Concepts of God: universe too big for Him? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by David Turell , Wednesday, November 08, 2017, 14:33 (2571 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: Your rebuttal is off point. I objected to their premise about about God' purposes taken from the Bible. I don't start from the Bible's suppositions. They do.

dhw: The biblical references simply illustrate the point that God is supposed to be “human-oriented”. So looking at the above quotes, and bearing in mind that you yourself have admitted that you can’t explain the big universe, do you disagree with the claim that a God who you believe created the whole of life for the purpose of producing the brain of Homo sapiens is human-oriented?

DAVID: Of course God is human oriented. We have part of His universal consciousness through the brain He gave us. Once again, the giant universe is not an argument for atheism.

dhw: You claimed the fallacy in their reasoning was that the authors relied on the Bible, and it is “not clear that the Bible's description of God's purpose and thoughts are accurate, since the books of the Bible are written by humans who would like God to be close and prefer doing nice things for humans.” The Bible makes God human-oriented, and so do you. May I suggest that ALTHOUGH you agree with the Bible’s teaching that God is human-oriented, you do not regard the giant universe as a reason for atheism. For you the fallacy in the authors’ reasoning would then be that your God must have had a human-oriented reason for the giant universe, even though you can’t think of one. Alternatively a different type of theist could argue that the giant universe merely indicates that God was NOT human-oriented but had other purposes in mind.

My thought about the universe is that God planned it to evolve and produce the Earth:

https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/

"The famous Kalam cosmological argument is a three-part argument that the universe requires a first cause. Its name reflects its roots in Islamic thought.

"Anything that begins to exist has a cause.

"The universe began to exist.

"Therefore, the universe has a First Cause.

"The step in the argument that science can address is the middle one — evidence that the universe began to exist. That evidence comes in two major pieces — (i) the redshift and the Doppler effect, and (ii) the discovery of microwave background radiation.

***

"Finally, in the early 1990s, precise measurements from NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite indicated that the universe was filled with radiation having the exact properties predicted by the Big Bang theory.

"The COBE measurements confirmed that all matter in the early universe exploded from a densely compacted state. Scientists now had conclusive evidence that the universe had a beginning. As astrophysicist Neil F. Comins explained it:

"Detection of the cosmic microwave background is a principal reason why the Big Bang is accepted by astronomers as the correct cosmological theory.

***

"What all this means is that there is very strong evidence that the universe had a beginning. If the universe had a beginning, then it had a first cause. And if it had a first cause, then it makes sense to ask what kind of first cause is necessary to explain the origin of the universe. It must be:

"A cause outside of the universe

"Capable of generating all the matter and energy in the universe

"Capable of generating all the order we see in inherent within the universe (more on this coming up).

"That’s quite a job description — one that no known material cause or set of material causes appears capable of accomplishing. The need for such a powerful and intelligent first cause strongly suggests a purposeful design behind the origin of the universe."

No comment necessary.