philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Friday, September 21, 2018, 15:45 (2044 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

PART ONE

dhw: Our subject is purpose, not design. Thank you again for supporting the spectacle theory. I’m sorry you have not commented on the reason for your God wanting to prove himself.

DAVID: God is purposely hidden. We study Him thru His works and of course He recognizes that approach. We can not separate purpose and design. They are hand in hand, as one implies the other.

Of course. And I am wearing my theist hat as we speculate on what his purpose might have been.

DAVID: dhw is bent on humanizing God in most of his thought pattern about God. I see God as pure purpose and us as a main result. I don't view God as ever approaching thought on a human level.

dhw: What in heaven’s name is “pure purpose”? [...]

DAVID: 'Pure purpose' is just a way of stating that God is always very purposeful in what HE does at all times.

No problem, then. What we are trying to establish is what his purpose might have been.

DAVID: I'm sure God has His own set of feelings, at which we can only guess, and I'm sure He recognizes ours.

No problem either. It doesn’t tell us what his purpose might have been.

DAVID: […] I view your approach as trying to imagine God from your human point of view. Adler tells me not to do that.

I couldn’t care less what Adler tells you to do. You have offered us several humanizing purposes of your own, which entail a relationship with us, proving himself to us, and – I’m pleased to say – providing a spectacle for himself.

DAVID: Exhibiting His powers of creation to offer proof of Himself to us, the observers who see proof of Him in his works.

dhw: [..] [b]why would he want to prove himself to us? Does he want us to tell him how clever he is? Is he that humanly vain?[/b] If so, why can’t he also be that humanly bored that he wants to create strange creatures, including us, to relieve his isolation (as suggested in your first response)?

TONY: perhaps the reason is because he wants us to listen. Not because he is that vain, but because when you give credit where it doesn't belong, you are believing a lie, and will inevitably make a mistake.

DHW: Ah, so God created all these weird and wonderful creatures that came and went hundreds of millions of years before we came on the scene, in order to stop us from believing he didn’t make them. I really can’t follow this.

TONY: I was responding to the bolded text. As usual, you kind of paint even the idea of God in very negative tones. He's "bored", "vain" , egotistical, cowardly, apparently knows less than us, is capricious, and frivolous even.

Where do you get all these words from? Certainly not from me. David suggested he wanted to prove himself to us, and I asked if David thought he was that vain. I did not say he was vain, and I have never used any of the other words you attribute to me except “bored”. We are discussing your God’s possible purpose. I suggest that he was tired of being on his own and therefore wanted to create something to relieve the boredom. You have suggested that he wanted to grow and develop, and therefore needed to end his isolation. I see virtually no difference. There is absolutely nothing negative in this. I asked you why the satisfaction of creating something so fascinating was more trivial than your God aspiring to some nebulous kind of “fullness”, and you answered “When I can articulate that I will.” You have answered by putting negative words in my mouth that i have never used.

TONY: I've stated repeatedly, which you choose to ignore, that the life forms that have inhabited the earth at every stage were there to essentially terraform the earth itself.

David suggests that he “wanted to see how many strange creatures with unusual lifestyles he could create”. Sounds feasible to me. I must confess I find it difficult to believe that every single life form extant and extinct was essential to “terraform” (?) the earth.

TONY: Yes, there is a purpose outside humanity, though we are part of it. This is testable, observable fact. Even scientists don't disagree with the fact that all life lends itself to the overall balance of life itself on this planet including the maintenance of the atmospheric weather etc. etc.

The rest is fine with me.

Continued…