David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by David Turell , Friday, January 31, 2020, 21:15 (1756 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I wouldn't have proposed my theory if it did not make perfect logical sense to me. I'm sorry you cannot see it, but that is because you constantly humanize God's thoughts. You complaint is really a version of I can't think clearly and only you can.

dhw: What you call “humanizing” plays its role in my alternatives, but not in my criticism of your own theory. I keep asking you to explain logically why you think your God – who apparently had only one purpose (H. sapiens) and could have achieved it any way he wanted – chose to wait 3.X billion years and spent them designing millions of other life forms, natural wonders etc. to cover the time before fulfilling his one purpose. Your responses to date have been that you have no idea why he chose that method, the method is not illogical “if one does not apply human reasoning to the actual history”, or we can’t know God’s reasons for doing what you believe he did. Of course we can’t “know” anything, but how does that make your belief “perfectly logical” to you if you can’t find an explanation? And why do you consider it to be illogical that if your God created or facilitated the vast variety of life that preceded H. sapiens, he might actually have wanted to create or facilitate it as a purpose in itself, not an "interim goal"?

Same old repetitive mantra, misusing using my statements out of context. God had the perfect right to chose to evolve humans over time, since I view Him as in total charge of all events, as you note above, but use it as to question the choice. Totally humanizing: why did He wait if He didn't have to. I cannot know His reasons for that choice, but we know that was His choice as events attest.

DAVID: All Adler establishes is God's purpose in evolving humans, which I fully accept. From that point on it is then my logic which is to propose how God might have conducted His work, which as you suggest, might be direct or indirect. Of course they are only logical suggestions….

dhw: You have no logical suggestion to explain the great gap in reasoning described above. And why do you persistently reject the possibility that your assumptions are wrong when there are alternatives which make perfect sense, as you admit? “Humanizing” is your mantra, but you have agreed that your God 1)“very well could think like us” and 2) “probably does have some of our attributes”. This admission gives at least as much justification to a “humanizing” theory as to a theory which requires suspension of human reasoning.

No admission as you try to contrive it. Bold #1 means God uses logic much as we do, nothing more. Bold #2 means He and we probably have similar thought patterns and emotions beyond just simple logical thought. But I cannot know why He chose to delay the appearance of humans over 3.8 billion years. You can continue to use human reasoning and apply it to Him. I won't.

DAVID: ….just like your humanized thoughts God might have had. But I see the complexity of design, as you admit you do, and know a designer is absolutely needed. You find that difficult to swallow and steadfastly perch on your agnostic fence, I guess with your designer, whoever He might be.

dhw: That part of your belief is perfectly logical, and I have never said otherwise.

DAVID: But to balance yourself on the fence there are always two other possibilities: God showed organism how to do complex designs by themselves *(God lite, but really no more than God 'sort-of'), or magically, Shapiro to the rescue, cell committees can do it all by themselves (no God ever needed). Covered all the bases, no logic required. Just a painful sort of balance. Is agnosticism logical, or a preference?

dhw: God showing organisms how to do it is your dabbling theory – special lessons in nest-building for weaverbirds etc., though his only purpose is to design H. sapiens. My concept of intelligent cell communities and Shapiro’s “natural genetic engineering” leave the origin of that intelligence wide open, and the origin is a totally different subject. I have deliberately stayed within your own theistic framework during this whole discussion of your illogical theory, and the fact that you do not believe your God would create a system in which he enabled organisms to do their own designing does not entitle you to assume that the theory is atheistic. It simply doesn’t conform to your fixed image of your God and his way of thinking.

We remain far apart in our view of how God operates. You agree that design is obvious but give lip service to God as the designer, when it is logical that a designer is required. My 'fixed' image exactly conforms to Adler's rule as to how to think about Him.