Evolution and humans: Neanderthal contributions (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, August 31, 2019, 08:42 (1910 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] (For some reason you have denied that he only wanted to design us, but now you are telling us that he only wanted to design us and chose to do it in this roundabout manner!)

DAVID: It is not roundabout if it is exactly an evolutionary process which method God chose to follow.

If he wanted to design H. sapiens, I suggest that designing 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms, followed by the design of many different hominins and homos with different features which ultimately coalesce into the only homo he wanted to design, makes for a roundabout process. The claim that this is the method your God chose to follow does not make it any less roundabout!

DAVID: For example, God designed the immune response, but that response then learned what had to be defended against, which is something that needed to happen. God may design to a point and then allow the design to complete the job.

This has nothing to do with roundabout fulfilment of a single purpose. It is merely your reiteration of your belief that your God designed every evolutionary change in advance of the need for it (e.g. pre-whales being given flippers before they entered the water, and then learning how to use them). The converse is that all systems develop as cell communities work out how to cope with new conditions. But your final sentence is interesting. Responses and designs don’t “learn” anything – it is the cells that do the learning. The theistic version of my own hypothesis is that your God designed the intelligent cell and allowed it to “complete the job” of running evolution. Same principle, but an earlier start to the process of God “allowing” the cells to do their own designing.

DAVID: My picture of God is not your distorted view. My God is purposeful and knows exactly what He needs to do and does it.

My God is purposeful and knows exactly what he WANTS to do and does it: namely, to invent a mechanism that will produce the vast variety of life forms, lifestyles and natural wonders extant and extinct that make up the history of life on Earth, including humans. Why do you insist that any purpose other than your own is not purposeful?

DAVID: Humans were His goal, not a single purpose as you twist the discussion, with your same implication: why didn't He directly create humans as in the Bible?

This is the strangest argument yet. Please explain the difference between a goal and a single purpose. And yes indeed, if an always-in-control God has a goal, and if – as you keep telling us – he directly creates every single life form, lifestyle and natural wonder, why would he not directly design H. sapiens? History tell us that he didn’t, and you yourself have no idea why he didn’t. So maybe your interpretation of life’s history as a fulfilment of your God’s single purpose or goal is wrong. See “Unanswered questions” on the subject of your logic and God’s.