Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Friday, May 17, 2019, 08:44 (2016 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: That is my interpretation.

dhw: Yes indeed, and you have “no idea” why your God would choose this method of designing H. sapiens.

DAVID: I simply accept it as God's choice.

You do not accept it as God’s choice. You accept your own interpretation of God’s choice, even though you have no idea why he would make such a choice.

DAVID: Twisted reasoning again. Evolving humans from single cells is God's choice…

dhw: Evolving EVERY life form from single cells is your God’s choice (although your definition of “evolving” is specially designing).

DAVID: …Assuming God is in charge, that is what history tells us. You won't accept the importance of our exceptionality as a key point to the reasoning. I'm with Adler, you are not.

dhw: I accept our exceptionality. I do not accept that your God specially designed every single life form, and did so in order that they should eat or not one another until he specially designed H. sapiens. [See later re the bold]

DAVID: Fine, noting you don't accept God, but don't reject Him either. that makes your view of Him different than mine.

An agnostic has just as much right as a theist to interpret a possible God’s purposes and methods, and my agnosticism does not in any way invalidate the arguments I advance against your own personal interpretation of these. In fact I suspect quite a few theists would have trouble “accepting” your version of your God’s choice.

DAVID: I claim humans were the main purpose!

dhw: You keep claiming that they were the ONLY purpose (which is what makes nonsense of your purposeful God’s specially designing every non-human life form) and you don’t like to offer any other purpose. What on earth is the point of telling us how purposeful your God is, and then saying that humans were the purpose, if you are not prepared to ask what was the purpose of humans? And why do you think that your God specially designed millions of life forms etc. that came and went, but it could not have been his purpose to design millions of life forms etc. that came and went?

DAVID: Again, the Adler argument regarding our special place in evolution. You cannot deny our exceptionality.

I keep agreeing that we are exceptional. See bold above. That does not answer my questions!

DAVID: Humans are a desired endpoint, but God decided to design everything from the bottom up. I view him as having to design everything to get to the final step, humans. It was all necessary, which you constantly gloss over. Your thinking about God's method is totally distorted. He followed a proper stepwise evolutionary plan to reach an endpoint, humans

Why was it "necessary" for your God to specially design dinosaurs, whale flippers, cuttlefish camouflage, the monarch's lifestyle and the weaverbird’s nest in order to get to the “final step” which according to you he specially designed anyway? You have no idea, so please stop “glossing over” the incongruity that arises from your combined hypotheses.