Unanswered questions (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, July 17, 2019, 09:45 (1954 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: The history shows only that there have been millions of life forms, econiches etc. extant and extinct. Once again you leave out the fact that your concept of evolution is that your God specially designed every single life form etc. in history, and every single stage in human evolution, either by preprogramming or by dabbling.

DAVID: Yes, your statement of my belief is exactly correct and if not stated directly is always implied.

dhw: That IS direct creation!

DAVID: Of course it is, developing evolution by designed stages. What God did not do is 'direct evolution of humans' without the process of evolution. My constant view is God chose to evolve humans.

You keep using the word “evolution” to cover the incongruity of your theory. If your God specially designed all the stages of human evolution, of course he did direct evolution of humans! The process of evolution according to you entailed specially or directly designing every single life form, econiche, lifestyle and natural wonder that ever existed. So your God chose to directly design every stage of everything. But what you have now left out is the fact that according to you the ONLY thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens. Therein lies the incongruity!

dhw:... and so you have no idea why your God chose to specially design (directly preprogramme or dabble) ALL these non-human organs and organisms etc. (= running evolution) instead of just specially designing (directly preprogramming or dabbling) the only thing he wanted to specially design (directly preprogramme or dabble).

DAVID: The misused phrase on your part,'no idea' is taken from my point that I do not know why God chose this course of creation, but His choice is explained by the history of creation of the universe, the Earth, and life by inventing each and then evolving each. That you have not challenged this point indicates the weakness of your position, just as the constant repetition of 'no idea' indicates the emptiness of your responses.

Sheer obfuscation. Yes, if your God exists, he chose evolution as his method, and your concept of evolution is that he directly designed every single development. But the argument that he chose to design every single stage does not explain why he chose to design the millions of non-human life forms etc. when the only thing he wanted to design was H. sapiens.

DAVID: My God knows that if He has chosen to evolve humans in stages, He must design everything else first.

Why “must” he design dinosaurs, whales’ flippers, cuttlefish camouflage and weaverbirds’ nests before he designs all the different stages of humans? One moment you deny using “had to”, and the next moment he “must”. What forces him to choose this way of fulfilling what you believe to be his one and only purpose?

DAVID: Your version of my God is that He cannot think clearly, not really understanding what He is doing. That is not my view as you have distorted it. Distorting means a weak debate position.

There is no distortion. If you have no idea why he “must” design every other life form extant and extinct before he designs the only thing he wants to design, it is you who are creating a weak God!

dhw: Here are the thoughts you impose on your God: […]: “I will start doing the only thing I want to do in 3.5+ billion years’ time. Meanwhile, I will pass the 3.5 billion years by designing lots of different econiches containing lots of different specially designed life forms (to eat or not eat one another), lifestyles and natural wonders which will come and go and have nothing to do with humans. Specially designing humans requires my specially designing whale flippers, monarch butterflies’ migration, and the weaverbird’s nest.”

DAVID: You are exactly mirroring my concept of God's approach with your snide comments exemplified by describing my view of my God as a purposeless, dithering and bumbling creator. From my viewpoint God knows exactly what He wants to do and with a great sense of purpose pursues His goals, evolving humans by designing each stage of evolution.

Where on earth have I used such terms? I have exactly mirrored your fixed beliefs, and they are incongruous! I have stated explicitly that my view of God, if he exists, is that he knows exactly what he wants, and that he pursues his goals. I have offered you different explanations for the history of life that fit in with his goals, and you have accepted the logic of all of them. In none of them is he purposeless, dithering or bumbling. And I simply can’t believe that an always-in-control God who only wants to design humans “must” design the whale’s flipper, the monarch’s migration and the weaverbird’s nest first. My proposal is that, if he exists, either he wanted them to do their own designing, or he designed them because he wanted to design them. I even go so far as to explain his possible purposes for doing so. How does this make him purposeless?