If God exists, why did he create life? (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Monday, January 03, 2011, 22:38 (5071 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Actually it is because despite the seeming chaos and randomness I see patterns, and so do most physicists, whether they realize it or not, or else their precious physics simply would not work.-I don't think anyone would deny that there are patterns when it comes to the laws of physics, chemistry, biology etc., but the seeming randomness that I'm referring to is the manner in which natural disasters and diseases strike indiscriminately. -Even if I were to accept (though I don't) that the Boxing Day 2004 tsunami which killed over 230,000 people and devastated communities and towns over a vast area was actually necessary for the survival of the human race, and that the ghosts (I speak figuratively) of the once flourishing Pompeii should be comforted by the fact that "a volcano creates earth and soil that will eventually provide habitable land", the point of my terrorist analogy was to focus on the mind of the perpetrator. -I now need to tread very carefully, because as always I don't want to cause offence, but your anthropocentric view of the universe seems to me only to emphasize God's apparent indifference towards all other forms of life, and even humans themselves. I have never met a dodo or a dinosaur, nor did I know any of the inhabitants of Pompeii, or any victims of the 2004 tsunami, but I find the nonchalant dismissal of their extinction/suffering/death as a "necessity" very disturbing. It's the same disrespect for individual lives that underlies the worst excesses of human conduct. The terrorist generally doesn't kill just for the sake of it or to "instill fear", but to serve what he thinks is a higher cause ... his own form of "necessity". My analogy therefore points to a God for whom individual lives, whether animal or human, have never mattered and still do not matter so long as the higher cause is served, i.e. the show goes on. Your own explanations imply the same: animals and humans are to be sacrificed to ensure that other humans survive (and it's the victims' own fault for not interpreting the rumblings). The only difference between us seems to be that you can't think of a purpose, whereas I can. David says that if God's purpose "was to create us, the plan is over." I would simply take it one step further, and ask why he created us ... and would suggest that if the plan is over, all that remains is the spectacle.-If we follow this line of reasoning, the important question then becomes, not whether God exists, but whether his existence actually matters. An impersonal God for whom individual lives are of no significance might just as well not be there, so why should we as individuals bother with him?