Human evolution: Denisovan contribution (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 11, 2024, 17:59 (10 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: I view God as a mind at work. He knows all and can do anything He wishes.

dhw: If God exists, then I would find this feasible. That is why I have argued that he could have created an Eden (a world without evil) if he had wished, but you insist that he had no choice.

Of course no choice. All animals have to eat and they eat each other,

DAVID: He evolved humans for His own reasons, at which we must guess.

dhw: According to you he also designed every other species for His own reasons, and had to cull 99.9% of them because they were irrelevant to his one and only purpose. And you can’t even think of a single reason for this procedure, which is why you slate your God as an inefficient, messy, cumbersome designer.

I can't solve the conundrum of why God evolved us. He hasn't ever revealed His reasoning.

DAVID: All of them have been exposed in the past here and I believe they represent human wishes about/for God.

dhw: You have propose that your God wanted to create us in order that we should recognize him and worship him. That would be his wish, not ours.

Yes, but really our wish applied to Him.

DAVID: A natural free-for-all would not necessarily produce the human brain.

dhw: Very true. A natural free-for-all would not necessarily have produced dinosaurs, whales, ants or the duck-billed platypus either. Your God may have dabbled, or he may have been delighted at all the different, unexpected products of his invention.

An omniscient God expects all events. Stop humanizing God.

DAVID: As a most unusual result, it is a perfect object to use as a proof of God, as Adler did. dhw, as usual, finds reasons to avoid God in a direct way.

dhw: According to some ID-ers, the complexities of all life are enough to prove God’s existence. As for me, I have just offered you no less than three logical THEISTIC alternatives to your own totally irrational version of your God’s evolutionary purpose and method. For good measure, I added the atheist alternative. Stop pretending that my theistic alternatives “avoid” God. They avoid the insult that you throw at your God with your insistence that only you know his purpose and his inexplicably inefficient method of achieving the purpose you impose on him.

I've imposed nothing on God as you shape Him to conform to your image. I assume the universe and the evolution of life are a result of God's creations. Why He used evolution rather than direct creation is an unsolved question.