Convoluted human evolution: a branch is missing (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, August 11, 2017, 15:26 (2662 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: If God exists, and if you believe in evolution, then of course God uses evolutionary methods. But you are very precise in your account of his methods. Over and over again you tell us that either he preprogrammed every innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder 3.8 billion years ago, or he personally dabbled them. You even go so far as to tell us that he restructured organisms before their environment changed. And you tell us that all of these programmes and dabblings served the single purpose of producing the human brain. These are the “exactitudes” I keep challenging because they simply don’t add up. (No need for us to go over the long list of illogicalities again.) Now, when challenged, you jettison your “invention under guidelines” and have pre-whales making no decisions or changes of their own other than possibly deciding when to switch on God’s 3.8-billion-year-old programme for blowholes, all for the sake of the human brain. Does that really make sense to you?

If I decide God is fully in control, and you don't want Him to be, then my faith makes no sense to you. Your attempt to make sense out of what God does makes no sense to me, since you cannot bring yourself to choose to believe in Him. There is no perfect explanation of God's methods or motives, since we are both trying to read His mind from evidence in His works. The only explanations are chance or design, but ou don't like that dichotomy and try to weasel in third ways that are pipe dreams, like panpsychism which introduces a nebulous form of consciousness from nowhere. I try to extrapolate from established scientific belief. You tend to invent theories with no basis.