Consciousness: and brain damage (General)

by dhw, Saturday, January 20, 2018, 14:01 (2497 days ago) @ David Turell

DAVID: You've gone back to humanizing God. I feel I know what God weanted to accomplish. I cannot know about His emotions, but you seem to without belief in Him.

dhw: We cannot even “know” that God exists, but that doesn’t stop you from insisting that he does. You cannot “know” what your God wanted to accomplish, but that doesn’t stop you from dismissing any hypothesis that differs from your own. You cannot “know” why your God wanted to create Homo sapiens, but that doesn’t stop you from believing he wants a relationship with us (how very “human” of him). But I’m not asking you to believe anything at all, and I’m not claiming to “know” anything myself. You have said you believe your God watches his creations with interest from his quantum hiding place. I wonder why he's interested. Now I’m asking if you do or do not think that he might enjoy all these bright and beautiful things for their own sake rather than just for the sake of their providing energy for sapiens. Possible or not possible?

DAVID: Again you attempt to humanize Him. I dismiss your hypotheses because I am firm in my faith. Since you don't believe in Him why do you bother to wonder about his possible interest in his creations? I'm sure He is interested in what He has created. 'Enjoy' is beyond my ability to know. Yes He might 'enjoy' as a possibility within His unique personality, since He is a person like no other person.

To clarify: I am not discussing your faith in God, but only your hypotheses concerning your God’s goal and ‘modus operandi’. However, I wonder how you would respond to an atheist who dismissed all the evidence and careful reasoning behind your arguments for design on the grounds that he was “firm in his faith”, i.e. had already closed his mind.

All your God’s attributes, as well as his existence and his goal, are beyond our “ability to know”. But if enjoyment of his own creations is a possibility, then it is possible that his enjoyment was his reason for starting life and evolution. Such a goal might possibly include his enjoyment of watching a being so intelligent that he can even question the existence of God – not to mention the other admirable, detestable, beautiful, horrific wonders that intelligent being is capable of!

As for why I "bother", I am an agnostic, not an atheist. I wrote the “brief guide” and opened this website because I am fascinated by the subject, and eager to explore all its ramifications, which include the possible nature of God, if he exists. In turn I’m surprised that someone who is so dedicated to his faith in a purposeful God that he has written two brilliant books about it, should nevertheless be unwilling to discuss what his God’s nature might be.