Natures wonders: ants and other insects farm (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, May 22, 2020, 19:59 (1644 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your answer still does not explain its meaning to me. I view God as letting some evolving processes proceed as they do, until He doesn't like the endpoint, such as giant animals which are simply variations within species.

dhw: You have opened the door to the possibility that your God could have set any evolved process in motion and let it continue unless he wished to dabble. That is precisely the theistic theory of evolution that I have been proposing for what seems like years. Of course you are free to pick and choose which processes you think these may be. And so am I. Even you agree that this offers a perfectly logical explanation for the ever-changing bush of life from bacteria through every life form that ever existed right up to present-day humans and their econiches. You just don’t like it.

Note I've limited this to changes within species, and never speciation on its own, which is what you wish could happen. Mo God speciates what He wants. That doesn't change.

DAVID: Our glaring difference is you never accept the degree of specialness I do, or its theological import. […]

dhw: Your usual escape route. I accept our specialness,

DAVID: But not to the degree I do, from which I conclude God's major purpose as Adler does. It is not an escape route, but the most major difference between us.

dhw: You have repeatedly concluded that we were God’s one and only purpose, and you continue to ignore (a) the fact that I have offered you two explanations of the bush which are based on this premise but which you reject because experimentation/having new ideas does not fit in with your concept of an all-powerful, all-knowing God, and (b) that you have “”no idea” why such a God would have specially designed 3.X billion years’ worth of non-human life forms and econiches before specially designing the only thing he wanted to design.

DAVID: This is a perfect example of distortion. My 'no idea' refers only to the fact that I don't question His choice of evolving humans from bacteria. I cannot know His reasons. I accept the history.

dhw: You ignore the history! I am questioning your insistence that he directly designed millions of non-human life forms etc., although the only thing he wanted to design was us. You constantly try to ignore the 3.X billion years of non-human history, and THAT is the “glaring difference” between us.

I'm not thinking as you distort my direct logic, which you accept when you admit God can evolve us any way He wants. We evolved from bacteria from 3.8 bya. God did it! You create a difference totally illogically. If God can choose his method, the 3.8 applies. Your complaint constantly adds up to why was God so patient?

DAVID: Your so-called theism is God-lite. And of course, I am trapped in using some humanizing terms because we don't have any others to employ. You complain about it, but you know that full well.

dhw: There is no such thing as “God-lite”. If God exists, he has just as much right, for instance, to create a mechanism that allows evolution to take its own course (but “stop it if he wishes”) as to hands-on dabble every species. I don’t complain about you using “humanizing” terms. I complain that you dismiss theories as “humanizing” although your own is no more and no less “humanizing” than those I offer, and your theory defies human logic whereas you admit that my alternatives don’t.

DAVID: Your God likes to watch humans as spectacles, remember? One memorable example of God-lite.

dhw: And not just humans – you see how you keep forgetting pre-human history. And why is such a theory lite? You also have him watching with interest! And when I ask you WHY he watches with interest, you come up with perfectly reasonable answers: he might enjoy his work like a painter enjoying his paintings, he wants us to admire his work, he wants a relationship with us. If he exists and he created us, as well as every other life form in history, he must have had a reason! But any reason will be “humanized”, so according to you, any reason will make him “lite”. If you want to tell us that he created us and every other life form for no reason, and that makes him a heavy God, of course you are free to do so.

All my guesses about God' reasons you asked for are just that. Neither of us can really investigate His thought processes, and all our guesses tend to humanize him. I prefer not to do that as it diminishes Him in my mind. And you can't know His reason. And yes, He must have had His reason, which religions try to tell us, but they are in the same boat as we. There are many other reasons to believe in God, besides what is on His mind. I'll stick with Adler: The odds of His direct interest in us is 50/50.