Evolution and humans: all over Africa (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, October 06, 2017, 21:24 (2606 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your confusion comes from trying to define God from total logic. Can't do it. I started from a discovery that the only explanation for the complexity of the universe and life was a designing mind. What that mind presents is what it produces, but it is hidden. We see the works, but not the source. As for purpose, one must look at the pinnacle of what is produced and that is the human brain, which can then recognize that a designer must have done all we see. To me that is a full circle. The rest is guessing. Religions make up all sorts of stuff and are of no help. As you know that is my teleology in a nutshell. The key is realizing a designer is needed.

dhw: I understand perfectly well why you believe there is a designer. And I understand perfectly well why you think the human brain is the most complex organ that evolution has produced so far (although you do not believe it is the source of our extraordinary level of consciousness). What I do not understand is why your teleology is confined to the production of the human brain. Eight stages of whale, froggy poison, weaverbird’s nests, wasps laying eggs in spiders, and today’s toxin-eating snakes – all specially designed by your God to keep life going for the sake of the human brain? But I am NOT trying to define God from total logic. I am trying to find logic in your interpretation of how your God thinks and works. If your interpretation defies logic, we must face the possibility that it is wrong.

Your probing of God's reasoning is your problem. I don't know if I am right. I can only make suppositions from what we see He has produced. You question why He has produced certain organisms in evolution. I don't worry about it. I find a reasonable explanation in balance of nature to allow energy to be produced to have evolution continue until the human brain arrives. You can't seem to recognize human specialness in discussing the brain, in that to me evolution appears driven to produce us while all the other primates are left behind. The overall picture I present is very convincing to me. I'm sorry it doesn't move you.

In your answer you have again shifted the discussion to God's intentions. You have again, as always, avoided the issue of a need for a designer by agreeing that you understand my reasoning. I don't understand your reluctance in accepting a designer is needed. No matter how you squirm the only source of what we see is chance or design. Nothing else fits the issue.