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

by dhw, Tuesday, July 02, 2013, 17:36 (3944 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: [...] if eternal energy can produce one universe, it can produce an infinite series of who knows what kind of universes, leading to who knows what kinds of life and non-life? Their nature is irrelevant to my point that an infinite series of "single file universes" gives us an infinite number of potential lucky breaks for OUR universe. The argument for one lucky break is therefore plausible even if you and I don't believe it.-DAVID: Again you are at apples and oranges. I described a series of designer universes, each one fit for life. no lucky break. All we can know from science and history is First Cause (All That IS, God) is capable of starting a universe that allows life with consciousness to appear. We cannot drag any imagined reality beyond that observation.-Absolutely right. All we can know is that we are in a universe with life and consciousness (our own). But you drag your imagined reality as far as a conscious God who designed it. My brand of atheist drags his imagined reality as far as non-conscious energy which produced it. You can both extrapolate the possibility of an infinite number of past universes (maybe different, maybe similar ... it's the infinite number that matters to the atheist), and you each consider your own hypothesis to be more likely. Pots and kettles.-dhw: The first attribute you give your God is "a designer intelligence", i.e. it is conscious, and it plans (because no designer ever works without a plan), and it could hardly plan without having any purpose, and so your God ... according to the religion of David ... had the purpose of creating humans, but why did he want to create humans? Because he wanted to test their faith, to teach them the lessons of tough love (ah, God loves us). Are these attributes any different from OT Judaism?-DAVID: You are correct. Not really different. But interestingly, arrived at by studying science.
 
Interesting indeed, for a very different reason (see below).
 
dhw; A God without attributes may as well not exist. Why not emulate BBella, and call it the All That Is? It is there, and it produced the universe and life. No name. No attributes. The perfect agnostic solution. -DAVID: I don't see the agnosticism at all. See my response above. You are so bound to the God of the OT that you met in childhood you let that image muddle your thinking. Forget that God. Start on the same path I used. Just don't conjure up wooly ideas such as unorganized energy can evolve to invent consciousness.-An extraordinary non sequitur. You see yourself as a panentheist who does not endow God with any attributes, and yet in fact your God is the God of the OT! I offer you the ALL THAT IS without attributes, and you think I'm being muddled by the OT! The three "imagined realities" ... your eternal designer God full of readymade attributes, chance, my panpsychist hypothesis ... are ALL woolly, because they all come up against the unanswerable question of how consciousness arose. The muddled theist and atheist cling to their own woolly hypotheses and dismiss the others as woolly hypotheses, while the clear-thinking agnostic sees that they are all woolly hypotheses, and so remains neutral.