What is God's Purpose?

P

PsychoticEpisode

It is very dry in here today
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The forum is littered with threads regarding our purpose in life but what about God? Shouldn't God have a purpose also? I'm not talking about creating, immaculate conceptions or miracles. I mean if we have a purpose then God must have one also. Why is there a god and for what purpose?

For all theists.... when you sin, do you feel God watching you? If so or if you know he is going to be watching then why do it? I can only think that you believe God will forgive you. Why worry about sin then? Are some sins unforgiveable even by God's standards? If sin is forgiven then why are some sinners sent to Hell for punishment? Is God only here to forgive us? Is that what He does for a living? Why?

God knows, God forgives and then He punishes you once your dead. I can only conclude that when God forgives, one is alive, but once dead you're in big trouble. It seems that actually meeting God once you're dead is not a good thing. Your judged, and either you praise god for all eternity or you fry. You basically become a nobody that lives forever. Is that God's purpose? To judge & punish us for whatever reason? Again I ask why?
 
God is apparently above everything. If we could apply things for humans to God theists would've been screwed by the who created God argument.
 
The short answer is that God is a first cause. His purpose is simply to be.

God is omniscient, thus he know not only the sin we are commiting, but also all the ones we are going to commit. God expects believers to try to do his will. To be a believer you must believe in Him. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all have their own flavorings for this, but at it's most basic, believe or you will suffer in the afterlife. As far as christianity goes, for sin to be forgiven, one must believe that Jesus died on the cross as a sacrifice. This means that the sins don't go away, but that they are whitewashed. Some sinners choose to deny God and Jesus Christ, which is the only "unforgivable" sin. To die having denied him throughout one's life. This is what is meant by rejecting the Holy Spirit.

I'm not too familiar with Judaism or Islam.

I would ask, why does God need a purpose?
 
Betrayer0fHope said:
God is apparently above everything. If we could apply things for humans to God theists would've been screwed by the who created God argument.
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So God has no purpose? Being omni-everything isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Doing God stuff or things humans can't do....is that His main purpose for being around?
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Some sinners choose to deny God and Jesus Christ, which is the only "unforgivable" sin. To die having denied him throughout one's life. This is what is meant by rejecting the Holy Spirit.
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I'm in trouble for divine denial but a theistic mass murderer gets forgiven? Yowza!!!

I would ask, why does God need a purpose?
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Why do we? You wouldn't know for instance if God was working for someone else?
 
Are we playing the questions game? Do humans need a purpose? Why does the mass murderer's forgiveness, while your denial's lack of forgiveness surprise you? Haven't you heard about how it takes one sin of any kind to be unable to enter into the presence of the Lord? Have you known that it is only through Jesus Christ that we can approach the Father?
 
Perhaps it would be simpler to consider God as being that which controls all the dimensions, more a force of nature than anything we can really understand. Believe me, the first time God has a question and answer session I'm going to ask why he made humans at all.
 
god is the more comfortable answer.

anything we do not know, we say god knows. it makes us feel better about being not smart enough to understand.

just like a dog will never understand how a car engine works, I suppose it could be logical for us to accept that we may never know how the universe works in its entirety.

but some people are too stubborn and egotistical to accept the fact that their understanding of the world may be forever challenged, so they mutually agree that god is the answer for all these mysteries.

in the end, they feel good about themselves, the general population gets a little dumber, and everyone is happy.

(but nothing is solved!)
 
chris4355 said:
god is the more comfortable answer.

anything we do not know, we say god knows. it makes us feel better about being not smart enough to understand.

just like a dog will never understand how a car engine works, I suppose it could be logical for us to accept that we may never know how the universe works in its entirety.

but some people are too stubborn and egotistical to accept the fact that their understanding of the world may be forever challenged, so they mutually agree that god is the answer for all these mysteries.

in the end, they feel good about themselves, the general population gets a little dumber, and everyone is happy.

(but nothing is solved!)
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Wow. You know, if this were the 11th or 12th century, I'd be inclined to agree. It's not. There are scientists that are christians hard at work trying to figure out how God has put things together. Christians, in general, recognize that Science answers the How questions, while God answers the Why questions. They are simply different pieces of a bigger puzzle.

To use your example, a dog will never know how an engine works. Show me an auto mechanic or engineer that can tell me Why an engine works. Perhaps a physicist should be involved. I don't care anything about how it works. Tell me why. You will not be able to answer why the engine works. You will attempt to tell me that I am asking How it works. You will then tell me that I refuse to listen to science. Now that we know how this is going to go, assuming that you have attempted to tell me how an engine works and expected me to accept this as why it works. Science. cannot. answer. why. questions. For another fun thing to do try this experiment. Why can you see? There are blind people all over getting along just fine, so no argument that it is to better survive. Why can YOU see? Not how, with your anatomy of the eye and whatnot. Why?:p
 
Why can I see? Because seeing is evolutionarily advantageous, and it was selected for in an accidental process. Is that not answering the question either?
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
Wow. You know, if this were the 11th or 12th century, I'd be inclined to agree.
It's not.

The religious mentality is still the same. Christians and other religious people still refute new scientific discoveries. At first is was the earth being round, now its evolution.

There are scientists that are Christians hard at work trying to figure out how God has put things together.

ya, intelligent design was definitely their best work!

Christians, in general, recognize that Science answers the How questions, while God answers the Why questions. They are simply different pieces of a bigger puzzle.

God does not answer any why questions, all it does is replace the word why with "god".

To use your example, a dog will never know how an engine works. Show me an auto mechanic or engineer that can tell me Why an engine works. Perhaps a physicist should be involved.

Sure a physicist should be involved, and the physicist could teach the engineer how it works. But he could not teach a dog, the dogs intelligence is just too limited - what makes you think we do not have a limit to our understanding of things?

Science. cannot. answer. why. questions. For another fun thing to do try this experiment. Why can you see? There are blind people all over getting along just fine, so no argument that it is to better survive. Why can YOU see? Not how, with your anatomy of the eye and whatnot. Why?

read post above
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Religion does not ask you to question, it asks you to stop thinking and just accept things for the way they are.

How AND why questions are sciences work, not religion.
 
I imagine what you're really saying is that only God can answer the question of, "What is the Ultimate Purpose of x?"

So maybe the Ultimate Purpose of life, according to "God", is to live in accordance with "God"'s rules so that in the afterlife, one may become one with God. Of course, pesky people can ask, "What is the Ultimate Purpose of becoming one-with-God?"

And I imagine the answer to that comes down to, "because being one with God is the greatest thing there is." However, I would say that life itself(living, existence) is the greatest thing there is(particularly in virtue of being the only thing there is).

This is an instance of disagreement in values (one valuing life itself, the other valuing union with "God"). This disagreement in values leads to a disagreement in Ultimate Purpose, because Ultimate Purposes are built on values. Science is supposed to be a purely descriptive practice, objective, without bias, and as such without values.

Science has no values, so it cannot tell us the Ultimate Purpose of our lives because it cannot tell us what to value (how to argue about what we should value seems very tricky to me). Nevertheless I feel that science is the best way of arriving at the truth, and so I have come to the conclusion that there is no Ultimate Purpose in life, instead there are the purposes that we give to our lives as evaluating beings. I say that the Ultimate Purpose of life is to live because this seems like the best way to present the fact that life can be given a broad range of purposes.
 
gurglingmonkey said:
I imagine what you're really saying is that only God can answer the question of, "What is the Ultimate Purpose of x?"

Well, you tell me, what is an answer? An answer is some kind of reasoning that leaves one who questions satisfied. So yes, to some, god is a reasonable answer. Because it answers their question.

So maybe the Ultimate Purpose of life, according to "God", is to live in accordance with "God"'s rules so that in the afterlife, one may become one with God. Of course, pesky people can ask, "What is the Ultimate Purpose of becoming one-with-God?"

Well now you are kinda branching off into religion, which I guess is what comes after you start believing in god.

And I imagine the answer to that comes down to, "because being one with God is the greatest thing there is." However, I would say that life itself(living, existence) is the greatest thing there is(particularly in virtue of being the only thing there is).

I second that!

This is an instance of disagreement in values (one valuing life itself, the other valuing union with "God"). This disagreement in values leads to a disagreement in Ultimate Purpose, because Ultimate Purposes are built on values. Science is supposed to be a purely descriptive practice, objective, without bias, and as such without values.

Science has no values, so it cannot tell us the Ultimate Purpose of our lives because it cannot tell us what to value (how to argue about what we should value seems very tricky to me). Nevertheless I feel that science is the best way of arriving at the truth, and so I have come to the conclusion that there is no Ultimate Purpose in life, instead there are the purposes that we give to our lives as evaluating beings. I say that the Ultimate Purpose of life is to live because this seems like the best way to present the fact that life can be given a broad range of purposes.
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I don't think so. We know our values, and we can scientifically prove them. Value of our lives, love, morals are all necessary things for us to be happy and live as a society. You can understand those things philosophically, scientifically and religiously as well.

A purpose in life can be whatever you want it to be. I think we all ultimately seek happiness. The only thing thats different is how we attain it.

I know what you mean, why should everyone have to have the same purpose in life anyways? thats so boring!
 
Gurglingmonkey-You and I, I think, are similarly thinking creatures.

chris4355-I wasn't coming here to try to force you to believe in my God. That's not my batch of cookies. However, you attacked my beliefs, in whole, and thus, me directly. I would like you to do one thing. Give me a scientific value. I'm sure there must be many scientifically proven scientific values, given your previous statement. Perhaps you were speaking of integers assigned to variables? What is the value of evolution? Scientifically speaking. Please give proof.
 
Mr. Hamtastic said:
However, you attacked my beliefs, in whole, and thus, me directly.
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Then, that is your own personal problem, not his. Your beliefs are not you, they are merely a set of ideologies and doctrines that you've been indoctrinated to follow. They aren't even your own ideas, but someones else.

Therefore, you need to separate yourself from someone else ideals and not take it personally.
 
Q-You are always so cute with that. I love it. Really.

Let us assume that I have been indoctrinated into my beliefs. How does one seperate a bit of what they base their decisions in life on from themselves? I include my decision making process as a part of who I am, as much as I do my appendages. If someone tells me that I am horribly ugly, should I not be offended, since I was born with my face, and had no say about it?
 
Some sinners choose to deny God and Jesus Christ, which is the only "unforgivable" sin.
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Incorrect.

Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:32).

That is the only unforgivable sin - calling the holy spirit names. It's a sensitive bit of wind you know.
 
Snakelord-You are quite the literalist, thus I will ask if you would accept my interpretation of what the verse says, before I post it.
 
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