David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, March 14, 2020, 12:43 (1713 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: Only your illogical naturalism instead of God approach. But I forget, you sometimes throw in a little faux theism in that weird idea of a God, without much purpose, who lets organisms do their own thing.

dhw: It is none of the above! You refuse to look for reasons whenever I question the logic of your theories, and you try to divert attention by trivializing or distorting alternative explanations. My naturalism and “do their own thing” is not instead of God but allows for him to be the creator of the mechanisms, is not faux theism, is not “without much purpose”, and is no weirder than the God of your theory of evolution, who can think like us and is logical like us, except that he doesn’t think like us and we can’t understand his logic.

DAVID: Your usual distortions of my statements. I don't try to understand His reasons behind His creations. You don't understand my concept of God, and of course everything about God is illogical to you because my God is not humanized and yours is, which leads to your constant confusion.

You don’t try to find any logic behind your illogical interpretation of the facts. You claim that God thinks logically like us, and I offer you alternative explanations of the facts in which your God would be thinking logically like us. Your sole objection is that although your God probably has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours, these logical explanations endow him with thought patterns, emotions and/or attributes similar to ours. And you think I'm confused!

DAVID: […] My conclusions are entirely logical to me. […]

QUOTES from your own posts: “Nothing illogical required if one does not apply human reasoning to the actual history.”
“You try to make God logical to fit your human thinking. It doesn’t work.”
“Haven’t you realized by now, I have no idea why God chose to evolve humans over time?”
“I do not try to analyze His reasons for His purposes, as sheer guesses.”

dhw: Yes, I have trouble seeing your logic, because it consists solely in telling me that as humans beings we can’t possibly find a logical explanation for what you believe to be your God’s purpose and method.

DAVID: It has nothing to do with a logical explanation. We can create ones that seem logical, but prove nothing concrete.

Nobody on this planet can prove anything concrete when it comes to the existence, purposes, nature and methods of your God.

DAVID: It is an acceptance that we certainly can identify a purpose, as Adler does by describing our unique result from evolution. I totally accept the proposition that the uniqueness defines God's purpose, but in no way tells us why He made that determination.

I keep agreeing that our special powers make us unique, that our complexity - and that of all living things - can be used as evidence for God’s existence, and that we may indeed be part of God’s purpose in creating life. But for you, purpose begins and ends with the creation of H. sapiens! You refuse to discuss what might have been his purpose in creating the whole of life’s bush including us (except that the bush was designed to cover the time before he designed us), and your excuse is that that would “humanize” God (though God probably has thought patterns like ours). What is the point in hammering home God’s purposefulness if you then refuse to discuss what his purpose(s) might be?

DAVID: You and I have made all sorts of proposals of God's thought patterns. They are all fun guesses to create and you love to think of all possibilities ad nauseum while never concluding anything. […] If, as you have admitted, we really cannot know His reasoning, what is the purpose in trying to guess? Fun and games? Nothing is ever proven. Nothing with so-called logic may be correct.

Then you might as well ask what is the purpose of this forum, of your books, and of every book that was ever written on the subject of God’s existence, nature etc. and the origin of the universe and of life itself (bearing in mind that even if the big bang theory is true, which itself is open to discussion, we cannot know what existed before it)? But I will give you an answer: even though we can never “know” the objective truth, unless there is an afterlife in which there is a God who tells us, it is integral to and admirable of the human spirit to ask questions and look for answers. This very spirit has led to astonishing discoveries that enrich people’s lives through science and technology, but in our case – through this little forum – there are no such benefits except for the immense personal satisfaction of joining each other in a friendly quest for the unattainable. “Fun and games”? The terms apply as much to your theories as to mine, if that’s what you want to call them. But I’m sure that your motives in writing your books and in joining this forum – and my motives in setting it up in the first place – were not quite as frivolous and as pointless as those terms suggest.