dhw:Big brain evolution: comparing chimp and brain organoids (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, March 08, 2019, 19:13 (2085 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: It is not illogical. If God is in control, He has the absolute right to chose his method of creation. And I have the logical right to accept that conclusion. I certainly agree with you that we both have the right to discuss why He might have made that decision, but we have never come up with anything other than unproven theories, because that is all we can accomplish. It is your confusion About God's right to chose a method that is on exhibition. I believe He is in full control. You are the one who is not sure of that because you don't accept God's powers, and I know that.

dhw: In your first post above you pinpoint the hypothesis of humans as the only goal. Now you shift to the hypothesis of full control. It is the irreconcilability of these two hypotheses plus the third that is illogical.[/b] (dhw's bold) Of course your God has the right to choose his method of creation. That is absolutely NOT what is on “exhibition”! (DAVID'S bold) Yet again: what is on exhibition is your fixed belief that he is in full control, that his one and only purpose was to produce the brain of H. sapiens, and yet he chose to spend 3.5+ billion years designing anything but the brain of H. sapiens. You yourself keep admitting that you cannot understand this “method”. Over and over again I have presented other perfectly logical theistic interpretations of life’s history (two of which allow for him to be in full control), but you cling to your fixed belief in the three combined hypotheses above, even though you find their combination inexplicable.

DAVID: We go 'round and 'round and talk past each other. You won't accept God's right to chose, and it is you, not me who questions why He waited so long to reach a goal. I don't care that He waited so long, since that is what history shows. I don't have questions. You do. Nothing I've done is illogical by my accepting God. My bold indicates your inconsistencies.

Dhw: First it’s the only goal hypothesis, then it’s the full control hypothesis, and now it’s God’s right to choose, and you bold my acceptance of God’s right to choose in order to prove that I don’t accept your God’s right to choose! Of course I do, but that does not mean he chose the purpose and method you ascribe to him! History does not show that your God’s one and only goal from the very beginning was the brain of H. sapiens or that despite his full control he chose to fulfil his goal by not fulfilling his goal for 3.5+ billion years. It only shows that the brain of H. sapiens arrived approximately 300,000 years ago, preceded by billions of unrelated life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders and by various forms of ape and hominin and human. Your acceptance of God does not give credence to your fixed beliefs in the above mentioned combination of purpose and method, and all the hypotheses I have offered you allow for God. You have repeated over and over again that you have no idea why he chose the method you attribute to him in order to achieve the one and only goal you attribute to him, so please don’t tell us that you can’t understand why God acted in the way you think he did, but nevertheless it’s logical.

Part of my thought pattern is the recognition, to which you also ascribe, that living organisms need energy to exist during all the 3.8 billion years of evolution. But above you ignore all that. I accept that God is in charge. You obviously, as an agnostic, don't, but give lip service to the possibility. Since He decided to slowly evolve the human brain, all of the necessary bush of life had to be in place so every form at every advancing stage had to be part of an econiche of the balance of nature to eat the food needed for energy to exist until the next stage was designed. You try to present a picture of God running helter-skelter in all directions at once until He got His act together and got to the point of popping in our advanced brains. I view God as fully purposeful and fully aware of His goals. The history supports every bit of my description. Note your statement in bold. Everything is totally related in my view as evolution advances from single cells to very complex forms ending in the most highly complex item in the universe, the current human brain, different in kind, not degree, which Adler notes, cannot be by chance. Your objections are reasonable, as long as you don't accept God and recognize His purpose.