A possible God's possible purpose and nature (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Saturday, January 22, 2022, 13:22 (828 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: I remain baffled by the concept of an all-powerful, all-knowing God who “has to” design a system containing errors which he does not want and which he is incapable of correcting. My idea of an all-powerful, all-knowing God is that he would design precisely the system he WANTS to design. Hence the freedom at all levels from micro to macro for cells and cell communities to change structures.

DAVID: But God didn't and if He is all powerful, as we label him, obviously He had to do it the way it is!!!

God didn’t what? Didn’t design the system he wanted, which is the system we have? If he is all-powerful, he didn’t “have to do” anything. He did what he wanted! So he must have wanted the general freedom, which includes what you call the "mistakes" which, despite his all-powerfulness, he was powerless to correct,

Importance of pathogens
dhw:. If accidents can cause your God to “change course”, then it is illogical to claim that he had planned everything in advance and was always in total control.

DAVID: I agree, God probably allowed chance events, and used them to continue with His plans.

dhw: Thank you. If Chixculub was an accident that wiped out the dinosaurs, does that mean he didn’t plan to wipe out the dinosaurs, and they would have continued to exist while he got on with his one and only goal of designing humans? I can't help wondering why he designed them in the first place, if all he wanted was us and our food! Or maybe the accident forced him to change our menu! I must say, though, I do like the idea of your God allowing for accidents, as it takes us right back to the enjoyable “unpredictability” of the free-for-all which would account for all the comings and goings of life forms with no connection to humans, which you yourself cannot explain.

DAVID: but I have explained it to my satisfaction. God evolves what He wants to create. You cannot deny it. He takes His sweet time, as time is of no consequence to Him.

If God exists, then of course this is true. Time is irrelevant, and you have left out the only thing you believe he wanted to create (us and our food). Your usual dodge. What he has created is the long history of life forms etc. that came and went, most of which had no connection with humans, and maybe there were even lots of chance events to add to the surprising unpredictability you agreed to a week or two ago.

DAVID: I don't try to explain His choice of method, which so worries you. All connections have been given and are unacceptable to you in the tortured way you view evolution step by step. All unconnected to you.

You don’t (or can’t) try to explain how all the other step-by-step life forms and foods are connected to step-by-step humans and their food, though you think the latter were his one and only purpose, but you have given all the connections! All which connections? Please stop dodging!

Universal consciousness
QUOTES: "However, a number of scientists and philosophers of science have recently argued that this kind of ‘bottom-up’ picture of the Universe is outdated, and that contemporary physics suggests that in fact we live in a ‘top-down’ – or ‘holist’ – Universe, "Goff argues for cosmopsychism, a form of panpsychism in which “the Universe is conscious, and that the consciousness of humans and animals is derived not from the consciousness of fundamental particles, but from the consciousness of the Universe itself.”

Goff argues for cosmopsychism, a form of panpsychism in which “the Universe is conscious, and that the consciousness of humans and animals is derived not from the consciousness of fundamental particles, but from the consciousness of the Universe itself.

DAVID: I think we live in the mind of God.

Nothing new here. Top down = God, bottom up = particles. I don’t know why anyone should think that the opinions of scientists and philosophers of science are any more significant than those of other people, since no one can possibly know the truth, even though some people on either side of the fence think they do!