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

by dhw, Sunday, January 23, 2022, 12:30 (827 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!!!

dhw: 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,

DAVID: Again blinkered view. Considering the trillions of required reactions per nanosecond all correct or corrected by God's editing programs, it works extremely well. Obviously errors are additive and terrible for some, but a tiny result of the whole working process of life.

Yes, the system works extremely well except when it doesn’t work extremely well, and this still doesn’t explain why an all-powerful God was forced against his will to devise a system that contained errors which he was powerless to correct. Why is it “blinkered” to argue that an all-powerful God is more likely to have designed the system he wanted to design?

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of scientists and philosophers of science have recently argued that this kind of ‘bottom-up’ picture of the Universe is outdated, and that contemporary physics suggests that in fact we live in a ‘top-down’ – or ‘holist’ – Universe"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.”

dhw: 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!

DAVID: That makes me equal to Adler. Thank you.

I really don’t know why you are so obsessed with Adler when according to you he doesn’t even mention your illogical theory of evolution, but yes, you are his equal in your belief that God exists, and you are Dawkins’ equal because he believes God doesn’t exist, and we are all equal because in fact none of us know the truth. Hence my point that scientists and philosophers of science are no more qualified than anyone else to make judgements about the top-down v bottom-up origin of consciousness.