David's theory of evolution Part Two (Evolution)

by dhw, Tuesday, March 31, 2020, 11:05 (1696 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You have the ability to look back at all the many guesses I have politely given you in the past. Don't tell me I haven't guessed at God's reasons for you.

dhw: You have refused to guess why your God chose the method you impose on him for implementing the purpose you impose on him. You have consistently reiterated that you have no idea, that your theory is not illogical providing we do not apply human reasoning to the actual history, and you “cannot know or even try to know his reasoning behind the results I see.” The only guesses you have politely given me in the past are that your God may be interested in us, may want a relationship with us, may want us to admire his works, and may enjoy his works as a painter enjoys his paintings. None of these are an attempt to explain why, with his omnipotence and one-track-mindedness (H. sapiens is his only purpose), he chose to spend 3.X billion years not fulfilling his only purpose.

DAVID: I've given you a specific reason. God chose to create a huge bush of life to support 7.3 billion humans as they now exist, requiring a huge food supply, which shows why He created the huge bush first as a recognized requirement. He knew humans were coming in huge numbers. Your humanized God doesn't seem to know what will be created later.

99% of the huge bush has disappeared. It is patently absurd to argue that all those life forms, lifestyles, natural wonders, econiches had to be specially designed because they were “a recognized requirement” for your all-powerful God to be able to produce H. sapiens. Recognized by whom?

dhw: Why do you think that creating interesting things is purposeless and wishy-washy? Humanoid? Why do you think a God whose thought patterns and emotions and attributes are probably similar to ours (your words, not mine) cannot possibly have thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to ours?

Not answered.

DAVID: God's logic is like ours.

How do you know if you tell us we can’t and shouldn’t try to find his reasons for doing what you think he did?

DAVID: My concept of God is that He is very purposeful, so your humanizing view is beside the point. He is very direct in His creations, and 'creating interesting things' is beside the point.

As I keep repeating, I would also see God as being very purposeful. My “humanizing view” is not beside the point, since you agree that he probably has thought patterns like ours, and you can hardly say that the different theistic explanations I offer for evolution are beside the point, since that is the point we are discussing. If he is very direct in his creations, then it is not unreasonable to assume that he creates what he wants to create. That can only mean that he wanted to create the whole bush, or he wanted to create the mechanism that gave rise to the whole bush – whereas according to you, his one and only purpose was to create H. sapiens. “Creating interesting things” is beside what point? What IS your point? All I hear is that God’s sole purpose was to create H. sapiens, and you have no idea why he spent 3.X billion years not creating H. sapiens, but we mustn’t ask why because we can’t know his reasons.

DAVID: [….]you denigrate econiches all the time.

I don’t denigrate econiches! I keep pointing out that they are necessary for all forms of life, and when they change, life forms also change. This has absolutely nothing to do with the question of why your God would create billions of extinct non-human econiches if his sole purpose was to create humans (plus whatever econiches they needed)!

dhw: And no, I don’t wonder why God wasn’t impatient and didn’t get to us right away. I imagine God knowing exactly what he wanted. And so it is a logical conclusion that he wanted the whole bush, not just one twig or, if he really and truly only wanted one twig and didn’t produce it, then it is a logical conclusion that he was trying out different ways of getting it.

DAVID: The bold is your human conclusion ignoring what we know. God created the universe, evolved it; the earth, evolved it; created life and evolved it and then had to experiment! You think about God in bits and pieces of objections as to how I conceive of him as consistent.

Your interpretation of evolution is not consistent (an all-powerful God with one purpose, who spends 3.x billion years fulfilling anything but his one purpose). And you have yet to explain why your God created billions and billions of stars and solar systems extant and extinct if all he wanted was Planet Earth and H. sapiens.