Reading God\'s mind (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Tuesday, December 18, 2012, 21:24 (4356 days ago)

Dhw (under Chimp vs Human Brain): Yes, we are unique, but even if we ignore the chance hypothesis, our presence could derive from any one of the three alternative hypotheses I offered you (God having fun, God experimenting, God leaving the mechanism to sort itself out), each of which is just as likely/unlikely as your single hypothesis that this was God's plan from the beginning. The latter in fact leads to a major question, which I will ask you next time if you really do insist on this single, narrow viewpoint!-DAVID: The whole history we see smells of purpose and nothing else. An inorganic universe creating consciousness. No way. A universe that appears and the mathematician/cosmologists admit it was an origin. What is the first cause? Life appears, only God knows how; then multicellularity, when bacteria have continued successfully since the beginning. The Cambrian Explosion with no evolutionary precursors. You know the drill.-I do indeed. An inorganic universe creating consciousness? Impossible. Consciousness simply being there for ever and ever? Ah yes, that's fine. Well, your sense of smell may be more acute than mine, but even if I agreed with you that God created the universe, I would still not understand why you insist that humans were his ultimate goal from the very start. You have ignored the alternative hypotheses above. But I think we should move on, which is why I'm starting a new thread.
 
In the light of your understanding of God's mind, here are two questions for you, instead of the one I promised:-1) If God's intention in creating life was to create humans, what do you think was his intention in creating humans?
2) If the Big Bang was the beginning of our universe, but God is an eternal, self-aware energy, what do you think he would have been doing with himself in the eternity before he organized the Big Bang?