Why did God create us

[questfortruth]

What makes you think time had a beginning?

Big Bang. And Bible: "in the Beginning -- God"

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Yes but would God Require our Body, Would you drive a car when you could simply will yourself somewhere

Wouldn't our body, too, be part of God and the ego itself cast the idea of separateness? But the ego formed with the body, so even that is a part of God. So maybe the drop was never separate from the ocean to begin with.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

God created us to create God.

I love circular logic...

 

[Goldemar]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

I believe the Great God in Heaven (which I call the Lightworld) created our souls/spirits as expressions of His creative will, but I don't believe that He created the material world. I believe that instead one of His first creations (called Ptahil) acted as the Demiurgic creator of the material world with the assistance of a separate being (called Ruha) in and material from a separate world (the Darkworld).

 

[Aupmanyav]

I think that what we call existence emanates from a "God-source" that is beyond our comprehension. And is a part of that source. It's not 'creator/created'. It's all of a single whole.

That, as you know, Hindus term as Brahman. Brahman is not a God. Why do you term it as 'God-Source', just 'Source' has less assumptions? I suppose it is because you grew up with the thought of existence of a God. I also had a theist background, but when I faced the reality, I had to abandon it.

My old "Signature Statement" used to be "Whatever caused this universe/multiverse I'll call 'God' and pretty much just leave it at that".

Don't you think that is funny? Why should you term the cause as 'God'? What is this compulsion of having a God? All because you were raised in that environment and can't get over it?

God is an invisible spirit.

The Pink Unicorn also is an invisible spirit.

We are tiny and insignificant in our own mind but what makes us significant is that God has told and shown us we are significant to Him.

Proves the point that @Stevicus made.

God created us to live as His children with Him forever in His Kingdom.

In which continent this kingdom exists?

 

[Messianic Israelite]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

Hi Madmogwai. Good evening. Yahweh created us because He wanted to reproduce Himself. As you rightly understand, a spirit being does not have sex. How then does a spirit being reproduce itself. Well it could create other spirit beings, but to be sure they will be like Him, like Yahweh, thinking like Yahweh and keeping all the commandments, He has made us, to attain through Yahshua His Son a life of perfection, or as close to perfection as possible. Then, once we have proven ourselves to Yahweh we can then receive spiritual bodies and be 'born again'.

 

[InChrist]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

God is Love, therefore He created human beings in His image to share in His love and live in eternal relationship with Him and each other.
Humans were created in the image of God ...


“The image of God (Latin: imago dei) refers to the immaterial part of humanity. It sets human beings apart from the animal world, fits them for the dominion God intended them to have over the earth (Genesis 1:28), and enables them to commune with their Maker. It is a likeness mentally, morally, and socially.

Mentally, humanity was created as a rational, volitional agent. In other words, human beings can reason and choose. This is a reflection of God’s intellect and freedom. Anytime someone invents a machine, writes a book, paints a landscape, enjoys a symphony, calculates a sum, or names a pet, he or she is proclaiming the fact that we are made in God’s image.

Morally, humanity was created in righteousness and perfect innocence, a reflection of God’s holiness. God saw all He had made (humanity included) and called it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Our conscience or “moral compass” is a vestige of that original state. Whenever someone writes a law, recoils from evil, praises good behavior, or feels guilty, he or she is confirming the fact that we are made in God’s own image.

Socially, humanity was created for fellowship. This reflects God’s triune nature and His love. In Eden, humanity’s primary relationship was with God (Genesis 3:8 implies fellowship with God), and God made the first woman because “it is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Every time someone marries, makes a friend, hugs a child, or attends church, he or she is demonstrating the fact that we are made in the likeness of God.”

What does it mean that humanity is made in the image of God (imago dei)? | GotQuestions.org

 

[PureX]

That, as you know, Hindus term as Brahman. Brahman is not a God. Why do you term it as 'God-Source', just 'Source' has less assumptions?

I make no assumptions about "God". It's just the word I use to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is.

I suppose it is because you grew up with the thought of existence of a God.

I have no idea what the "existence of God" even means. How does the source of all existence, itself, exist? See what I mean? It's beyond my comprehension.

I also had a theist background, but when I faced the reality, I had to abandon it. Don't you think that is funny? Why should you term the cause as 'God'?

Why not? It's just a word. I have to label the mystery somehow. Why not call it "God"?

What is this compulsion of having a God? All because you were raised in that environment and can't get over it?The Pink Unicorn also is an invisible spirit.Proves the point that @Stevicus made. In which continent this kingdom exists?

I think you're trying too hard to disparage someone else's thinking. Why? What do you care?

 

[Notthedarkweb]

The great Franciscan thinker Bonaventure has a very Aristotlean answer to this that also solves the question of how exactly trinitarian relationship can occur. He argues that the Godhead is equivalent to the transcendental of love (a common Medieval Christian scholastic concept encoding a quality in itself independent of its instantiation in the world), and that being pure love, is divided into two internally such that the Father is the loving subject and the Son is the object of love. But pure love is boundless according to Aristotlean metaphysics, which means that the love that's predicated of the Godhead internally must outflow in the form of the Holy Spirit unto an infinity of other objects i.e the world as it is given. The Godhead's creative act is therefore the outflowing of his internal nature unto other objects out of His own free (though from his own nature) decision to love infinitely.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

That, as you know, Hindus term as Brahman. Brahman is not a God. Why do you term it as 'God-Source', just 'Source' has less assumptions?

Just a correction. The Nyayaikas generally have multiple arguments for the existence of a creator god separate from the world (since they are ontological pluralists about reality i.e. contra Hindu monists, they believe that there are multiple types of basic and real entities in the world.)

Udayana's Nyäyakusumänja is the classic with his cosmotelological argument, which can be summarized in the form:

(1)
Earth and the like are effects (Ha).

(2)
All effects have a conscious agent within the causal complex that brings them about, like a pot, unlike an atom ((x)(Hx → Sx)).

∴(3)
Earth and the like have a conscious agent within the causal complex that brings them about (Sa).
​

The Nyayaikas also deny the basic metaphysics of the Vedantin monists on many other grounds, especially complex epistemic access arguments. I can elaborate on a few of them if anyone wants to know.

Furthermore, the Madhavcharya tradition, especially their main commentator Jayatīrtha, significantly criticize the Advaitin monist conception of Brahman, claiming that it reduces the ontological otherness of Vishnu from ordinary entities and therefore reduces Vishnu's status to being just one entity among other entities in the world as opposed to being the most powerful entity in the world. From their name alone, you might have gleaned that these Dvaita Vedantins are very opposed to the "non-dualism" of the Advaitins and have a traditional conception of deity very similar to that found in Abrahamic faith traditions.

Both the Nyaya-Vaisesika (in Navya-Nyaya) and Dvaita Vedanta are alive and fairly influential darshanas, so it is hard to deny that they don't constitute Hindu understandings of God.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

I make no assumptions about "God". It's just the word I use to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is.

I'm not sure if there's any need to posit an entity outside the world (which constitutes the absolute horizon of our phenomenological experience either way)? Like, why does it need to be a mystery? Why can't it just be a brute fact? After all, what's the counter-factual to the world existing as it does exist? That it would not? But nothing is parasitic on existence in the first place (Carnap's Uberwindung illustrates this neatly). After all, the sense of the term "there is rain outside" and "there is nothing outside" is quite distinct. In the first proposition, you can describe the fact in various different ways. In the second proposition, you literally can't describe it in any meaningful way since existence isn't a property of nothing. Nothing cannot be something. To put it pithily, the descriptive value of the concept "nothing" as opposed to "something" is nill. It's nonsense.

 

[Truth in love]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

As for why I think that is very straight forward.
Moses 1:
37 And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.
38 And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

 

[Notthedarkweb]

As for why I think that is very straight forward.
Moses 1:
37 And the Lord God spake unto Moses, saying: The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine.
38 And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words.
39 For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

What book is this? I searched it in my New Oxford Annotated Bible too and I didn't find these passages, even in the apocrypha.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously

And

despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

These statements are self contradicting.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

How was it that you came to determine all this?

 

[Wildswanderer]

I believe it is possible that God who has unlimited power, who can be everywhere simultaneously and is immortal would at some stage become bored.

All this knowledge in an empty void God decided to create the universe and all its contents, without it God would return to an empty void of suffering.

Because of the Joy his many creations bring he loves them deeply and created a storied universe with life on multiple planets in many universes and Dimensions and gave them free will.

Free will enables them to act independently of God and thus entertain thee.

I say Thee because surely God has No genitalia as breeding is not necessary when you create with thought, why would God have a body, hands to grasp are not required, legs to walk, just a thought and he can move.

the different races of different planets in different dimensions have Bodies designed to be vehicles that can physically react and manipulate their world.

It makes no sense that we would be cast in Gods image.

Man’s Ego is so great even though we acknowledge Gods power we imagine God as looking Human despite the fact we know he does need a vehicle to traverse our Planet.

He doesn't need anything, including us. That doesn't mean he doesn't desire anything.
And of course he's not like us, he's completely other, and complete in himself, but he chose to become one of us to save us from ourselves.

I don't believe God can become bored. Boredom implies imperfection.

 

[Dao Hao Now]

I make no assumptions about "God". It's just the word I use to refer to the great mystery source, sustenance, and purpose of all that is.

Apparently you do make an assumption that there was/is a source….
Since you admit;

It's beyond my comprehension.

Why not just accept it as a mystery
and say “I don’t know”?

Why not? It's just a word. I have to label the mystery somehow. Why not call it "God"?

Mostly because (as is obvious by reading this forum) “God” is a loaded word that people apply personal meaning to,
which is not the same as what your meaning is.
Which makes it needlessly misleading.

Why apply an obviously misconstrued word to something that is admittedly unknown.
Wouldn’t “I don’t know” be succinctly more honest?

 

[Brian2]

The Pink Unicorn also is an invisible spirit

How do you know it is pink?

.Proves the point that @Stevicus made

No it doesn't.
What God has done and said in Jesus does prove that we are more significant than our eyes and logic tell us however. That is because the creator has shown that He loves us.

.In which continent this kingdom exists?

All continents.

 

[Aupmanyav]

I have no idea what the "existence of God" even means. How does the source of all existence, itself, exist? See what I mean? It's beyond my comprehension.
Why not? It's just a word. I have to label the mystery somehow. Why not call it "God"?
I think you're trying too hard to disparage someone else's thinking. Why? What do you care?

Right, Say 'source'. The word God has huge unneeded baggage. Creation, soul, heaven, hell, messiah, judgment, end of days, deliverance, resurrection, etc.
We are in a discussion forum, otherwise anybody else's view do not matter to me.

 

[Aupmanyav]

(2) All effects have a conscious agent within the causal complex that brings them about, like a pot, unlike an atom.
The Nyayaikas also deny the basic metaphysics of the Vedantin monists on many other grounds, especially complex epistemic access arguments. I can elaborate on a few of them if anyone wants to know.
Furthermore, the Madhavcharya tradition, especially their main commentator Jayatīrtha, significantly criticize the Advaitin monist conception of Brahman, claiming that it reduces the ontological otherness of Vishnu from ordinary entities and therefore reduces Vishnu's status to being just one entity among other entities in the world as opposed to being the most powerful entity in the world.
From their name alone, you might have gleaned that these Dvaita Vedantins are very opposed to the "non-dualism" of the Advaitins and have a traditional conception of deity very similar to that found in Abrahamic faith traditions.
Both the Nyaya-Vaisesika (in Navya-Nyaya) and Dvaita Vedanta are alive and fairly influential darshanas, so it is hard to deny that they don't constitute Hindu understandings of God.

Udayana did not know about Quantum Mechanics. Prajapati Parameshthi who wrote 'Nasadiya Sukta' had a better understanding of things.
You see, @Notthedarkweb , my position is that of an advaitist and a strong atheist (i.e., 'even the possibility of existence of God or soul does not exist'). That is not the usual advaitist position. I do not think there is any argument which can make me budge from my position.
But people may have interest in your exposition of the Naiyyayika position. You surely, have excellent information on things. I look forward to your posts.
Madhvacharya (my homage to him) was the strongest reaction to Sankara. Hindus are entitled to their own opinions in various philosophies, even if their views may impinge upon Lord Vishnu's position. 'Nyaya-Vaisheshika' in their current form or 'Dvaita' do not constitute the understanding of all Hindus about God question (that will be a huge claim). After all, Samkhya had its 'nireeshwaravad' position. I beg Sri Madhva's forgiveness.