philosophy of science: meaning and functions (Introduction)

by dhw, Monday, September 24, 2018, 09:16 (2252 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

PART ONE

TONY: David is the one with issues about assigning human qualities to God. If we are made in his image, I have no real issue with it other than to say his ways are not our ways, they are higher than are ways.

The three-way discussion can get rather confusing. What is the difference between boredom and higher boredom?

TONY: Would you want people believing, and spreading lies about you?

I accept David’s view that if God exists, we can only guess at his nature through his works. The Bible (especially the OT, and including Job) veers between terrifying and loving. How do you know the truth?

TONY quoting dhw: ".. but it also allows for “selfish amusement” and indifference to suffering."

DHW:... we can only guess at your God’s nature through his works, and so of course the spectacle allows for this interpretation!

TONY: You stated that you did not say such things, I was merely illustrating that you do, in fact, say such things.

Your manufactured statement “God didn’t do it in a way I like, so he must be egotistical (arrogant, less powerful…)” is very different from saying a hypothesis allows for selfishness and indifference. Similarly, I did not say God was vain, but challenged David’s statement by asking if he thought his God was that humanly vain.

DHW: In order (= purpose) to relieve his boredom he creates a spectacle that enables him to grow and develop. It might help us, though, if you explain how he grows and develops. Could it be that he extends his own experience by creating a world full of love and hate, beauty and ugliness, joy and pain?

TONY: I don't think he, being a sentient living being(of a sort), would willingly inflict pain upon himself. I think he did something good that brought joy, and something happened that screwed it up in such a way that, in a sense, his hands were tied for a while.

Who knows? You still haven’t explained how he grows and develops.

TONY: Yes, I agree that loneliness might have been the initial motivation to start creating. The counter question, though is, once he had created more than one, why create more? Your bored and lonely idea breaks down once there are more than a few entities in existence.

Of course it doesn’t break down! The more entities there are, the more interesting the spectacle becomes.

TONY: And, it would logically be far easier to create creatures of pure energy like himself, so why make the jump to the material world in a mostly empty universe if he was just bored and lonely.

Don’t you find the material world interesting, with its vast variety of life forms, its ever changing nature, the extraordinary products of human consciousness? Anyway, do tell us why you think he created material life.

TONY: 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".

dhw: You quoted me as saying: “….perhaps I should not use the word “entertainment”, as people do tend to associate it with amusement”. Let me then state with all seriousness that I regard the relief of isolation and boredom as an extremely serious purpose. Indeed loneliness and lack of any kind of occupation are a huge human problem in our day and age. I can well imagine that the prospect of eternity spent in isolation with nothing to do would be pretty unbearable. Can't you?

TONY: Yes, which is why I stated that I agreed with that as first cause, but not as an ongoing cause.

Why do you think eternity wouldn’t require an ongoing process to prevent the return of boring isolation?

DHW: And I really don’t see why you insist that Christ was his only direct creation, especially when Genesis tell us that it was God who dunnit!

Because you criticize what you have not bothered to study or learn. In reference to Christ:
Col 1:15-17 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for
Him etc. (No room!).

Why don’t you quote Genesis 1 and 2? No mention there of the Son. Plenty of God made this and that.

DHW:... Life as we know it contains as much pain as it does joy, and it is faith not reason which enables some people to believe in a loving, caring God.

TONY: Oh, life does indeed contain pain. I've never questioned that. I do question the source of that pain, however. What my observations show is a virtual paradise that has been decimated by people unwilling to follow directions. Why would I blame God for that?

I wasn’t asking you to blame God. I was pointing out that it requires faith to believe in a loving, caring God.