The immensity of the universe (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Saturday, September 19, 2015, 13:08 (3135 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: But why did there have to be a black hole? 
DAVID: Apparently it is a physical requirement to form a galaxy, nothing more. The universe has a series of physical requirements for its evolution.-So your God was hamstrung by the physical requirements of the universe he is supposed to have created?
 
dhw: The same problem as with your concept of evolution: does your God plan and control the environment? If the large universe is evolving and another Milky Way and Earth “could develop”, you have a purposeless drift and a lucky break. So up to there, you are with the atheists.
DAVID: Not so fast. You may see purposelessness, I don't. My concept allows for more than one trial at humans. This bunch is far from perfect. He could be trying for that. -So does he or doesn't he plan and control the environment?-dhw: Then your God intervenes, whereas they [atheists] opt for another lucky break. If he plans and controls it, you are once again stuck with your problem of the billions of galaxies, not to mention that nasty black hole, all for the sake of you and me.
DAVID: Ah, you are critical of my God when the setup and its evolution could be perfect for his purpose. You don't understand it, but it works. Why can't you accept that?-Carts before horses. If your God doesn't control the environment, he leaves the “development” of the right conditions to chance. An atheist would also say it all happened by chance, and you don't understand it, but it works, so why can't you accept that? -dhw: I agree 100% with you and Paul Davies, but of course it doesn't need God to make our appearance highly significant, and while I agree that chance is highly unlikely, it seems to me no more unlikely than the concept of an eternal mind that encompasses billions of galaxies.-DAVID: If highly unlikely, and you accept cause and effect, how do you explain us? I see only chance as a fall back position.-Now we have left the problem of the vast, seemingly impersonal universe and have come back to the origin of life, where you feel you are on safer ground. Yes, eventually chance is the fall back position, though my panpsychist variation of billions of individual intelligences remains an alternative to your single supercolossal, universe-embracing mind. -dhw: Your starting point is the assumption of teleology, and of course it is easier to find design in the appearance of life than in the possibly infinite, seemingly pointless comings and goings of billions of galaxies and zillions of stars. It is not the ‘how' that I focus on, but the question of whether there is a ‘why'.
DAVID: You don't seem to realize what you are doing, by assuming the universe looks pointless (a la Weinberg) when it produced us and obviously works, evolved according to a very precise set of physical rules and fine tuning. You are still concentrating on the 'how' when the 'why' is obviously us.-If you could find an "obvious" link between our existence and the billions of galaxies and zillions of stars that came and went before us and will come and go after us, it might help me see the - apparently dwindling - light. (See also my response to Tony.)