Unanswered questions (General)

by David Turell , Tuesday, July 02, 2019, 19:21 (1754 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I am allowed a fixed interpretation. You are the one with an imagination about what/who God might be.

dhw: Your fixed interpretation is your imagination of your God’s purpose (humans) and of his illogical method (you have “no idea why”) of achieving that purpose (special design of millions of non-humans), and of his nature (always knows what he wants, always knows how to get it, has total control), but sacrifices control of humans (see free will below).

DAVID: The only thing free will affords is freedom of action, and note that animals wander around doing what they want also. God controls speciation in my view, and can still do that if He wishes. Your free will objection is comparing apples and eggs.

dhw: It is an example of your God being willing to sacrifice control, for whatever reason. Similarly, he could have created a mechanism whereby organisms designed their own evolution, for whatever reason. Now do please tell us what you think may have been your extremely purposeful God’s purpose for specially designing humans and giving them free will.

I can't give an exact reason in God's mind, as it is all guesses, but He obviously desired to give humans a portion of His consciousness, which is what history shows.

DAVID: My fixed belief is that the universe and the origin of life are God's creations. That He chose to evolve them indicates He did use direct creation to make humans. I explain my belief from my readings and in my books. Your explanations are logical if God is humanized.

dhw: I have no objection to your fixed belief that God created the universe and life. I object to your fixed belief that evolution means your God specially designed every single life form etc. You know my alternative.Yes, you explain your beliefs, but you cannot explain why your God would have specially designed millions of life forms etc. when (next fixed belief) the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens. It is impossible to talk of purpose without humanizing, and you agree that “we have no idea if God has any human attributes”, so why dismiss the possibility? (And as I pointed out before, a God without human attributes might as well not be there as far as I'm concerned, and I don't know how he could create attributes (e.g. love) if as first cause he had never experienced them.)

DAVID: Your mamby-pamby God cannot imagine or think of anything. And I agree, we have no idea if God has any human attributes.

dhw: It is YOUR God that cannot imagine or think of anything! It is YOUR God who has no attributes, but somehow – for no reason you are willing to offer us, though I hope you will now accede to my request above – simply wants to create humans and therefore creates millions of non-humans.

Again all you want is guesses about His intent. He hasn't told us, if one does not use the man-made Bible stories. All I can concretely say is humans are here, therefore, God wanted to create them.

DAVID: Creating humans by evolution required He design everything to satisfy the requirements of evolving the form.

dhw: So he had to design the whale’s flipper and the salmon’s migratory reproduction system and the weaverbird’s nest to satisfy his own requirements for specially designing the form of H. sapiens. And you consider this to be logical.

DAVID: If God managed all of evolution, as I believe, of course it is logical. He created every state in evolution.

dhw: Yes indeed, if he designed everything, it is logical that he designed everything. But it is not logical that he ONLY wanted to design H. sapiens and therefore he designed the weaverbird’s nest. One of these fixed beliefs must be wrong.

Again, gross distortion. God wanted to create humans though evolving life from a start with bacteria. He designed all of evolution's branches. He didn't get from A to Z in one great jump which is what your objections imply He should have done. He willingly took His time to reach human beings following His desired plan of creation. In your view, God didn't know what He was doing, but that fits the weak humanized God you favor.