dhw: Evolution and humans: Neanderthal lungs larger (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, November 17, 2018, 18:45 (2196 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: Meanwhile, yet again you have resolutely ignored issue 2) (bolded above), which is the one on which I challenge your logic.

DAVID: I feel I have answered you. My theory is as before, that God uses evolution to produce the life He wants to produce. It is based on the pattern of evolution I see.

dhw: If your God exists, and since you and I both believe that evolution happened, of course he used evolution to produce the life he wanted to produce. But according to you “His purpose was humans” and so the life he wanted to produce was that of H. sapiens but he also specially produced 50,000 spider webs, Neanderthal lungs, and every other innovation, lifestyle and natural wonder in the history of evolution. When challenged on the logic of this, and when I suggest that maybe spiders designed their own webs and maybe they and Neanderthal lungs and the weaverbird's nest and humans were only part of your God's purpose, you tell us that God’s logic must be different from ours, which means you don’t understand the logic either. That is the nub of the matter.

None of what I believe is illogical to me. My view is God logically produced the diversity of life to create an amazing number of different delicate econiches to feed life as it evolved. That involved all the designed items to which you refer. I accept the way God did it and don't challenge his logic. I fully understand your desire to dig into His brain, but His logic does not matter to me. On the other hand, what I observe is logical to me.

DAVID: Since humans are a species above and beyond any other organism produced they, therefore, are an obvious goal.

dhw: If he wants to produce 50,000 spider webs etc., then 50,000 spider webs etc. are what he wants to produce, and this does not square with your constantly repeated statement that “His purpose was humans”.

That is an illogical comment. There is no jump from spiders to humans. All of the varieties produced through evolution are steppingstones to humans; that is what a evolution means and I believe God designed what He thought was necessary all the way from the first cells to humans.

DAVID: At many points the jumps (gaps) in form and physiology require prior design, so they can be produced fully functional at that new level. I fully believe all of this, and I can understand why you don't.

dhw: That was issue 1) and has nothing to do with issue 2).

DAVID: Until you accept God in the way I do you will not. I reached all of these conclusions logically for me, and now I have faith. I do not try to enter God's mind to explain why it works this way, but it all is logical to me. I do not think I have to enter His mind.

dhw: Any attempt to interpret purpose means trying to entering the mind of the doer. You keep telling us that “His purpose was humans”, but you can’t explain how this ties in with your belief that he specially designed 50,000 spider webs etc. etc. although “it all is logical” to you. I’m sorry, but if you can’t explain your own logic, you might as well say that this is what you believe and you couldn’t care less about logic. The whole point of this forum is to discuss and test the logic behind all the hypotheses concerning all the unanswered questions. Your arguments in favour of design are, in my opinion, impeccably logical, which is why you scurry back to them when I challenge the logic of your views on purpose and method.

I've explained my view over and over. As for entering God's mind, I have only identified a purpose, not the thought process that reached that goal. Note I cannot know his logic, but that does not make me illogical.

DAVID: I don't see how you can attack this as illogical since I view your views as lacking logic.

dhw: Even if all my views were illogical, that would not mean your own view was logical.

Your view is my faith is based on illogical thoughts, but you have no faith. I arrived at belief through study and logic.

DAVID: Your analysis of God's thoughts lead to nowhere since they are unproven hypotheses and certainly are not a solution to our questions, simply raising more questions. I've questioned and I've stopped and accepted, Deyanu.

dhw: All our hypotheses concerning the thoughts, purposes, methods and indeed existence of God are unproven. If they were proven, there would be nothing to discuss. It is true that our discussions, like so many of the related discoveries of modern science, seem only to raise more questions. That seems to be the nature of the beast. You yourself have clearly never stopped asking questions, and have even written two brilliant books on all these matters. You only want to stop when I challenge the logic of certain fixed ideas you have accepted – and before you scurry back to design, let me repeat that I do NOT challenge the logic of that particular hypothesis. But if you've really had enough, we can leave it at that - at least till the next time you tell us that your God specially designed xyz and his purpose was to produce the brain and body of H. sapiens.

If you recognized my logic you would not be agnostic. You illogically accept design, but cannot understand the logic that there must be a mind doing the design.