Unanswered questions (General)

by David Turell , Friday, April 26, 2019, 18:48 (2036 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: But it also means we cannot know if speculations are in any way correct. What we do know assuming that God is in charge, and He chose to evolve humans from the first bacteria. That is historical fact.

dhw: Hold on! Not even the existence of God is historical fact. But IF he exists, and since we both accept the theory of common descent, we agree that he would have chosen to evolve ALL forms of life from earlier forms. That does not mean (a) that his sole purpose was to produce humans, (b) that his only method of evolving all forms of life was special design by preprogramming or dabbling, or (c) that he specially designed all forms of life so that they would eat or not eat one another until he specially designed humans. Of course my proposals concerning his nature, purpose and method are speculative. And your statement that “a purposeful God does not need spectacle” is as speculative as all your other hypotheses concerning the existence, purpose and method of your God. All answers to "unanswered questions" are speculative!

My concept of a purposeful God is obviously not your casual theistic approach to studying Him. You constantly ignore Adler's philosophic point that we are so different in kind it is obvious we were purposefully evolved. My complete list of logical conclusions gave me very reasonable structure to accept God. Have you noticed, I've quit speculating?

DAVID: Consider first life: It is extremely complex if it is to survive. And it is no where close to the complexity of an introspective human brain. You've accepted if God is in charge He has the right to evolve each and every of His goals. I persist in viewing God as choosing to evolve more and more complexity over the time necessary. No diddling. Each new advanced design may well require design planning considerations. Preprogramming or constant dabbling are each probabilities of method.

dhw: Now you are focusing on the argument for design, and completely ignoring the point at issue, which is that you have no idea why a God whose sole purpose is to produce humans would choose to specially design millions of other complex non-human life forms before specially designing the only one he wants to design. THAT is the diddling around which you cannot explain.

Ah, slinking back to your favorite non-issue. I will not back down from the logical point that God has the right to choose to evolve humans rather than directly create them as in the OT.

DAVID: I didn't miss your 'logic'. Control of evolution is not at all equivalent to human choices of action in life.

dhw: Of course it’s not. The analogy is that in both scenarios, your God would purposefully have given up control.

Very poor analogy. Evolution requires constant design planning if a goal is to be achieved. You deny goals and humans were a special creation allowed to have free choice. An analogies are best when equal.

[…]

dhw: …these are the alternatives: cellular intelligence versus a divine 3.8-billion-year-old computer programme or direct divine dabbling for every convergent solution, as these are the only forms of “instructions” you can come up with.

DAVID: Can you come up with other methods of instructing, considering God is running the show in full command?

dhw: No, and that is why I am challenging your assumption that your God chose to remain in full command. Like yourself, I find it impossible to explain why he would specially design (through preprogramming and/or dabbling) whale flippers, cuttlefish camouflage, monarch migration and the weaverbird’s nest if all he wanted to design was the brain of H. sapiens. And so as an alternative I am proposing that he chose to create a form of “show” or spectacle which would run itself through cellular intelligence, though always allowing him the option of dabbling if he felt like it.

Back to a human God who loves shows and spectacles.