A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Sunday, June 20, 2021, 09:37 (1251 days ago) @ David Turell

Transferred from “Miscellany”

DAVID: You describe how evolution happens and then complain about the mechanism. His method is evolving bacteria to human in stages.

dhw: My complaint is your constant attempts to dodge the fact that according to you his only purpose was to design humans and their lunch, and his “method” entailed individually designing millions of life forms, econiches, lifestyles, natural wonders and lunches that had no connection with humans.

DAVID: Again you describe evolution and claim God should not have done it that way, but He did.

“That way” is specially designing millions of life forms and lunches that had no connection with his purpose, as bolded above. I don’t say he shouldn’t have “done it” that way, and you certainly can’t say he did! That way is totally illogical, and therefore I propose alternative theistic explanations (see below) for ALL the life forms and lunches which we know exist/existed. You agree over and over again that these all fit in logically with the history of evolution.

DAVID: My total argument is from that position. No wonder you cannot accept belief in God with your line of reasoning. God, in charge of all creation, chose to evolve everything that ever existed with a goal of producing humans at the end.

You claim that he designed all 99% of non-human-related life forms etc. “as part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus lunch, as bolded above. I suggest that if he exists and his goal was humans, maybe he was experimenting, or maybe he didn’t start out with the goal of humans, or maybe he set out to create a free-for-all and see what it would produce. All these proposals are theistic and fit in logically with the history of evolution, as you agree. Please stop hiding behind my agnosticism as if that gave any sort of credence to the illogical theory which you like to state as if it were a fact.

DAVID: What is logical is my accepting God's works, of which evolution is one. I can't ask Him why He chose to evolve us, but it is my assumption He did.

dhw: And it is your assumption that he also individually designed millions of other life forms and their lunches etc. which had no connection with humans, but you can’t ask him why he did so although his one and only purpose was to design us and our lunch. You just have to accept that you have no idea why he would choose such a method to fulfil such a purpose, and you expect others to accept it too.

DAVID: I can't help you with my God. I simply accept His works. You question His existence.

Another of your dead-end escape routes, when you know perfectly well that all my alternative explanations of evolution allow for the existence of God. You do not “simply accept his works”. You have determined that he had one purpose etc., as bolded above. Please stop pretending that my agnosticism justifies the illogicality of your theory.

DAVID: God does not have human desires [...]

dhw: […] how do you know that we do not have desires similar to your God's?

DAVID: How do you know we do?

dhw: I don’t. That is why I offer alternative theories to explain the course of evolution. You reject all my alternatives as if you knew God’s nature: “God does not have human desires.” Your personal beliefs, stated as if they were facts, do not offer any reason at all for rejecting logical alternatives to your own illogical theories about his nature, purposes and methods.

DAVID: Your humanized God always appears to lack purpose. An unguided free-for-all 'on purpose', by definition, has no idea where it will end up. Where is the purposeful result of an evolutionary process headed somewhere by free-for-all?

Back you go to your other escape route – God only has the humanizing aspects you allow him to have (always in control, single-minded, always has good intentions), but he can’t have any that I propose. You have ignored my previous answer to your objection to a free-for-all, so here we go again. The basis would be your God’s love of creation (which you admit) and his interest in what he has created (which you admit). The proposal is that his purpose in creating would therefore be to provide himself with things that would interest him. And, following your analogy of the creative process, it is far more interesting to create something unpredictable than to know exactly what is coming next. Hence the free-for-all. For all we know, of course, the free-for-all itself might turn out to have a perfectly logical ending – though I have to say, the only one I can envisage is pretty horrifying!