Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Thursday, May 30, 2019, 08:55 (1786 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: We are not talking about the difference between humans and other organisms, but about the definition of “reason”! I do not accept that reason means the power to think abstractly. We ourselves use reason all the time to solve concrete problems, and so do our fellow animals. That is why I consider my definition to be correct and the definition as abstract thinking to be woefully inadequate.

DAVID: You are correct: there is concrete reasoning of fact (as my dog) and abstract reasoning (as only in humans). I was only considering the abstract level, but need to be considered.

Thank you. I’m glad that point has been cleared up.

dhw: Yes, if God exists, he chose to run evolution with living organisms, and eventually humans arrived, and humans are indeed different in kind from whales and monarch butterflies and weaverbirds. But none of that means that your always-in-control God personally designed every single life form, lifestyle, natural wonder and econiche in the history of the world, or that he did so in order to enable life forms to eat or not eat one another until he specially designed the only thing he wanted to design, which was H. sapiens. Please stop glossing over the incongruities through vague generalisations.

DAVID: Your description of my thoughts show no incongruities. What is wrong with God running, in total control, evolution from the invention of life to the design of each form? That is how I conceive of God's role.

Then you have not understood my response, so I’ll try again. As you have described it, there is no incongruity. The incongruity lies in your fixed belief that he specially designed every single life form, and did so in order that every single life form should eat or not eat other life forms until he specially designed the only thing he wanted to design, which was H. sapiens. You yourself admit that you have no idea why, if he is always in total control, he chose this method of fulfilling his one and only purpose. It is the combination of your hypotheses that is incongruous. But you refuse to contemplate the possibility that either he did NOT design every life form etc., or he did design them all but his one and only purpose in doing so was not to produce H. sapiens.