David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Monday, December 30, 2019, 09:40 (1788 days ago) @ David Turell

Transferred from the Shapiro thread:
DAVID: Same diffuse thinking. You want a God to instantly produce what He wishes. He has the right to do things differently: logically as He is in charge then history tells us what He did and in what order.

dhw: Same old mantra, and here is the same old reply: It is not the history or his right to do what he wishes that are in dispute, but your interpretation of his wishes and how he has set about fulfilling them. I do not “want” anything except perhaps an end to your repeated claims that the above combination is logical even though you can’t explain the logic, and that any logical explanation of his wishes and method is to be rejected because it “humanizes” God, even though God “very well could think like us”. (See "David’s theory of evolution Part Two".)

DAVID: No one is watching, and our positions are in stone.

When I encounter positions that are “in stone”, such as yours and Dawkins’s, I do my best to understand them and to test them against the requirements of human reason – the only form of reason open to me. That indeed is the basic purpose of this forum. You also use human reason to undermine the stone-set position of the atheist and to allay the doubts of the agnostic. We both realize that no one can possibly “know” the truth (and that, I guess, could be regarded as a position “in stone”), but even if no one is watching, I would still regard all our discussions as educational.

dhw: Why so many billions of galaxies and solar systems coming and going if he only wanted one? Why so many life forms coming and going if he only wanted one? Your previous answer was: “Haven’t you realized by now, I have no idea why God chose to evolve humans over time?” You certainly can’t claim that “God is logical as we are” if you can’t understand his logic, so maybe your basic premise is wrong.

DAVID: I can see His purposes…

No you can’t. You can only tell us what you think his purposes were, i.e. he designed billions of galaxies and solar systems and life forms and econiches etc. as “interim goals” until he designed the only thing he wanted to design, which was us.

DAVID: I have no idea why you do not follow the logical reasoning that with God is charge history is an accurate picture of His works. And stop there. But no, you dig in and invent. That is where the humanizing starts.

If God exists, then history IS his work - not “an accurate picture of his works”! But you do not stop there. You dig in to invent the theory that history/his work is the result of him wanting to create H. sapiens, but deciding to put it off for 3.X billion years and therefore having to create all the earlier life forms etc. That is where the illogicality starts.

DAVID: But our specialness tells us we are a prime goal, and I cannot know if there are other goals but I doubt it as we are now top predator and run the local show.

I have always acknowledged the possibility that we are “a prime goal” (as opposed to the one and only goal) and have offered you two logical explanations as to how that could fit in with the way God “runs the show”.

DAVID: I've agreed with you that your human logic expresses humanized versions of God's works and purposes, and are reasonable for a humanized God.

Answered as follows:
dhw: This does not in any way cancel out the illogicality of your theory as summarized above, or cancel out the logicality of my alternatives, or provide even the slightest justification for your assumption that although your God “very well could think like us”, he does not have any attributes in common with us and therefore does not think like us.

DAVID: God is a person like no other person and must be thought of that way, per Adler. Like Shapiro for you I have my experts who shape my thoughts. I'm sure He is just as logical as we are.

Again not an answer, but if anything it supports my proposal re God’s logic. If he is a person, he “very well could think like us”. I don’t think Adler meant that he is a person of flesh and blood, so what else could he have been referring to other than certain human attributes? But we are not infinite and eternal and sourceless and made of “pure energy” and all-knowing and capable of creating universes and micro-organisms and macro-organisms etc. etc. So yes indeed, I can well imagine that he is as logical as we are, which is why I have offered you several explanations of the history to show how our logic and his could be the same, and you have agreed. It is only your personal theory of evolution which demands that we should NOT “apply human reasoning to the actual history”!