Created for a Reason

[WyattDerp]

No matter the size of the cage....solitary confinement is lonely.

 

[Thief]

As if you disagree with the obvious?

 

[Pappillion001]

While discussing right and wrong, one of the essential points brought up by one member was the concept of the extent to which we fulfilled our purpose of our existence being the primary thing against which our lives might be evaluated.

So, assuming we were created by some entity, created for a specific purpose, that this purpose had been communicated to us and we could be absolutely certain that the communication was both authentic and accurate. Do you believe that we would be obliged to attempt to fulfil that purpose and/or that the entity would have the right to punish us for not doing so?

Would this extend to a parent who had a child for a specific purpose; or to a scientist (or users of some technology) who created an intelligent form of existence for a specific purpose? Why/Why not?

(while not strictly a religious debate I have included it here because it in part refers to this)

We as humans for the most part believe that our lives have value and that we have a right to our own person. Now factor in culture, life experience and personality and you could have a yes, no or maybe as an answer.

As an example slavery was a part of civilization far longer than not. The practice, treatment and attitude towards slave ownership was determined by the three factors above. The slave though rarely felt any real sense of obligation towards the Master, even those born into slavery could not be thought of as feeling they had a responsibility owed to their owner regardless of how resigned to their fate they might be.

Any intelligent being will desire to be free or at least have the ability to choose its environment.

 

[rusra02]

While discussing right and wrong, one of the essential points brought up by one member was the concept of the extent to which we fulfilled our purpose of our existence being the primary thing against which our lives might be evaluated.

So, assuming we were created by some entity, created for a specific purpose, that this purpose had been communicated to us and we could be absolutely certain that the communication was both authentic and accurate. Do you believe that we would be obliged to attempt to fulfil that purpose and/or that the entity would have the right to punish us for not doing so?

Would this extend to a parent who had a child for a specific purpose; or to a scientist (or users of some technology) who created an intelligent form of existence for a specific purpose? Why/Why not?

(while not strictly a religious debate I have included it here because it in part refers to this)

I think we would be pretty foolish to ignore our Creator, and not seek to find his will for us. Since he created us and also sustains our lives, a sense of gratitude alone should be sufficient to desire to know him. I believe the only true God has revealed Himself, his purposes, and his personality to us in his Word, the Bible. Since parents belong to their Creator, it follows their children do also, and must be treated accordingly. As for scientists creating life, that is hypothetical and isn't going to happen.

 

[Pappillion001]

Picture yourself as the First...yes you can.

And though what you have created responds to your touch...it does not really....respond.

You would be alone.
setting yourself in more than one place might be do-able...but you would only be talking to yourself....your Echo.

There is nothing else to work with other than the substance you have made.

The trick (miracle to some) would be to breath life into the substance.
Hoping something intelligent would come of it.

Created for reason?....yeah.
Created to grow into reason?....we can only hope.

How human of God to experience loneliness. Does he have nothing in common with Angels? Maybe if he would stop killing us or demanding that we obey him. He might have a few more friends.

God hopes?

 

[Pappillion001]

I think we would be pretty foolish to ignore our Creator, and not seek to find his will for us. Since he created us and also sustains our lives, a sense of gratitude alone should be sufficient to desire to know him. I believe the only true God has revealed Himself, his purposes, and his personality to us in his Word, the Bible. Since parents belong to their Creator, it follows their children do also, and must be treated accordingly. As for scientists creating life, that is hypothetical and isn't going to happen.

Cloning already exists and science is not that far away from making life from scratch.

 

[Thief]

How human of God to experience loneliness. Does he have nothing in common with Angels? Maybe if he would stop killing us or demanding that we obey him. He might have a few more friends.

God hopes?

Reverse this post of yours...if you can.
What God may have felt in the beginning....would be godly.
No humans had been formed yet.

Nothing in common with the angels?
Likely.....too much in common.
Tiring recitals with a bunch of 'yes men'...so to speak.

Humans are completely entertaining.
But left to their own nature turn on each other.
Man was intended to dominate all things.
But we also turn that ability on each other....unto death.

I suspect the Garden event was an attempt to bring our species to a greater intellect.
The Great Flood was done to sort out the lesser 'persons'.
Likewise Sodom and Gomorrah.

Without intervention....we might still be that creature evolved in Day Six.
No names....no law....no serious amount of spirit.

 

[Pappillion001]

Reverse this post of yours...if you can.
What God may have felt in the beginning....would be godly.
No humans had been formed yet.

The point in time he felt it doesn't change that this is an emotion humans experience. It creates a list of questions if God experiences the same chemical reaction to various stimuli that are the cause of our physical emotions.

Nothing in common with the angels?
Likely.....too much in common.
Tiring recitals with a bunch of 'yes men'...so to speak.

Be careful what you ask for......

Humans are completely entertaining.
But left to their own nature turn on each other.
Man was intended to dominate all things.
But we also turn that ability on each other....unto death.

We are learning. We are far more civilized now than in most of our existence.

I suspect the Garden event was an attempt to bring our species to a greater intellect.

This would be achieved by withholding the fruit from the Tree of KGaE? Then withholding the fruit from the Tree of Life once we had the knowledge. Confusing language so people would not understand one another? What in the Garden story suggests it was to increase our intelligence?

The Great Flood was done to sort out the lesser 'persons'.

???
Likewise Sodom and Gomorrah.

Without intervention....we might still be that creature evolved in Day Six.
No names....no law....no serious amount of spirit.

They had names. I don't know that laws were really necessary at that point. There was just the two of them and niether one knew good or bad. We know how we end up with intervention, we can only speculate if we had been left to work things out ourselves. Maybe we would be 300 years farther along, at least in science and technology. Maybe we would understand each other better, be less concerned with what someone else might take that I might want. We will never know what might have been,

 

[Thief]

The point in time he felt it doesn't change that this is an emotion humans experience. It creates a list of questions if God experiences the same chemical reaction to various stimuli that are the cause of our physical emotions.

We are learning. We are far more civilized now than in most of our existence.

This would be achieved by withholding the fruit from the Tree of KGaE? Then withholding the fruit from the Tree of Life once we had the knowledge. Confusing language so people would not understand one another? What in the Garden story suggests it was to increase our intelligence?

They had names. I don't know that laws were really necessary at that point. There was just the two of them and niether one knew good or bad. We know how we end up with intervention, we can only speculate if we had been left to work things out ourselves. Maybe we would be 300 years farther along, at least in science and technology. Maybe we would understand each other better, be less concerned with what someone else might take that I might want. We will never know what might have been,

The highlighted portion tells all.
You believe Adam and Eve in the Garden as the first of Man as a species?

I don't believe that.
We humans we numerous by the end of Day Six.
( a day in the life of God is of great length....so I believe)

The Garden event was an intervention to change the body and spirit of Man.

Indeed what would have been without that intervention?
The same animal....just many more.
And we would have overrun the resources of this earth long ago....
without having developed in mind and heart.

We might even have overpopulated the planet altogether and become extinct...
never having achieved anything of intellectual prowess.

 

[Pappillion001]

The highlighted portion tells all.
You believe Adam and Eve in the Garden as the first of Man as a species?

According to the Bible they were. According to what I believe they were not.

I don't believe that.
We humans we numerous by the end of Day Six.
( a day in the life of God is of great length....so I believe)

Well you thought differently in your previous post. A day can be a very long time for God, in Genesis though the period of time is clearly stated. The creation story describes how God established the method of measuring time. Would it not have been better to say how long it took him instead of making misleading statements that would erode future credibility?

The Garden event was an intervention to change the body and spirit of Man.

From what to what?

Indeed what would have been without that intervention?
The same animal....just many more.
And we would have overrun the resources of this earth long ago....

So you are saying he simply delayed the inevitable, but failed to accomplish any lasting change? We are the same animal, there are more of us and another 100 years and resources are going to be pretty scarce.

We might even have overpopulated the planet altogether and become extinct...

The first part will happen fairly soon, the second could happen at any time, from right now to a very distant point in the future.

never having achieved anything of intellectual prowess.

As I said we will never know what could have happened, we only know what did happen

 

[rusra02]

Cloning already exists and science is not that far away from making life from scratch.

A bold statement. Care to substantiate?

 

[jonman122]

A bold statement. Care to substantiate?

Life from scratch is vague, I know they're close to making viable organs from stem cells but not about making new life itself, not without a female host. Also yes cloning has been successfully achieved.

Dolly (sheep) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

However in the next 50 years we could all be immoirtal, so keep an eye open!

Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Thief]

According to the Bible they were. According to what I believe they were not.




Well you thought differently in your previous post. A day can be a very long time for God, in Genesis though the period of time is clearly stated. The creation story describes how God established the method of measuring time. Would it not have been better to say how long it took him instead of making misleading statements that would erode future credibility?



From what to what?



So you are saying he simply delayed the inevitable, but failed to accomplish any lasting change? We are the same animal, there are more of us and another 100 years and resources are going to be pretty scarce.



The first part will happen fairly soon, the second could happen at any time, from right now to a very distant point in the future.



As I said we will never know what could have happened, we only know what did happen

For the most part we seem to agree.
It's the details getting in the way.

Man on Day Six as a species.
Chapter Two is not a retelling of Chapter One.

 

[Pappillion001]

A bold statement. Care to substantiate?

I will assume cloning, bioengineering and synthetic life have been in the news enough that the existence of the technology does not need to be argued.

Life from "stuff" is different. Nobody has done it and nobody knows exactly how it would happen. What is pretty clear is what would be needed and some of the things that would have to happen.

The rate at which each scientists are piecing together and proving or disproving theories is increasing as the bad science is tossed out. The primordial soup idea only came around in 1924 as an alternative to God. Serious research not until the 50's. Science has many of the parts and steps such as forming amino acids and sugars, simple types of RNA and the process of creating and using energy.

There are still parts that are missing and how much of what and when is being worked out, but considering the earth then is nothing like now makes research a little more difficult. Will it get figured out tomorrow, high doubtful, in a year not likely within the next 10 years I think a really good chance, but I will concede success can be elusive having still no answer 50 years from now.

ScienceDaily: Origin of Life News

Has a lot of articles and news releases making it easy to see the advances being made over time.

 

[Curious George]

While discussing right and wrong, one of the essential points brought up by one member was the concept of the extent to which we fulfilled our purpose of our existence being the primary thing against which our lives might be evaluated.

So, assuming we were created by some entity, created for a specific purpose, that this purpose had been communicated to us and we could be absolutely certain that the communication was both authentic and accurate. Do you believe that we would be obliged to attempt to fulfil that purpose and/or that the entity would have the right to punish us for not doing so?

Would this extend to a parent who had a child for a specific purpose; or to a scientist (or users of some technology) who created an intelligent form of existence for a specific purpose? Why/Why not?

(while not strictly a religious debate I have included it here because it in part refers to this)

I think that given your scenario we must carefully analyze our morals for that, if anything would be the root of our obligation. Specifically, assuming a god existed and communicated its purpose for creating us (and possibly everything else) we still must answer whether the god's will is the basis of our morality. If so, then yes: we would be morally obligated to fulfill that purpose. If no, then we would be obligated to fulfill only that which our own morality dictates.

The latter of the two could also support a moral obligation if we determined fulfilling our "purpose" was more important than any other moral or if it did not conflict with any other moral.

Your science or parent examples highlight this. If we were to suggest that a parent had a child in order to further some rebellion against Jesus Christ, most Christian's would probably agree that not "obeying one's parents" in this case would be trumped by furthering "God's will." This is because in the hierarchy of right and wrong God's will is most righteous or that God's eternal paternity trumps that of the child's earthly parents.

Similarly, if we view morals through a cultural lens, the creator of a child or intelligent species will can be contrary to the ethics of society. And, if this were the case then the child or intelligent being would have no obligation to fulfill their parents or creators "purpose."

To add to this there are many different views on morality and ethics. Consequently, the view slightly or completely changes depending on one's perspective. If I recall correctly, there are some great threads on morality within this site, but as to a concrete answer- I do not even attempt to say which view on ethics or morality is superior. Personally, I try to analyze any given situation from a variety of perspectives and then make the choice for which I am most willing to accept the consequences.

Given that analytical nature, no- I suppose I personally would not feel obligated to fulfill any purpose unless the consequences of such outweighed the consequences of not doing such.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Perhaps but is that right? 'And what about ones who's progrming goes bad and wants freedom?

It's just as wrong as programming them to make them like freedom.