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

by dhw, Sunday, November 18, 2018, 09:52 (2195 days ago) @ David Turell

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.

DAVID: 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.

Nothing illogical here. You think your God designed every single organism, lifestyle etc., which resulted in diversity and life continuing. But no mention of his purpose being to produce the brain and body of H. sapiens.

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”.

DAVID: 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.

Who says there is a jump? In what way are 50,000 spider webs “stepping stones” to humans? That is the illogical part of your hypothesis. He designed what he thought was necessary for WHAT? Do you really and truly believe that 50,000 spider webs were necessary stepping stones to the production of the brain and body of H. sapiens?

dhw: 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.

DAVID: 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.

Until you can explain how 50,000 spider webs were necessary stepping stones for the production of the brain and body of H. sapiens, I don’t see how you can possibly claim that your combined hypotheses concerning purpose and method are logical.

DAVID: 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.

My criticism of your illogical interpretation of your God’s evolutionary purpose and method has nothing to do with my agnosticism, and my alternative hypothesis allows for your God. However, I have always recognized the logic of your design argument, which is a major reason for my inability to accept atheism. I have explained a hundred times that I am equally unable to believe in an infinite, eternal, sourceless, hidden form of consciousness that knows everything etc. I am wrong one way or the other, but I’m afraid that does not mean you are right any more than it means Dawkins is right, and it most certainly doesn’t mean that your interpretation of your God’s evolutionary purpose and method is right!