Natures wonders: ants and other insects farm (Introduction)

by dhw, Tuesday, May 26, 2020, 12:10 (1640 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: Yet again: yes, we agree that if he exists, he chose evolution. Yet again, we are not talking about his reason for choosing evolution. Yet again, I have no objections to the reasoning behind your choice of his purpose (we are special). And yet again, you ignore the bold! And yet again you ignore a logical explanation for that bold: namely, if he started out with the sole purpose of creating a special being who has thought patterns, emotions and attributes similar to his own, perhaps he needed to experiment in order to get it[/b]. Or – another perfectly logical hypothesis - life itself was a great experiment, and he hit on the idea of such a being late on in the process. You reject these logical explanations of the ever changing bush of life on the grounds that this does not conform to your personal image of God. (David’s bolds)

DAVID: You have hit exactly on the difference between us. Your very imagined humanized god is not my God in so many ways. The bolds show a God who is not sure of what He is doing and working it out as He goes. This defies all reason as I look at His creation of the universe, of the perfect Earth for life, starting complex life, and directing an ever-advancing evolutionary complexity to reach us.

I suppose I shouldn't ask again why you think he created billions of galaxies and solar systems extant and extinct when his sole purpose was Earth and H. sapiens.

DAVID: The last bold above ignores the advancing complexity which shows directionality of purpose. What I see is the vast difference. For you my God is unimaginable, and illogical. That is your lone perspective.

Your “directionality” consists of millions of extinct non-human life forms, some more complex than others – not to mention all the extinct individual lifestyles and natural wonders – all directed towards the design of H. sapiens, whom he could have designed any way he wanted! You simply refuse to recognize the fact that it is not your individual rigid beliefs that are illogical but the COMBINATION of the three. This pattern is repeated below in your response to the bolds:

dhw: You have a fixed view that he is all-powerful and always in control. I do not minimize the difference of our mental capacity – see above – and if he exists, I totally accept evolution as the process by which he has created all of reality. The gulf between us arises solely out of your three rigid beliefs (all-powerful God + single purpose (us) + direct design of millions of life forms unrelated to us) as bolded above. Each of these rigid beliefs is reasonable in itself. It is the COMBINATION which makes no sense and which you constantly try to avoid by focusing on just one at a time.

DAVID: It makes no sense to you as I describe above with you fixed mamby- pamby unsure of himself god. The two bolds show your confusion. First, you accept evolution by God and then below tell us the common descent is unrelated to us!

There is no fixed view: I offer alternatives. But I do not see experimentation, having new ideas, or the creation of an ever changing spectacle as “namby-pamby” or “unsure of himself”. I find the mixture of experimental scientist, inventor, creative artist worthy of a far more positive description. As for the bolds, you yourself have no idea why he chose to “evolve” (your term for directly design) the only species he wanted to design by first “evolving” (directly designing) anything but the only species he wanted to design. You accept all my alternative explanations of life’s history as being logical, and have even accepted the principle whereby he may set evolutionary processes in motion and let them continue, but you reject them all on the grounds that a God who probably has thought patterns similar to ours cannot possibly have thought patterns similar to ours.