

dhw: Once more: you agreed that it did not make sense for an all-powerful God to have a specific purpose (to produce humans) and then spend 3.X billion years producing other things. But you did come up with a clear explanation. Instead of questioning the purpose you had imposed on your God, you questioned his powers, and came up with the idea that he was LIMITED (your word) and therefore HAD TO (your words) wait until he was able to produce humans. A simple either or?

Of course a simple either or. God shows no evidence of instantaneous creation of anything. Big Bang is followed by development of the current universe, a life-giving Earth is developed and humans are finally evolved. He took his time by choice or by limitation. No one can tell which is correct.

DAVID: #2 Why bother with a fine-tuned universe if humans are not expected in the planning?

dhw: The fine tuning would apply to all species. The unfolding diversity of life could have been an end in itself, with humans as an afterthought.

Humans are too superior to all other animals to be an afterthought, but you have your approach and I have mine.

DAVID: Pantheists see God as existing but abstract, equating all of reality with divinity. They also reject a specific personal God or a god that is somehow endowed with human attributes." (my bold)

That is the nub of our difference: God does not have human attributes.

dhw: That is not the nub of our difference at all.

Then why do you constantly apply human wishes and desires to Him?

dhw: The nub of our difference is your insistence that your God’s purpose from the start was to produce humans, and he dabbled or preprogrammed all innovations, lifestyles and natural wonders accordingly. It is precisely because you insist on this personal, anthropocentric purpose that we engage in speculation on the purpose of that purpose.

I understand that you think humans are not much of a purpose, when I see them arriving against all odds and not driven to appear by the challenges of nature as shown by the fact that the apes stayed the same during the entire course of time it took us to appear.

dhw: (You have suggested your God wants a relationship, watches us try to solve the problems he can’t solve, and created life because he was lonely.) Nature – the pantheist God - simply is and does what it is and does. No specific plan for a specific purpose, and pantheism categorically rejects your anthropocentrism, so I don’t know why you’ve brought it up, except as a diversion from the subject of God and evolution.

I brought it up purposely for the statement in bold: God does not have human attributes!