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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 06, 2021, 09:02 (1235 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: As usual I propose the results of my God's personality and you propose yours. Note I have accepted your theories for your humanized God but only in that context.

dhw: In what context? I have proposed logical theistic theories to explain the history of life, and these entail human thought patterns that are different from the human thought patterns that underlie your own illogical theory.

DAVID: The context is your imagined humanized God.

The context is our efforts to explain a possible God’s motives and method for the creation of life and evolution. Neither of us can do more than ”imagine” what these might be, and any explanation must inevitably involve the attribution of human thought patterns to this possible God. You are “sure we mimic him in many ways”, so it is a question of which ways – not a question of whether there ARE any ways. You accept the logic of all my alternative theories, and you cannot find any logical pattern in your own theory. If we assume that God acts logically, that should be sufficient to create doubts about your theory.

dhw: You have just agreed that all my theories logically explain “all of our reality”, i.e. the whole “history of the processes” of evolution, whereas you admit that your own theory does NOT explain the whole history: “I can’t answer why he chose that method”. You are a “non-acceptor” of the whole history, which contradicts your personal interpretation of “what God wanted to exist”.

DAVID: What an odd off-point response! His reason for creating history is NOT THE HISTORY itself!!!

But you refuse to consider the whole history in your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method. That is why (see next item below) you constantly harp on your God’s decision to “evolve” (= design) humans plus lunch from bacteria, and you leave out or gloss over the fact that in your theory he also took the decision to “evolve” (= design) every other life form plus lunch, although 99% of them had no connection with humans.

Privileged planet
DAVID: The only way to evolve humans from bacteria seems the one that we are shown from God's created history of evolution. And all living matter requires daily lunch, which you don't seem to worry about, but I'll bet you had yours.

dhw: We agree that all organisms, including humans, evolved from bacteria. Firstly, that does not mean that your God individually designed each organism. Secondly, it does not mean that he did so for the sole purpose of designing humans. Thirdly, the fact that all living matter requires lunch does not mean that your God designed all living matter plus lunch “as part of the goal of evolving [= designing] humans” plus our lunch. Please stop dodging.

DAVID: Your dodge is you accept nothing, and question everything but that is your right. It seems I have no right to arrive at a belief which you call dodging.

My approach is not a dodge. I accept the theory of evolution, and I try to find possible explanations for how it works. As an agnostic, I also include the possibility of your God as the creator of the whole process. My different explanations are the very opposite of dodging, whereas your defence of your own theory constantly sees you ignoring the WHOLE history of life, and focusing solely on humans and their lunch. When you do consider the WHOLE history, you are forced to admit that you cannot explain it in terms of your interpretation of your God’s purpose and method. That should be the end of the discussion.