Innovation, Speciation: strange DNA finding (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, December 01, 2018, 18:52 (2182 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: In all of the above mashed get-together paragraph in one strange theme. You ask what is God's purpose and I keep telling everyone it was to create current humans, and then you tell me I haven't answered you which means that you want to know about His underlying thought pattern as to why He chose that purpose.

dhw: The mashed get-together paragraph answers your mashed get-together reflections on the subject of a purposeful God. If God does exist, and his purpose in creating life was to create humans, it is perfectly natural to ask about his purpose in creating humans and every other life form. And you can’t identify a purpose without trying to read the "thought patterns" of the doer.

DAVID: I don't know why you need that guess on my part. It is all part of your attempt to study Him as if He were human or part human due to the fact that He and we have consciousness. What is wrong with accepting that we humans are the current and probably the real end point of a long process? And simply being satisfied with it? Dayenu. Do you think His motives are nefarious? Knowing his motives will not help you accept God. Nor will guessing create any more understanding of God than we have now.

dhw: The problem is not your belief that humans are the current end point in terms of our consciousness, but your belief that he created 50,000 spider webs etc. as stepping stones to humans. (But see the "Neanderthal" thread). You want me to believe that there is a being who potentially has total control over me, but not ask about his nature and purpose! The subject has preoccupied theologians ever since they first produced the idea of a single God. “Knowing his motives will not help you accept God.” What should I “accept”? That there is a conscious mind which specially created me and all my fellow creatures but it doesn't matter why, or what he might be like? I might as well believe in the sun or in chance as my creator. If his nature and purpose don’t matter, should I “accept” the God of Deism, who created life and left it to run its own course, i.e. a non-interventionist God (which I have proposed as a possible theistic explanation for the higgledy-piggledy history of life)? Well no, because you said on the Einstein thread that you believe he has guided you through your life. (I asked if you thought he also guided the lives of tyrants and their victims and of victims of natural disasters, but you had no idea.) So you believe in a God who has benevolent feelings towards you, but you don’t want anyone else to conjecture why he created the rest of his creations or what sort of feelings (if any) he might have about them.

Your problem with me is my position about religious teachings. I have chosen to ignore them as much as I can considering I was raised Jewish, and to try and ascertain God's methods of creation through science, and even to decide upon a belief in God through a study of science. As you know the complexity of life's biochemistry has led me to accept God as a designer. Because of your position outside belief, you started this site to explore agnosticism, and have asked me questions you have, which I don't consider important to my decision. So I guess and you poke fun. Adler supports my position. In politeness as a guest here, I'll try and give answers I deem reasonable to me as to the inner workings of God's mind. But I view it as a black box. Specifically I do not believe a God, who so carefully produced human consciousness so that we can think about Him, would abandon the project. No deism! As for not wanting anyone to make conjectures about Him, I don't want to stop anyone from thinking about God. but I will object to asking me to humanize Him as in our discussions. My own private feelings about my relationship with God are open for all to see. But they are an enclosed set of beliefs meant only for me. Does God relate to anyone else? Adler says 50/50 and I accept that. So please consider your mental struggles about God as an open project and continue. I'll accept what I see as consistent with my approach.