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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, 13:33 (1006 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You've just thrown out God. My view of evolution is totally different with God running it and survival plays no role.

dhw: Of course I haven’t thrown out God! What makes you think that God can’t design adaptations and innovations in order to improve organisms’ chances of survival? If that is not their purpose, then what is?

DAVID: Still no real response to my point. The purpose of ever-complex stages of organisms from a bacterial start is to finally design fully thinking humans. Individual survival serves that real purpose, but makes no direct contribution to evolution as a process.

So God only wanted to design humans plus lunch and therefore designed all the other organisms and their lunches, most of which had nothing to do with humans. And the fact that evolutionary adaptations and innovations enable organisms to survive, and lead to new species, shows us that survival makes no direct contribution to evolution.

Venus sea sponge
DAVID: Your common sense is not proof. The Venus sponge may well have come from simpler designs.

dhw: Thank you for this concession, which I find vastly more believable than your “de novo creation” theory. Nothing is “proven”, but if you think it unlikely that a more efficient organ/organism is likely to supplant its less efficient ancestor, then do tell us why.

DAVID: I don't. Evolution is an advance to more efficient forms by God's design.

And so more efficient forms do NOT replace less efficient forms. The less efficient forms just happen to die out. Sheer coincidence!

Theodicy: bad bacteria seen differently
DAVID: As a physician I was trained as a scientist to fairly evaluate scientific papers. I know you accept the design argument, the one thing I know that keeps you agnostic.

dhw: Then will you please stop pretending that I don’t. And please note that I also include psychic experiences. And I’m sure all scientists see themselves as “fairly” evaluating scientific papers, including folk like Dawkins who reach diametrically opposite conclusions from yours.

DAVID: And Egnor who agrees with me, or me with him. 40% of physicians are believers.

So 60% aren’t, which makes it absurd for you to use your “fair evaluation” of science as a support for your minority views.

DAVID: I accept that God is the designer, which then allows me to propose His purposes, the chief of which is to produce us. This is so divergent from your conclusions, we will continue to discuss our disagreements.

dhw: You have always insisted that producing us was his only purpose, though you qualify that by saying that everything else was designed to be our food, including all the extinct branches that had no connection with us and our food. Yes, we will continue to discuss our disagreements over the purposes and nature of a possible God, even though your new dodge is to claim that any concept of God that differs from yours comes under the category of atheism.

DAVID: Most of your beliefs fit atheism , as I view them. I know your belief problems include NDE's.

Then you have no idea what agnosticism is all about. I do not have beliefs as regards God’s existence or nature or purpose. I offer different theories. I find those concerning a first cause equally unsatisfactory. As regards NDEs, they are not the only psychic experiences people can have. There is a wide range, and even allowing for fraud and for self-deception, I take some of them extremely seriously.