Posts by deegee

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

kepler,

"That we exist at all suggests a greater purpose. If there isn't any readily apparent, then perhaps it is part of the plan to make it so via our minds and hearts."

Is there a good reason for God to create us, or any other beings including angels for that matter?

Here is one answer:

"Think about this, you are a super powerful being and you want, for some reason, to create a bunch of people who are way less powerful than you, in order to have a relationship with you. But you really want them to love you for who you are and not just because you created them.

In order to achieve this, you are going to give these people free choice, but you’re also going to create the mind that they’re going to make those free choices with. I would like to examine for a moment God’s motivations for doing what he is supposed to have done in the Christian story.

All alone outside the universe

Firstly we must suppose that God wants to create people, that is, some other sentient beings in order to have a relationship with. So why would God want to do this? Apparently God is perfectly self-contained, he doesn’t have any needs and is supposedly perfectly happy just the way that he is. So it is very difficult to see what motivation God would have for actually creating any other creatures.

Christians will typically respond that God had so much love that he wanted to create some beings in order to share that love and have it reciprocated. But how could God actually have love in the sense of relational love? If God is unchanging then he already has the maximum amount of love that he can have. To change the status of beings within the Godverse (universe doesn’t really apply because the universe didn’t exist at this stage) would be to change the nature of God himself.

If you are clever you may be thinking that God understood relational love because the godhead consists of three persons (father, son and holy spirit). But again I respond that if God is in fact three persons contained within one godhead, what need does he have for any more love or relationship.

The godhead should be perfectly happy in its three person love relationship. If God is the perfection of all things then the existence of the three persons of the godhead provides the maximal amount of relational love possible in any possible universe. By attempting to add more creatures it creates an infinity plus one type of situation. There is absolutely no reason to think that a perfectly self-contained godhead would have any desire to create more beings.

Moving down the chain, and now presuming that for some odd reason this perfect godhead wants to create more beings we arrive at the next point. God had already created sentient beings before humanity. It is clear from Scripture that some time before creating human beings God had already created angels. Ah yes you say, but angels don’t have free will and God wanted to create someone with free will in order to have a relationship with.

However, it is crystal clear from Scripture that angels do have free will. Lucifer (Satan) was an angel who chose to rebel against God and was kicked out of heaven, apparently along with a great many other angels who also rebelled with him. If you don’t have free will you can’t rebel. So the idea that God had to create human beings in order to have a free will creature to have a relationship with is false.

My Best Friend the Worm

So now let’s presume that God was not satisfied with his own company, nor the company of angels, many of whom apparently didn’t seem to like him very much for some reason. What kind of friend do we think God would make for himself? Let’s bring this down to human level so that we can make a comparison. If you wanted to make a friend that you could love, and who could love you back what would you make? Let’s provide some options:

a human being
a dog
a worm

Now I know that many of you will choose the dog. The dog is loyal, the dog is kind of loving and the dog has a certain kind of intelligence. But at the end of the day the dog is a pet. The dog is not an equal, we can’t converse with it (at least not in any meaningful way) and we can’t have an intelligent relationship with it. Sure, we can have a kind of relationship with it which involves a certain type of love, but it will not be at the same level that we are used to. So if we already experienced perfect love, as God does, what would be the point of this? Of the remaining two options it should hopefully be apparent.

A relationship with a worm is no relationship at all. It might be mildly entertaining for a few minutes to play with a worm, but there is never a hope of ever having any kind of meaningful relationship with it. You would have to be mentally ill to have a worm as your best friend. Of course the only real answer is another human being. Another human being is the only creature that is on the same level as you intellectually (although this varies from person to person), emotionally (ditto) and physiologically. If we want to have a meaningful relationship as a human being, we seek out the company of other human beings. This is why there is no human to donkey tinder (dating website) - According to the Genesis story, Adam could not find a suitable mate among the animals.

Now that we have a benchmark, let’s move this concept back to God. If God wanted to have a meaningful relationship with another creature what type of creature should he be aiming to have a relationship with? The answer of course is God, or of the genus God to be more specific. God already had this relationship, as has already been referred to, all persons of the godhead are God. So if God wanted to have an equal, balanced and fair relationship where he could both love and be loved by the other and interact with them on an equal intellectual and emotional level, he would have to create another God.

So, when God created us what did he create? From his perspective God created a worm, actually less than a worm! As Christians will recite again and again, God is so much higher than we are that we are worth absolutely nothing in comparison. God is everything and we are nothing. We don’t even come close to dog-hood in this equation. We are not even qualified to be the pets of God. So now that we have confirmed that as compared to God we are far less than a worm, probably infinitely less worthy than a worm, what does this say about God? God apparently did not want to have a relationship with an equal but with a minuscule creature who could not even begin to compete with him intellectually, emotionally or in any other way.

In order to have an equal relationship God would have had to create us as Gods. But God seems threatened by the idea of creating another God or Gods. And this is remarkably odd. If God was creating other versions of himself in order to have a relationship with he could be assured that they were good. They are after all going to be of the genus God and carry all of his inherent traits.

There is absolutely zero risk for God to create other Gods of the same kind. This of course presumes that he could do that, and that regresses into a never-ending loop of arguments regarding God’s power and nature. But the bottom line is this, why would God create a worm to have a relationship with? It makes no sense! The idea that God would create us makes no sense at all. Did God just want a creature that he could dominate and exert his will over? If this is the case then God is not good. But what other reason could it be? We can’t return anything meaningful on an intellectual or emotional level. God is spirit and we are flesh and bone so we can’t relate in a physiological way. In Scripture God demands our praises, we are commanded to worship him.

Perhaps this betrays his real motivation, does he just want plebs and sycophants to fawn all over him? Maybe God didn’t create us for relationship at all, perhaps he just wanted to create some creatures inside a universe to see what would happen. But that would make him a Deist God, not a personal God. Or perhaps I am just exposing the flawed reasoning of the humans who made it all up.

The conclusion seems pretty obvious. There is no good reason for God to create us, or any other beings including angels for that matter. But there is one exception. If God was evil he might want to create us as a subclass that he can manipulate and torment. A people with no ability to affect our own destiny who are entirely subjugated by this intergalactic bully. That is actually the only answer that makes sense if we want to presume that God created us. So the choice is yours, evil God or no God at all."

https://thoughtcontrol.wordpress.com/various-musings/why-us/

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

kepler,

"Where did that come from?
And given that, is human kind the apex of such evolutionary counter enthropic flowdown?
Could there be other examples elsewhere?
Could it flow down from a higher source?
Can something out there even beyond time and space have a similar sense of conscientiousness but orders of magnitude higher, one that permeates creation and beyond it?
That we exist at all suggests a greater purpose. If there isn't any readily apparent, then perhaps it is part of the plan to make it so via our minds and hearts."

What if a cataclysmic destruction did not destroy the dinosaurs en masse? What would be the answers to these questions then?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

kepler,

"Why is it possible for us to think and have conscientiousness? Has that aspect of existence been revealed to us by natural science or physical law?"

Good question.

What is known so far is that consciousness is impacted/altered when persons experience brain injury or neurological disorders.

Brain injury and neurological disorders prove that consciousness is fundamentally a physical phenomenon and that the brain mediates and controls all aspects of consciousness; every part of the mind is entirely dependent on and controlled by the brain.

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

John_Mann,

OTHER UNANSWERED QUESTIONS from before:

"It's a personal axiom (I'd experienced a paranormal event)."

Can you specifically tell when it is the unconscious dynamics of your mind at work versus when God is communicating with you?

Can you make a clear distinction between these two things? If so, how exactly are you able to make this distinction?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

John_Mann,

ONCE AGAIN, my unanswered questions from before:

"Our physical bodies and some features of our minds came to existence through natural laws.
Only our immortal soul was made to be an image of God.
Natural disasters are inevitable consequences of natural laws. And natural laws are necessary in a world that harbors free-willed agents limited in a physical world.
Evil can only be isolated (and even this is only possible by ceasing free-will). That's why Hell must exist. And that's why there's no free-will in Heaven.
Evil is inevitable and necessary in all possible worlds."

If God supposedly can create a dimension of existence (Heaven, the afterlife according to you) to be free from:

1. The evidence would not show beyond all doubt that the diversity of life rested on millions of years of relentless competition, death and destruction. Life would not have been all but wiped out in mass extinctions at least five times in its history.

2. The predominant economy in the natural world would not be parasitic and predatory. The world really would show the loving qualities of its maker without having to ignore the majority of the facts.

7.Natural disasters would not kill millions of earth's inhabitants. The planet would not be designed to destroy life.

- Why couldn't he do similarly for the physical/natural world?

- What's the point of creating a physical/natural world where 1, 2 & 7 exist if there is another dimension in which they do not exist?

- What does God get out of having these two dimensions of existence which have starkly different characteristics?

- If you had the option to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do not exist versus the option
to create a dimension in which 1, 2 & 7 do exist, which option would you chose and why?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

John_Mann,

"Evil can only be isolated (and even this is only possible by ceasing free-will).
Evil is inevitable and necessary in all possible worlds."

You have claimed that we currently live in a world which is fallen and full of evil precisely because it is the only environment in which God can allow us to exercise our free will. But it is clear from the story of Satan that this is inaccurate.

Satan was able to exercise free will in heaven, which is supposed to be a place of perfection directly in God’s presence. If this is the case then there exists a possible world (heaven) in which there is free will but also NO EVIL.

This debunks your claim that God has to allow evil to exist in order to make room for human free will.

Also, clearly according to this particular passage God could have created a world in which there was room for BOTH free will and the complete absence of evil.

This is incredibly important.
If God could indeed create a world which is both perfectly good but also provides the environment for free will to exist, then why didn’t he do that with us?

If there is indeed a possible world in which there is both free will and no evil then why did God not place us in that world?

Following on from all of the above, it is clear that free will is not of any importance to God as you claim, so, can you please therefore explain where evil came from without employing any arguments from free will?

496

This is What I Would Need in Order to Believe

by cofty in

sometimes theists challenge atheists about what evidence would be required before they would believe.

various unlikely scenarios are offered in reply.

i have taken the bait myself in the past.. i think the correct answer is much more ordinary.

deegee

John_Mann,

"God cannot totally reveal Himself because this act would destroy the free-will of humans. This happens immediately at the hour of death of every human being."

I think not since Satan proved otherwise.

Satan did exercise his free will and sin against God in God's direct presence, clearly showing us that it is possible for someone to be in God’s direct presence and still have the free will to sin.

This debunks your claim that people cannot have free will while in the presence of God.

Also, Satan committed evil in a place in which there is supposed to be no evil, right in the presence of God. If indeed Satan, an awesomely perfect creature, can sin and rebel against God while in heaven, what hope do mere human beings have of not doing the same?

So according to what we understand from the devil, human beings should be able to arrive in heaven and still sin.
This means that a person can arrive in heaven, commit a sin and God will then condemn them to eternal death. Eventually, we should expect that everybody will end up in hell.

ALSO,
If God values free will right up until the point of death when he simply removes free will, it doesn’t make any sense for God to create a world in which we have free will.

Think about this chronologically. A person is going to live for eternity, without time. But a person is going to live in this world for approximately seventy years if they are lucky.

So human beings are going to spend a period of time which does not even count as a spec in the ocean of eternity having free will. The rest of the time they will not have any free will. How can it be then that God values free will so highly? It is not logical.