Purpose and design (Evolution)

by David Turell @, Tuesday, April 25, 2017, 19:40 (2519 days ago) @ dhw

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.

dhw: If God exists, I would also assume that he had a purpose in creating life, including humans. What is “pure” purpose?

'Pure' as in 100% committed.

dhw: 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.

Stating God has humanly bored solved nothing about His purpose. He wanted an introspective consciousness capable organism. Why any other 'relationship 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.

dhw: 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 am not aware of any other of God's purposes, but I admit some might exist. Tony sees a group of them.

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.

dhw: 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.

We cannot know which of your list, if any He experiences. He should be interested in His creations, which is not really an emotion, if He is the designer.


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