Return to David's theory of evolution (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, September 22, 2022, 16:09 (791 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: We cannot know how God thinks. We can imagine it is like how we do it. That is where you are wrong.

dhw: There seems to be no point in any discussion about your God, since apparently our words might not mean what we both think they mean.

We must understand God may see things in a totally different viewpoint.

DAVID: In regard to 'control', in my view it relates to how purposeful God is. As before I view God as directly creating with no self-interest or reflection involved. You can try to make my God human as we must use human terms, but I see Him only in non-human terms, again, allegorically.

dhw: I don’t know what you mean by reflection here,

I implied self-reflection.

dhw: or what the word “control” symbolizes (“allegorically”), but in any case if the term "self-interest” might not mean the same to God as it means to us, what is the point of even mentioning it? You “cannot know how God thinks”, so your statement is as human and – according to your approach – as pointless as my support for your certainty that God enjoys creating and is interested in his creations. You are making nonsense of all discussion and all language.

We must use human terms as we describe God's possible thoughts or actions. What you can't seem to remember, I view God as a personage like no other person.

DAVID: How to think about God is one side of the coin. How you imagine God is the other side, related but very different. I think you are mixing it up.

dhw: How can any human being tell us how to think about or imagine God? Why is your belief that God wants total control and has no self-interest (a) not human, and (b) the right way to think about/imagine God?

Read Adler's book. As a respected philosopher of religion his thinking must hold weight.

DAVID: God, as creator, had a purpose for everything He made appear!!

dhw: Of course he did, but that does not mean that he purposefully designed every single life form and ecosystem!

DAVID: A total non-sequitur. Either He designs everything, or He doesn't. Which is it?

dhw: We don’t know.

You don't know, and your retraction shows your view of God is a muddle of yes He designs and no He doesn't, so some ecosystems just arrived on their own!

dhw: He may have wanted a free-for-all, and so by giving cells autonomous intelligence he would have got what he wanted. He may have wanted to create a being who would recognize him and admire his work (your terms) and may have experimented in order to get what he wanted – that is also purposeful. Or he may have set out as some humans do, to see where different experiments might lead him, and eventually have come up with a great idea: humans. Again, this is purposeful. But it doesn’t fit in with your idea of a God who knows everything and is always in full control (which is not an allegory).

DAVID: Of course, it doesn't. Purposeful at a human level of desire.

dhw:b If we “cannot know how God thinks”, how can you possibly know that he knows everything and wants and always has full control? Yes, “we can imagine it is like how we do it”, and since we cannot “know” the truth, what grounds can you possibly have for imagining that his purposefulness does NOT relate to one or other of the above theories, all of which – unlike your own “imagining” - provide a logical explanation for the history of evolution?

Ny analysis is not yours.

DAVID: You can't know God's reasoning any more than I can. WE can only analyze what HE produced.

dhw: Correct. And your analysis has produced theories that make no sense to you.[…]

DAVID: I don't need to know His reasoning!!! And no one can know it.

dhw: So please stop telling us that his one and only purpose was to design us and our food, that he wanted and had full control, that he designed every life form and econiche, and all those that did not lead to us and our food were an “absolute requirement” for us and our food, although this theory makes sense only to God (i.e. not to you), but you will stick to it and reject any alternative theory that does make sense because you can’t know how he thinks or reasons!

My analysis comes from the concept of an all-powerful God who knows exactly what He wants to do and does it. A marked concept from your very humanized God who changes course, has to experiment and loves to enjoy free-for-alls.