Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, June 05, 2019, 09:36 (1780 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: I simply believe God guided all of evolution and created the bush of life we see. Of course they had to eat each other.

dhw: But why did he “have to” specially design every single life form in the history of life if his only purpose was to produce H. sapiens, which he specially designed anyway?

DAVID: You simply refuse to see that if God controlled evolution from the start of life until He reached the evolution of humans, He designed everything that came first. That is my belief.

I know your belief. And you simply refuse to acknowledge the fact that you yourself “have no idea” why he chose to design millions of non-human life forms, econiches, lifestyles and natural wonders when according to you the only thing he wanted to (and did) specially design was H. sapiens! The implication of this illogical combination of beliefs is that at least one of them is wrong.

DAVID (under “salmon exercise”): A reminder. Enzymes are giant complex molecules which facilitate speed in protein reactions. How did chance evolution find this specific molecule? Since salmon have such a complex migratory reproduction system, this system and enzyme must have been designed.

So do please explain why your God specially designed the salmon’s migratory reproduction system when according to you all he really wanted to design was the brain of H. sapiens.

DAVID: He specially designed everything. H. sapiens was the final purpose.

dhw: What do you mean by “final”? Previously you have said it was his sole purpose. Are you now coming round to the view that he had other purposes for specially designing every life form, lifestyle etc., but after 3.5 billion years he suddenly came up with a new and “final” purpose? That fits in with one of the hypotheses I have offered you – that humans were a late afterthought. (Another was experimentation, to explain the rest of his creations.)

DAVID: You know what I mean. I believe that humans are the final stage. Again you present humanizing thoughts about God.

No, I don’t know what you mean. The fact that humans are the latest product of evolution does not mean that your God’s sole purpose in specially designing every single life form that ever existed was to pass the time until he specially designed the only thing he wanted to design.

DAVID: Our specialness gives us the answer, and He started with single-celled forms to get there.

dhw: Our specialness does not explain all the other special, non-human life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders that started out from single cells.

DAVID: Our specialness is way more special than all the other different forms. That is Adler's point.

I’m concerned with your beliefs, not Adler’s. Now you seem to be saying God specially designed us to be extra special, and so he specially designed all the less special special things for the sole purpose of specially designing us! It’s still illogical.

DAVID: Same narrow view: I believe God had to do what He did if He chose to evolve us from the first cells. I'm simply looking at the known history of evolution. I simply accept God's choice of method of creation. I don't need to know 'why' He made that choice.

It is not God’s choice that I am querying, but your interpretation of his choice. For those who believe in God and evolution, history shows that his choice of method (evolution) produced a vast bush of life forms, the latest of which is H. sapiens. It does not show that he chose to specially design the vast bush for the sole purpose of specially designing H. sapiens!