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

by dhw, Monday, July 01, 2013, 13:49 (4162 days ago) @ David Turell

Dhw: Yes, atheists need it [an infinite number of universes] and you don't. Instead you "need" your eternal, hidden, tough love God to explain your own view of the universe, which atheists would dismiss as an invention "from thin air" because you need "the hope and the hype". The fact that people need an explanation does not make it poppycock. So please let us have a straight answer, regardless of your belief system: is the theory of infinite universes PLAUSIBLE or not?-DAVID: No, not at the same time as in multiverses. I supposed for my answer to you the possibility of an infinite series of single universes, mimicking what we know about this universe.-An infinite series of single universes = an infinite number of universes. "Mimicking what we know about this universe" is not necessary for the atheist supposition.
 
DAVID: You are arguing apples and oranges. I don't need the series in my imagination to support my theism. And single file universes is no multiverse, the way the atheists exclude a designer universe. I think each was a designer universe, one at a time!-That's because you're in a designer box. But both boxes can be eternal, and 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.-dhw: You say I'm unwilling to think outside my box, but you always revert to design. ......... From your viewpoint design is the winner. So who's in a box?
DAVID: You are. This universe is designed for life or from your viewpoint appears that way. Why not accept the idea, because it makes the most sense, even without jumping the chasm of faith. All I can ever get to for sure in my thinking is a designer intelligence, always existing. I do not try to give that entity the religions' atributes of the God they describe. They do not try to describe the conclusion I've reached. I have my own religion of David.-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?
 
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. But neither you nor I nor Dawkins nor the Archbishop of Canterbury can rest content with such a blank, and so we shall all carry on inventing explanations till we have shuffled off this mortal coil.