Evolution and humans: big brain size uses energy (Evolution)

by David Turell , Tuesday, November 21, 2017, 15:07 (2557 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Our difference is I see God as pure purpose, not needing a show (humanizing) for His entertainment. How do you know He needs entertainment?

dhw: What on earth or in heaven’s name is “pure purpose”? Purpose must have some kind of defining quality! Seeing how things turn out is no more “pure” than watching a show. Of course I don’t “know” if he was bored with the prospect of eternal introspection (neither of us “knows” whether he even exists), any more than you “know” that his purpose for creating life was to create humans who would think about him and with whom he could have a relationship (you proposed these “purposes”), or that he built galaxies to house lots more humans to see how their civilizations would turn out. Your speculations are just as “impure” and just as humanizing as mine. And how could they be otherwise?

DAVID: I believe God is a personality, unlike ours, fully driven by purpose. I don't 'know'. I have developed faith based on a logical, for me, series of conclusions from scientific discoveries. Of course I think in human terms. Your faith for yourself is: "I cannot know much as I might wish to".

dhw: But what is the purpose??? You say it was to produce humans with whom he could have a relationship, but he might have produced more humans elsewhere so he could see how their civilizations turned out. The faith you have logically developed from your knowledge of science is in the existence of a God. The faith you have developed in his purpose for creating life has nothing whatsoever to do with science. As for my “faith”, an acknowledgement of my ignorance can hardly be called faith, and nor can the wish to know more. Faith requires a positive belief in something. My agnosticism is the opposite: it is the inability to have a positive belief in any of the three hypotheses, unless you wish to describe as “faith” the belief that I can’t believe in any of the three hypotheses!

I should have read this entry first. My answer is written:

Tuesday, November 21, 2017, 15:03 :

Your phrase, 'closer to the truth' is the key to your thinking. I view one of the three as THE truth. You imply there is possibly a fourth way or more and we can never know for sure, and you cannot except anything beyond absolute proof.