Evolution and humans: all over Africa (Evolution)

by dhw, Friday, October 13, 2017, 10:57 (2597 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I view God as much more serious than you do. My view of his personality is not yours which is always trying to humanize Him.
Dhw: So you are not humanizing him when you tell us that he is too serious to want to create a spectacle, and he wants us to think of him. Any non-human theories as to why he wants us to think of him?
DAVID: Of course we have to speak of his personality in our human terms, but I'll stick to Adler's terminology, a person like no other person.

“He’s a person like no other person” is a cop-out. Your God watches with interest, but is too “serious” to want a spectacle, and wants us to think of him but stays hidden because...um... – all this is every bit as human as my own hypothesis, so please don’t use “humanization” as an excuse for rejecting it.

DAVID: I start with the world we observe...
dhw: It’s true that you have always claimed this, and so perhaps your statement above that you “start with God’s purpose” was just a Freudian slip, but I think it’s more accurate. You have made up your mind that God’s purpose was to produce Homo sapiens’ brain, and then you try to manipulate the history of life to suit your conclusion.
DAVID: Sequence of my thoughts: evolution requires responses to challenges to survival. The human brain appeared for no obvious reason, compared to ape survival. The human brain is the most complex object in the universe. Not a Freudian slip. I see the purpose.

1) You said you started with God’s purpose, but you meant to say you start with the world you observe. You can’t have two different starting points.
2) Nobody knows why pre-humans descended from the trees, but it is perfectly feasible that they did so in response to local environmental challenges, as opposed to your God fiddling with their anatomy in advance.
3) Every multicellular organism, including apes, humans, whales, and weaverbirds appeared for no obvious reason, because bacteria have survived from the start. My hypothesis adds the drive for improvement to that for survival.
4) You believe in common descent, but that does not mean each new species results in other related species disappearing or following the new example. Humans and apes branched off from their common ancestor, and both went their own way.
5) The human brain is the most complex object in the world we know. (I’m afraid I don’t have access to the whole universe.) But that does not mean your God specially designed the eight stages of whale and the weaverbird’s nest in order to keep life going until he could produce it.

DAVID: ... you admit that the purpose I extrapolate fits the history.
dhw: I absolutely do not! (I then listed some of your “purposes” that I find illogical.)
DAVID: Faith may not be logical to you.

I explained to you why I do NOT admit that the purpose you extrapolate fits the history. You have no answers to my questions, and so of course your faith in the hypotheses I listed earlier does not seem logical to me. You are (quite rightly) happy enough to use logic to justify your faith in a designer. Why do you suddenly find logic unnecessary when it comes to your personal theory of God’s intentions and methods?