Purpose and design (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 09:54 (2768 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: […] As for your comments above the break, what an extreme from of humanizing God by offering to describe Him as bored. God is pure purpose, pure intent.
dhw: […] If God exists, of course purpose is primary, but what in heaven’s name is “pure purpose, pure intent”? The term is meaningless.
DAVID: It is not meaningless. I view God as very determined and firmly sets out goals for Himself.

If God exists, I would also assume that he had a purpose in creating life, including humans. What is “pure” purpose? You dogmatically assert that his purpose was to create humans. I suggest (hypothetically) that it was to relieve his own boredom. What do these have to do with “purity”? A purpose has to relate to something!

dhw: What has never fallen into place is your insistence that every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder was related to the production of humans.
DAVID: Once it is accepted that humans are the main purpose, it all falls into place. You just don't see it as a reasonable conclusion.

It’s nice to see you changing from the one and only purpose to the main purpose. Eventually I hope to see you acknowledge that theistic explanations of the history of life only fall into place if you acknowledge that everything else (life forms, lifestyles, natural wonders) may not have been related to the production of humans after all. I would see that as a stepping-stone towards one of several reasonable conclusions.

Tony: Self-awareness, introspection, abstract reasoning ability, a sense of time, place, and purpose, the drive to create, emotional depth, etc.
DAVID: I can accept this statement, even the 'emotional depth' in a general non-specific way.
Dhw: Just as you cannot have non-specific purpose, you cannot have non-specific “emotion”. If your God is capable of emotion, he is capable of boredom, interest, love, hate and any other feeling we humans are capable of.
DAVID: I don't read Tony's comment as you do. His list of attributes is not the one you give. He may well have emotional depth, but it is beyond us to know.

Back you go to unknowability. His existence and his purpose are also “beyond us to know”. But if you believe your God is capable of emotion, you cannot dismiss the possibility that he is capable of boredom, interest, love, hate etc.

dhw: In order to cope with things you don’t understand,
‘Tis recommended you stick your head in the sand.
(New Texan proverb)

DAVID: I'm allowed to stick with Adler: He is a person like no other person. He may not even be willing to respond to our prayers.

You are allowed to believe whatever you want to believe. But your refusal to discuss your God’s purpose in creating humans, and to consider any other purpose for life than the production of humans (though this is perhaps beginning to crumble in the light of your “ONLY” now switching to “MAIN PURPOSE” or even “A MAJOR PURPOSE”), simply leaves you with sand in your eyes and ears.