God and Evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Sunday, February 03, 2019, 15:14 (2118 days ago) @ dhw

dhw: I have divided your next comment into three:

DAVID: 1) Can you explain why we are here? I have a very different series of logical thoughts than you do. 2) If survival drives evolution as you believe (an irrational theory never proven), we have no need to be here battling on our computers, evolved way beyond survival necessity! We are a totally unexpected miraculous result. 3) So once again you have questioned God's choice of method. Either He had to do it this way or He chose the method, no way of telling!

dhw: 1) If God exists, then I would assume that whatever is/was here is what he wanted to be here: i.e. the higgledy-piggledy bush of evolution, including us. See below for a possible "why" in your own words.

Thanks for accepting what I believe following the 'if'

dhw: 2) There is nothing irrational in arguing that the purpose of fins, camouflage and migration is to improve organisms’ chances of survival, and purpose is a driving force (which you yourself have called an “immediate” driving force). We have agreed ad nauseam that NO multicellular species were “necessary” for life to continue, since bacteria have survived unscathed. They are all “miraculous”, as indeed are bacteria (which are also driven to change their structure in order to survive changing conditions). I would suggest that multicellularity initiated innovation. We don’t know how – hence the different theories, such as random mutations, cellular intelligence, divine dabbling, or a 3.8-billion-year-old library of instructions which apparently cells go into, with instructions telling them which of the billions of instructions to obey.

Generally agree

dhw: 3) Once again I am not questioning your God, I am questioning your interpretation of his purpose and method.

I know your questioning ignores just accepting history and instead trying on totally human versions of God. You don't want to accept humans as His prime purpose . I view it as His singular purpose.

dhw: I’ll settle for a “maybe”. That is sufficient to show that “maybe” he has what you call “human” thoughts, and “maybe” there is something wrong with your hypothesis that, while specially designing whale fins, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch’s flight paths and weaverbirds’ nests, his thought was: “I must improve their chances of survival so that life will survive for 3.5+ billion years until I can fulfil my one and only purpose of specially designing H. sapiens.”

DAVID: Again questioning God's method with no possible answer. And the issue always exists. Why are we here? Survival does not require it. I'll chose to believe it is God's choice.

dhw; Stop dodging. You are always on about God’s purpose. Well, if you are sure he watches everything he created, like an artist enjoying his own paintings, then it is possible that he created everything - not just humans - for his own enjoyment (your word, not mine), and that general freedom would enhance the interest. See above re survival.

You constantly want God to be human in His reasons for creating and to make things for His enjoyment. Nothing on Earth knows about God but us. From that fact it is easy to reason that He might have wanted that relationship, but note, He is hidden, so it requires a special kind of relationship in which we must come to realize He has to exist. That is what theology is all about. You have not come to that realization.