More Miscellany: Bechly reappears (General)

by David Turell , Saturday, June 22, 2024, 18:32 (98 days ago) @ dhw

Oxidation

DAVID: No weird law, but simply an all-perfect God choosing the best way. You don't know how to think about God in true theological ways.

dhw: Please stop pretending that you and you alone know the “true” theological way. Go to any church, synagogue or mosque and inform the vicar, rabbi or imam that God certainly has no human attributes, and therefore certainly doesn’t love us, care for us, or want us to worship him. As for evolution, please tell us how many theologians you know who inform us that their God used an imperfect, inefficient method to produce us, having designed and had to cull 99.9 out of 100 life forms although he could have produced us "de novo".

Adler used Darwin's natural theory of evolution explicitly to prove God. He is a world-renowned philosopher of religion. In his mind God designed humans by my described evolution.

Black holes

DAVID: Your humanizing theories of God show your lack of theological instruction in this area of thought.

dhw: As above: If you preached your theories about God’s inefficiency and your certainty that he has no “human” attributes like love, or wanting to be worshipped, you would be laughed out of every church, synagogue and mosque in the world.

I don't follow what religions sell. You don't either.

Brain stem controls

DAVID: […] Our brain is not explainable by Darwin theory. Why? Based on survivability it is overkill. Apes and Chimps could easily have continued on their own without us barging in.

dhw: The complexities of the mouse brain are also unexplainable by Darwin’s theory of random mutations. But all its complexities have been passed on to us, which would seem to confirm Darwin’s theory of common descent. You have also confirmed that early sapiens would have used their brains primarily for survival. I have never disagreed that we have special gifts. I only disagree with your belief that your God must have specially dabbled them, and that we and our brains (plus our food) must have been his one and only purpose.

DAVID: I think we were His prime purpose.

dhw: Please tell us his other purposes - especially for designing the 99.9% of species unconnected with us.

Our food supply created by the 99.9% extinct, and the Earth's mineral resources for our use.

DAVID: Our very special brain proves it. The mouse brain cannot design commercial aircraft. It is only competent for mouse survival.

Nobody would claim that mice are as intelligent as humans. Yes, our brains are special. Now tell us why he also specially designed and had to cull the 99.9 out of 100.

Answered above and many times in the past.

Intelligence

dhw: You agree that solving problems, taking decisions etc. denote autonomous intelligence in our fellow animals. Thank you.

DAVID: I'm sure they have some simple solutions to simple challenges.

dhw: Excellent news: our fellow organisms have autonomous intelligence. So now it’s a matter of the degree of autonomous intelligence. For instance, how about ants?

Of course, individuals make decisions based on pheromones they sense.

DAVID (under “ant intelligence” which went off subject:): The issue remains, God is unknowable, but we can guess at His purposes from His creations.

dhw: And we can guess at his methods and his nature, and since nobody knows the truth, it is utterly absurd to pontificate that he is certainly not human in any way.

I didn't know you knew Him personally.