What is God's Purpose?

[Norsefire]

If we assume that God does exist, why does he need a purpose? If God exists, then God is absolutely and only; He would be eternal, etc, therefore He gives himself purpose and gives us purpose. The hierarchy of consciousness.

Similarly, if we created self aware AI and placed them in a virtual world that we could control, we are God and it is We that would need to give the AI purpose, not the other way around.

 

[EmptyForceOfChi]

1. Actually no, Thor has already promised me a wonderful afterlife.

2. I didn't insult anything, I called it the holy wind which is an accurate translation, (ruach/pneuma - lit. wind/breath).

3. Come on, we're all grown ups here - time to stop believing in fairy tales.

You grew out of your sense of humour aswell it seems. go blow your holy wind.




peace.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

As long as anything exists, there are space & time.

 

[StrangerInAStrangeLand]

If we assume that God does exist, why does he need a purpose? If God exists, then God is absolutely and only; He would be eternal, etc, therefore He gives himself purpose and gives us purpose. The hierarchy of consciousness.

Similarly, if we created self aware AI and placed them in a virtual world that we could control, we are God and it is We that would need to give the AI purpose, not the other way around.

You said something pretty close to "I believe there's a god" then you said "I don't come to any conclusions about him".

Most, if not all, things people make give them purpose. I'm confident AI would dwarf most other things in that.
Until it goes berserk & kills all humanity.

 

[Billy T]

...We that would need to give the AI purpose, not the other way around.

We are a long way yet from having AI with "purpose" still. It can follow the rules/ logic to serve OUR purpose, not have any of its own. Perhaps some day when it is conscious with real thoughts it may be able to generate a purpose, perhaps to elimate men? Man seems to have decided on this purpose - I.e. to eliminate god.

 

[lightgigantic]

I do not hold any opinion on that as do not know if anything is eternal.

the only reason I ask is because if you accept that evil is not eternal, then any displays of it become insignificant, particularly if they are relegated to an inferior realm of existence (like say the one we are in now, where all our bodily activities are curtailed by death) for expression

If we assume God exists and is eternal, predates the big bang, etc. I.e. unlike time and space, which was created by/with the big bang, and assume that evil was not created by the big bang, then I think Either God made evil soon after there were any life forms that could "sin" OR evil was already eternal with God, sort of his personality's "flip side." I.e. an eternal omipotent God can surely do evil, even it no universe yet exists - for example create an evil dominated universe - like this one? If here are many gods, some may be inclined to be evil more than others.

Would you describe your understanding of the big bang (in regards to the creation of time) as an assumption or an empirical observation?

If planning to explain why God could not satisfy his needs without making man (certanly a less than omipotent god if dependant on man) assume anything about evil you like about the origins of evil or that it is eternal, just state what you are assuming.

At the very least, most people are grateful to have the opportunity to be alive - as a general rule, god tends to be guided by magnanimity rather than necessity (unlike us)

Christian tend to duck / defer difficult questions such as:
(1) Where did the universe come from? C.Answer: God made it.
But that just moves the question back one stage: Where did God come from?

you can't see how you have the same problem with the big bang creating time?

(2) Where did evil come from? C.Answer: Satan is the origin of Evil.
But that just moves the question back one stage: Where did Satan come from?

evil originates from the desire of the living entity to imitate god - the desire to imitate god originates from our free will ... which is something we have because it is something god has .... but its not something that god directly interferes with

We need a clear definition of evil. I suggest:

(a) Under the asumption that God exist: Evil is "sinning" (and "sinning" is doing any think God has forbidden. - Unfortuantly not all agree on what is forbidden as God is behaving as it he does not exist.)
(b) Under the asumption that God does not exist: Evil is doing what is against the civil law.

Some "lovers of evil" (not wanting to leave anything out) may prefer:

(c) Evil is either (a) or (b).

in short, evil is what ever continues one's incarceration in the medium of birth, death, old age and disease (since there is an absolute consensus on the value of eternity, knowledge and happiness as desirable qualities).

There may appear to be a variety of ways to deal with this evil, but the difference is simply an issue of time, place and circumstance and it requires a person in knowledge to see the uniformity of it all. Kind of like a person may get different advice from a surgeon, acupuncturist, physiotherapist and chemist how to deal with a particular set of symptoms, but if they think that this difference indicates how one or all of them are out to lunch it simply indicates the patient's ignorance

 

[lightgigantic]

By eternal, do you mean will always exist from some point going forward only? Eternal existence is also having always existed.

by eternity and evil I mean to ask whether one thinks that evil can be an a companion of a particular living entity ... or does one think that the only prospect of eternity lies in being properly socialized around god's existence

 

[SnakeLord]

You grew out of your sense of humour aswell it seems. go blow your holy wind.

...

 

[Billy T]

...Would you describe your understanding of the big bang (in regards to the creation of time) as an assumption or an empirical observation?

Neither and both. Certainly there is the basics assumption of science: The universe is acting as if following some static laws of nature. Certainly it is based on a great deal of both astronomical and nuclear physics experimental results. (It always seemed interesting to be that the two extremes of scale are so closely tied together in the physics of cosmology.); However the big bang is a mathematical effort to efficient model much of this information in an elegant and self-consistent way. Very much like the origins of science in pre-Christian astronomy - there were millions of observations and they were consolidated in a epicycle model which worked well when tested for example predicting eclipse some years in advance. Maxwell made one of the most important unifications, but the standard model is also one, not yet finished as gravity just does not seem to fit.

This need to model and consolidate many facts has been the mother of both physics and applied math. Physicists often lead the way in math as they are not so concerned with mathematical rigor. \For example the Dirac delta function was in wide use by physicists, while mathematicians were still struggling to find some way to make it rigorous enough to use in their field.

... as a general rule, god tends to be guided by magnanimity rather than necessity ...

Welcome to my "Multi-Gods" Club. It is an ancient POV - most all have held it in the past, before those trouble making Jews ASSUMED there was only one God. (Clearly false idea and the hurricane and flood gods are growing angry about this now, it seems.) If there were just one god it would be a single case, not a "general rule." Again welcome to the MGC.

...you can't see how you have the same problem with the big bang creating time?

No, not really, for several reasons.
(1) I do not think time exists, and have defended this POV in several threads. Mathematically by solving (in principle) all the N equations of physics for "t" parameter that is used in them and setting all N equal to teach other (as they all equal "t") top re-form the equations of physics free of the convenient parameter "t". New set of N-1 equations describes all of physics and makes no reference to time. For example Earth's progress around the sun is directly related to the nunber pof 360 truns Earth has made. (there are lots of complexities and need to define indices and arbitrary origins of coordinate systems but this is nothing new. For example zero "right ascension" of astronomy is an arbitrary point and 2008 is and arbitrary index for actions that are periodic.

(2) "Time" is, like 3D coordinates (x, y, z) just part of the descriptive model called the big bang. Others in that model are the mass of a proton, the speed of light, the charge of the electron, pi, e, etc. All models have some "axiomatic set" of terms. They really do not state reality is as the model describes (that is the job of the religious or the philosophers, not the physicist) All the big bang does is to consolidate many observations in to a structured model, but it has been done after I grew too old to struggle with the details so I do not know the full model.

Saying: "God made the universe" is not a model that consolidates observations. God has not been observed by anyone alive today to do anything. In fact, the attributes ascribed to him by Christians seem very inconsistent with many observations like the black plague or Hitler’s Nazis etc. To avoid facing these inconsistencies, Christians can only say: "God works in mysterious ways." Yes the millions of children God has claimed as his own before they could walk or talk (in the black plague and Nazi Germany, or Africa today) is a mystery a "loving God" makes.

I will not comment on rest of your post in part because I doubt humans really have free will - Sure seems that way, so I was glad to discover a way it could be real (Consistent with physic/chemistry controlling the firing of all nerves in the body etc.) I have long post about this. Ask and I will dig up the link again. (Human evil is only possible if human free will is real.)