philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by David Turell , Friday, September 21, 2018, 21:05 (2033 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

PART ONE

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.

dhw: 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: Note that bored and vain were the only direct quotes I used, and they are visible from your 'mouth' in this very conversation. When David mentions that he offered proof through works, you jumped to "Does he want us to tell him how clever he is? Is he that humanly vain?" Sure, you threw a question mark on it, but the implication was not made by David. How does one offering proof of ability and purpose correlate to vanity? Why should an individual that created something not be rightly proud of their creation, and want the credit for having created it? Is that vanity?

Saying that he did it purely for entertainment, amusement, or as a cure for boredom are all forms of capriciousness or frivolity, literally "not having any serious purpose or value". What I am asking is, what part of nature do you see that has no serious purpose?

I think Tony has offered an excellent answer and a proper description of the humanizing you persist in presenting. I don't think you realize how it comes across. You have to think of God at a different level than you do.