Unanswered questions (General)

by David Turell , Wednesday, July 03, 2019, 15:17 (1968 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: 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.

dhw: We CAN only guess. But if God exists and specially designed the weaverbird’s nest, as you claim, then clearly he wanted to create the weaverbird’s nest! Ditto every other organism, lifestyle and natural wonder you say he specially designed. So yet again: why did he specially design them if the ONLY thing he wanted to specially design was humans? It’s simply not logical!

Wanting to evolve humans from bacteria is totally logical. Econiches are also logical. You are the one who views my God as illogical. Your suppositions about God are always over-humanizing Him.

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.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: The distortion is entirely yours. I don’t say what he “should have done”. I say what you say he DID do, and since you say he DID design every life form, it makes no sense then to say he only wanted to design one. He must have had a reason for designing all the NON-HUMAN branches of evolution, but all you can suggest is that he designed every single one of them so that they could eat or not eat one another until he designed the only thing he wanted to design (H. sapiens). And since somehow you know that he is in total control, has no limitations and knows exactly what he wants to do in every case, I can’t help wondering why he would even have chosen to specially design lots of different hominins and homos before specially designing the only one he wanted. In other words, my doubts concern your interpretation of his nature, purpose and method, which results in a hypothesis which even you cannot explain.

The only thing I cannot explain is why God made the choice to evolve, rather than direct creation. The history of evolution obviously shows what God did. You object to the history. Of course going from bacteria to humans involved designing everything along the way. Do econiches exist? Of course and with purpose. Evolution over time requires an energy source fur life to continue.

DAVID: 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.

dhw: Another distortion. You know very well that I offer various alternative hypotheses to cover various possible purposes, and you have accepted that all of them are logical. You have also acknowledged that it is impossible to know whether your God has human attributes or not, and what attributes they might be. I note that you have not commented on my own disbelief that a first cause God can create attributes of which he has no knowledge or experience, plus the fact that a God without human attributes might just as well not be there, since clearly he and we would have nothing whatsoever in common.

Your first cause God is simplistic. If God can plan a universe of the complexity it is, He can know in advance the attributes of human emotions. Whether He uses those emotions himself is not known but certainly possible.