philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by David Turell , Saturday, September 15, 2018, 19:06 (2260 days ago) @ dhw

DAVID: My objection to your spectacle hypothesis is you have draped God in human clothing. You don't think like God does. None of us do.

DHW: How do you know how God thinks? According to you, we have a soul that is part of your God’s own consciousness. Some folk believe he made us “in his image”. And according to you he created us because he wants a relationship with us (how human is that!). You believe in God and you keep insisting that the universe is full of purpose, but how can you possibly consider what that “purpose” is and yet not consider what is in his mind? So please tell us, what do you think is the purpose of the universe and life?

DAVID: I've said I don't know how He thinks, but you have given Him a spectator purpose! Watching fun and games? My God is much more serious than your imagined God. We've discussed God's purpose before. It was to create fully conscious humans in my opinion.

dhw: Correction: Your IMAGINED God is much more serious than my imagined God. Why do you trivialize the spectacle as “fun and games”? Tony thinks God wanted to grow and develop (I ask why, and suggest that he may have been bored with his isolated existence). By creating life he will have learned what it is to love, to hate, to enjoy, to suffer, to win, to lose...none of which he would have experienced all on his own as an eternal blob of pure energy. Is this "fun and games"? Whether he started out with the sole intention of creating conscious humans is another subject, but your observation does not answer Tony’s question – it is part of the question. Why did God create EVERYTHING, which includes the universe, life and humans?

Yes, we both imagine, because actually knowing God is not possible, since He is hidden. But the most mature way of discovering God is to look at His works, which is the Quran approach. We humans are the pinnacle of his evolutionary work, therefore a major purpose, but as Tony says below, not the entire purpose.

TONY: Life and growth ARE part of the purpose. Is that not a worth purpose in and of itself, to live and grow? Still, I have said that I believe there to be many layers of purpose, and I don't claim to know them all.

DAVID: I'm with Tony. Giving life's experience is a purposeful gift. Anonymous charity is the most worthy.

dhw: I join you both in regarding life as a wonderful gift and as a purpose in itself, and I am fully aware of and grateful for all the beautiful experiences I have been privileged to enjoy, just as I am fully aware of the painful experiences I have had and of the painful experiences I have been fortunate enough not to have had. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the existence of God, whether there is a purpose for “everything”, and if there is - which depends on there being a God - what his purpose might be.

We have long left the issue of a proof of God just by looking at purpose. For me, the proof lies in the complexity of living beings, which have no reason to be here unless designed. As far as I am concerned there would be no life without a designer God. How much complexity has to be determined by science before it i s accepted as overwhelming evidence God must exist?