Let's study ID: giraffe plumbing: cognition; A new answer (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 15, 2021, 14:51 (885 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your confusion is amazing. These statements simply recognize that different previous time periods differ from the present, nothing more.

dhw: They are an acknowledgement that there is no connection between the food bushes of the past and the food bush of the present, which makes it absurd to argue that the food bushes of the present were “prepared for” by the food bushes of the past.

Of course they are different time intervals, but the organisms of the past become the organisms of the present. Past bushes evolve into present bushes. Evolution is a continuum.

DAVID (responding later to the same problem): The obvious answer which confuses you is God chose to create humans by a stepwise design process that mimics Darwin's natural evolution.

dhw: That simply adds to the illogicality, since you also believe that your God is capable of designing species with no “stepwise” precursors (Cambrian). If I ask why God would have chosen to design humans “stepwise” if he was perfectly capable of designing us directly, it is not an answer to tell me that he chose to design us stepwise! Your theory remains as illogical as ever.

Again you are simply criticizing God's choice of method. How do you know God could or wished to create us directly?

DAVID: we debate from the positions of belief in God and a non-belief in God.

dhw: That is another of your absurd dodges, since all the alternative theories I have offered you are theistic.

Just your desired form of theism in whi ch God is very humanized.

DAVID: Your constant complaint is God's actions in evolution are illogical to you. You are comparing your human logic to God's logic and finding fault with His.

dhw: Wrong. I am finding fault with your logic.

Which I don't understand and simply view as you criticizing god.

DAVID: God has His own reasons for evolving us by designed stages from bacteria. Since I believe God created all of history in making this reality, I find no reason to question the history He created.

dhw: If he exists, the history he created was of countless species coming and going, with humans as the last to appear. It is NOT history to say that we were his only purpose, and it is NOT history to say that he individually designed every life form etc.

It is my belief God is the designer of all reality. As for purpose, we go back to Adler's argument, previously presented over and over.

DAVID: You start from a position of no God at all, and then step in to try and interpret a God's actions.

dhw:I start from a position of life’s history and an assumption that God does exist, as this discussion does not concern his existence but his possible purpose for creating life, and his possible methods of achieving his purpose.

DAVID: My only interpretation of God's history is to follow Adler's approach, that we are so unusual a result from evolution, we must have been intended to appear by God. And in that way our appearance is a proof of God, since we cannot be the result of a natural process.

dhw: The subject is not God’s existence, but if he exists, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that whatever happened was his intention. You tell us that Adler does not cover your theory of evolution as bolded above, so I don’t know why you keep bringing him into your defence of it.

Adler's view is fully known to you. Human uniqueness shows God's purpose and is a proof of God.

DAVID: But that doesn't make you backtrack from your constant illogical complaining about God's logic that you call illogical.

dhw: I have never once dared to criticize your God’s logic, and have gone out of my way to offer you logical ALTERNATIVE interpretations of his purpose and methods. You accept that they are logical, but reject them because they entail human patterns of thought, although you agree that he may have human patterns of thought. It is only your interpretation of his purpose and methods that leaves you floundering, as you have no idea why he would have chosen it. And yet you still insist that you know your God’s mind, and your illogical theory is HIS logic!

I'm not floundering in a position of believing God, the Creator, creates what He wants when He wants in the method He wants.