Nothing but an Ego Trip!

[columbus]

and you know the Artist by His creation

This is why I consider science as the best way for us limited humans to learn about God the Creator.
Religion is mostly about us. Our hopes and fears, our egos and mental processes, our imagination and level of development, nothing much to do with God.

Tom

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

Why start with the premise that God is a human like creature that has motivations?

And why not? For all we know, He is this, right? Can you deny that God is a "human-like creature that has motivations?" I mean seriously now... can you? Would you be quite sure of yourself in making that claim? I agree it doesn't make sense to assume He is... but there is also absolutely no use denying that He is. You don't know. You can't know. And therefore, because this "thing" is so amorphous and unknowable, a and because everyone's accounts are so wide and varied, and because so many people (like you have done here) pronounce that you basically "can't know about God" many of us ask the question: Why assume it exists in the first place?

That's the first hurdle to overcome before asking why about anything. Why assume God is an "entity"?

And I would say that the first "hurdle" to overcome even before your "first hurdle" is to ask: "Why assume God exists?" Can't know anything worthwhile about it, can't interact with it, can't get verification from it, can't know if it is there "listening" or not... for all intents and purposes it is as if it doesn't exist anyway.

Why assume God is like a human being? If we start by examining that, then questions about being and existence, and God by extension can get off the ground. Why assume an anthropomorphic God?

Why wonder about the thing at all if you can't even know or discover a fundamental aspect of it like "what" it is? You're right... makes no sense to assume anything about God... because there is no way to verify or falsify any of your assumptions!

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Why start with the premise that God is a human like creature that has motivations? That's the first hurdle to overcome before asking why about anything. Why assume God is an "entity"? Why assume God is like a human being? If we start by examining that, then questions about being and existence, and God by extension can get off the ground. Why assume an anthropomorphic God?

If you are going to assume a creation, then it is either intentional or happenstance. If happenstance, then we can back to naturalistic considerations, as far as we can take them (so far, to moments after the Big Bang, but conjecture can still operate further back than that, though it remains conjecture).

If not happenstance, then intentional -- and that's a big deal, because intention implies some important stuff, not the least of which is the implication of a "being" capable of forming intention, and acting upon it. That is as much anthropomorphizing as I have done, but it is very hard to see how one can do less than that, and still be talking about a "creation" in any meaningful sense.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

well gee.....all of this around you
and you would argue......no Creator?

well then...….all of this is an accident
with no purpose
only coincidental direction
and it will all end in dust
as if it never happened

I say Spirit first
creation as effect of the Cause

science can explain some of it

the rest ….you get to ask Him when you get there
wherever it is you end up

You say "Spirit first, creation as the effect of the Cause" only because, as you clearly indicated, you don't like that notion that the universe has no "purpose." The problem with that, as I see it, is that your personal preferences don't really matter to the universe. "Purpose" implies the notion of something to have that purpose, and the ability to act on it.

 

[Windwalker]

If you are going to assume a creation, then it is either intentional or happenstance.

Why exactly is it one or the other? If I were to look at life's happenings for the average person, for example. We create the environment for things to happen in our lives through our intentions. Then life unfolds within that basic environment of intention, in happenstance ways, which incidentally may turn out to fulfill that intention.

Now, to clarify, by intention I do not mean a specific end result one holds in mind, like "I want to win the lottery tonight", or "I see myself in a red corvette". The intention I'm alluding to is more like an approach towards life. If we have a dim view of life, then we create the context for happenstance to make crappy things happen for us. If we approach life with hope and goodwill, good things tend to come together. This is a common reality for pretty much everyone.

Our intention creates the environment, provides the context, it creates the container for evolution to do its thing, in other words. We interact with our worlds. We are not mere recipients of it. We are participants within it. The subjective and the objective are linked together. As my dear old father said to me, "We create our own environments". That was a wise thing I'm still pondering in my older years.

If happenstance, then we can back to naturalistic considerations, as far as we can take them (so far, to moments after the Big Bang, but conjecture can still operate further back than that, though it remains conjecture).

If not happenstance, then intentional -- and that's a big deal, because intention implies some important stuff, not the least of which is the implication of a "being" capable of forming intention, and acting upon it. That is as much anthropomorphizing as I have done, but it is very hard to see how one can do less than that, and still be talking about a "creation" in any meaningful sense.

I think the other factor too now that we're looking at this together more like this, is it's not just the anthropomorphizing of the Divine, creating a human-like God common to mythological systems that creates a distortion. It's basic dualism. It's the externalization of not just God, but the world we live in. It sees that life is something that happens to us, not something we co-create in a participatory interaction of the subject and the object.

That what it appears as when you divide it up as either intention or happenstance. It has a dividing line right down the middle, separating you the subject, from it the environment. Either you act upon the world, or the world acts upon you. It's a split brain, without the connective tissues. It's not a whole personality, but a split-personality world, subject inside, world outside. But that's not reality.

So understanding this basic view of reality as an interconnected whole, it changes the nature of the question about God then, and the role of God in creation, or in "creating", as I prefer to view it.

 

[Augustus]

I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

So of course, I asked Google (about as omniscient a thing as I am aware of). And I came across this:

Why Did God Create the World?

It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?

If we assume that an omnimax God exists, trying to understand it with reference to human emotions and motivations seems somewhat absurd to me.

We are bad enough at understanding other humans, never mind understanding the perceptions of other animals. How on earth could we even begin to understand things from the perspective of something infinite and omniscient?

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

If we assume that an omnimax God exists, trying to understand it with reference to human emotions and motivations seems somewhat absurd to me.

We are bad enough at understanding other humans, never mind understanding the perceptions of other animals. How on earth could we even begin to understand things from the perspective of something infinite and omniscient?

Then how on earth of we become so silly as to believe we know what it wants of us?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

well gee.....all of this around you
and you would argue......no Creator?

well then...….all of this is an accident
with no purpose
only coincidental direction
and it will all end in dust
as if it never happened

I say Spirit first
creation as effect of the Cause

science can explain some of it

the rest ….you get to ask Him when you get there
wherever it is you end up

so, you simply assume that because there is something and that you are part of it--and you have heard some stories about it--it must have been intentionally made, one way or another, by some 'spirit,' even though it cannot be demonstrated.

Sorry, but my understanding is that existence does not directly nor indirectly imply creation by a spirit/deity...and certainly, nothing about WHY such a deity would create a cosmos such as we happen to exist in. Which is what the OP is about, I think.

Here's another possibility about the relationship between a supposed Spirit First, the cosmos, and us...a possibility that really knocks us down from our high-horse...the universe was created in a more-or-less manufacturing process, creating something that the Omnimax Deity (TM) needs...but life is just a byproduct, unintended, perhaps even unwanted...an undesirable impurity...and us poop-flinging apes convince ourselves that it's US that the Omnimax Deity (TM) wants, what He/She/It/Them created this whole cosmos for...

I consider this alternative interpretation just as likely as the other suggestions presented in this thread...and with little to no evidence really in support of ANY of the proposals...

 

[Augustus]

Then how on earth of we become so silly as to believe we know what it wants of us?

I don't believe in god so I don't.

But if I did I'd say the best we can do is to rely on scriptures as guidelines while accepting we will never truly understand.

But understanding what someone wants of you is very different from understanding things from their perspective. A child can know what their parent wants from them without understanding the bigger picture.

 

[syo]

"Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

It felt lonely.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

I don't believe in god so I don't.

But if I did I'd say the best we can do is to rely on scriptures as guidelines while accepting we will never truly understand.

Now I hope you can see the problem with that, which is simply that before those scriptures existed, those who wrote them had nothing whatever to rely on with the exception of the content of their own imaginations.

And it is that which you say is the best we can find to rely on? That's a puzzling idea, to me.

But understanding what someone wants of you is very different from understanding things from their perspective. A child can know what their parent wants from them without understanding the bigger picture.

Yet over time, I hope that parents at least make the effort to help the child, as it grows, to see the bigger picture. It is the expectation, after all that eventually the fledgling will leave this nest.

 

[Thief]

existence does not directly nor indirectly imply creation by a spirit/deity

so....substance
a dead item

can beget the living

no such thing as spirit?

 

[Thief]

you don't like that notion that the universe has no "purpose."

it's not about what I like

I prefer Cause and effect
over foolish denial

what?.....no Spirit?
nothing Greater than you?

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

so....substance
a dead item

can beget the living

no such thing as spirit?

well, I don't see substance as dead...nor do I think that there is no such thing as spirit...nor that one preceded the other...

They aren't really two different separate things...that's something that some humans like to think, so they can be on the ego-trip of being special for that special deity...

 

[InChrist]

I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

So of course, I asked Google (about as omniscient a thing as I am aware of). And I came across this:

Why Did God Create the World?

It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?

I see it as God is Love, the very essence and definition of love, agape love, the love that is completely selfless and concerned for the wel-being of others. I believe God created human being for the purpose of including us in His great, eternal love.

 

[Thief]

well, I don't see substance as dead.

ooops…………

if you don't the difference

oh oh

 

[beenherebeforeagain]

ooops…………

if you don't the difference

oh oh

yep, if you see a difference...uh-oh!

 

[Etritonakin]

I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

So of course, I asked Google (about as omniscient a thing as I am aware of). And I came across this:

Why Did God Create the World?

It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?

"Now if we are children, then we are heirs -- heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

18 "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."

There is nothing wrong with ego -or glory -unless corrupted...
and it's going to be one glorious ego trip!

We will be given bodies which will free us from being bound to the earth -and which will allow us to have power over even cosmic events by a much-improved interface.
(It is written that "the heavens" "were formed to be inhabited.")

Philippians 3:21 King James Version (KJV)

21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

it's not about what I like

I prefer Cause and effect
over foolish denial

what?.....no Spirit?
nothing Greater than you?

I don't know what "greater" even means. Better? Bigger? Smarter? Sure, there are lots of people better, bigger and smarter than me. I can't compare myself in those terms (except perhaps bigger) to other things, like skunks, rocks, trees and tornados.

The word "spirit" quite literally has no meaning for me, in the sense that you are using it. Before my body began to exist, there was nothing of "me" in the universe. After my body ceases to live, there will again be nothing of "me" left in the universe, with the exception of the atoms of which I am made. But as they are not really "me" in the sense I am using the word, that hardly matters. I can cut atoms off at will, and still be me. I do it every day when I clip my nails or trim my hair and mustache. Various bits have been removed surgically and I remain wholly "me." But when I cease to live, then I ("me") will also cease to exist.

 

[sojourner]

I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

So of course, I asked Google (about as omniscient a thing as I am aware of). And I came across this:

Why Did God Create the World?

It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?

Google’s not exactly a theological bell-ringer.

God is love. Love is relationship. Creation is an act of love. There’s a silly quotation by Robert Heinlein in Time Enough for Love: “God split himself into a myriad parts that he might have friends...”. That pretty much is the root of it.