God and Reality (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Monday, June 24, 2013, 19:39 (3950 days ago) @ David Turell

David has argued that atheists propose theories about multiple universes in order to avoid the concept of design.-DAVID (Friday 21 June): I think we can suppose an infinite number of universes in past eternity if we presume first cause is eternal.-Dhw: My atheist scenario begins with the same fantasy as yours: an endless succession of universes throughout eternity. But instead of being created by a fantastic, conscious, first-cause energy in order to produce humans, they have been created by a fantastic non-conscious first-cause energy, and at least one out of an infinite number of them has produced life. Both fantasies offer fantastic explanations of what we observe, and they demonstrate how illogical it is to claim that atheists propose other universes in order to avoid the design theory, although you as a theist also believe that there must have been "an infinite number of universes"!
 
DAVID: Now instead of a multitude at once, you want a multitude in succession with the same atheistic result. The lucky one finally produced life. Hang out your ideas on a clothes line to dry and see which one the wind picks to blow up into something sensational. I see nothing of substance.-I could hardly have made it clearer that I regard both hypotheses as fantasies. I just want you to acknowledge that if you yourself believe in "an infinite number of universes" designed by a designer, you can hardly dismiss atheists' theories about an infinite number of universes as poppycock devised purely to avoid the design theory! -dhw: Giving it a name (God) doesn't explain where intelligence came from, or how it got into matter. It merely envelops the mystery of known intelligence in an even greater mystery of unknown intelligence. As for panpsychism, I did not invent it, and the expression "true panpsychism" is meaningless. Nobody knows the truth.-DAVID: Yes, we don't know where God came from or why He bothered to exist. One of those huge mysteries.
 
A huge mystery on a par with our not knowing where intelligence or consciousness came from. That is why your solution (God) is not a solution at all, but merely the substitution of one mystery for another.-DAVID: My 'true panpsychism' shorthand phrase meant 'the true definition of panpsychism'.-There is no 'true' definition of panpsychism, although all forms of it are based on the idea that there is a mental, or quasi-conscious aspect in all things. Some thinkers (like Whitehead) link the concept to a god, but others (like Nagel and Penrose) do not, and of course there are atheistic versions in Buddhism too.