Evolutionary theory cannot be falsified (Introduction)

by dhw, Wednesday, April 05, 2017, 12:41 (2788 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I do not understand why you cannot accept my position that I may attribute human characteristics to God in my position of faith, but intellectually admit that I cannot know those characteristics are factually real.

dhw: Of course I accept that position. As I keep repeating ad nauseam, nobody KNOWS if their beliefs are factually real, whether that relates to the existence of God, the purpose of God, or the nature of God. What I cannot accept is your insistence that (a) God had only one purpose (to create humans), and (b) everything else (e.g. the weaverbird's nest) is related to that purpose. Nor can I accept your refusal – despite your admission that the dichotomy between these two hypotheses leaves you without a “clear explanation” – to even consider any other possible purpose for his creation of life on the grounds that we mustn’t humanize your God (though you actually believe he has characteristics in common with humans) or that we cannot KNOW the truth.

DAVID: Our problem is I don't see a dichotomy starting with the position that humans are the goal of evolution as God conducts it.

I pointed out to you that if God is all-powerful, and can dabble at any time, and his only goal was to create humans, it did not make sense that he would personally design millions of other life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders in order to do so (e.g. the weaverbird’s nest, monarch’s lifestyle, fly’s compound eye). Your response was “Guess what? It doesn’t make sense to me either”, and the only explanation you could come up with was that your God might be limited. I offered you experimentation as a "clear explanation", and you rejected it. You are currently backtracking on the limited God hypothesis because you can’t come up with any limitation you can accept as feasible. And so you are left where you started, with two hypotheses which, put together, don’t make sense to you. That is the dichotomy.

D