Why did God create the universe in the first place?

[oldcelt]

To hear the deists talk, it was a waste of God’s time, and God finally knew his mistake.

As, I think, the only Deist on board, I can say that I have never hears any other Deist say it was a waste of time or a mistake. We just don’t have God involved with mankind or manipulating the universe. Creation is what it is, and we have to deal with it.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

As, I think, the only Deist on board, I can say that I have never hears any other Deist say it was a waste of time or a mistake. We just don’t have God involved with mankind or manipulating the universe. Creation is what it is, and we have to deal with it.

Agreed.

But it makes no sense to think God would create a universe then not be involved with it.

As for manipulating it, that goes for not only creating a universe, but giving it a history of laws that unfold continuously and sustain the universe and all the creatures in it.

Why would God be just a Creator and nothing more? How would you know this?

If you know this because God revealed it to you, then God is involved with you and is manipulating you.

 

[oldcelt]

Agreed.

But it makes no sense to think God would create a universe then not be involved with it.

As for manipulating it, that goes for not only creating a universe, but giving it a history of laws that unfold continuously and sustain the universe and all the creatures in it.

Why would God be just a Creator and nothing more? How would you know this?

If you know this because God revealed it to you, then God is involved with you and is manipulating you.

It comes from observation of the world around us. What we see everyday, to us, is inconsistent with the version of God that most of us were taught. In actuality, many more people are Deist than know it…the “I believe there is something out there” group. That’s how I determined what I actually was except that I had an active interest and was really searching.

So far as God, who knows what He might be up to. Observing this creation, contemplating or performing another,…it could be anything.

The universe is self-sustaining as is the earth. There really isn’t anything to be done. Eventually, this creation may collapse on itself and He’ll have more to do in this neck of the woods

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

Agreed.

But it makes no sense to think God would create a universe then not be involved with it.

As for manipulating it, that goes for not only creating a universe, but giving it a history of laws that unfold continuously and sustain the universe and all the creatures in it.

Why would God be just a Creator and nothing more? How would you know this?

If you know this because God revealed it to you, then God is involved with you and is manipulating you.

Good Evening Charlemagne et al: The way I see it, there is no reason for anyone in this discussion to despair. The reason it appears as though prayers don’t get answered is simply this: Our lives are enmeshed with one another inextricably, and each action in one place causes a reaction in another place. Everything has to fit into the larger scheme. Minor things happening in one place affect larger things happening in another. Even when there is apparently no relation between one thing and another, there’s a relation. On a very simple scale, two of us can’t approach an intersection from different directions and both pray for a green light and get one. The way to get your prayers answered is to get your will in line with the Big Will. Find out what the Big Will wants and pray for that. Then you start getting your way, because it’s no longer your way. It’s no longer about you. Your wants and needs become entangled with the needs of the whole. There’s joy in it, let me tell you. It’s liberating. just If you can learn to ride the wave, things start to fall into place.

 

[tonyrey]

Good Evening Charlemagne et al: The way I see it, there is no reason for anyone in this discussion to despair. The reason it appears as though prayers don’t get answered is simply this: Our lives are enmeshed with one another inextricably, and each action in one place causes a reaction in another place. Everything has to fit into the larger scheme. Minor things happening in one place affect larger things happening in another. Even when there is apparently no relation between one thing and another, there’s a relation. On a very simple scale, two of us can’t approach an intersection from different directions and both pray for a green light and get one. The way to get your prayers answered is to get your will in line with the Big Will. Find out what the Big Will wants and pray for that. Then you start getting your way, because it’s no longer your way. It’s no longer about you. Your wants and needs become entangled with the needs of the whole. There’s joy in it, let me tell you. It’s liberating. just If you can learn to ride the wave, things start to fall into place.

We can’t expect to have everything our own way when there are so many of us!

 

[tonyrey]

Well, I certainly would know no better if I had never existed, but that was up to my parents. In a sense, they created my universe and it has been a wild ride that I wouldn’t trade for anything.
I do remain surprised at the reaction to a philosophy that believes in God. You’d think I was a wild-eyed pagan with multiple wives throwing people into volcanoes.

You are equating a sense of futility with immorality! Your appreciation of the value of life implies that God is good - which is virtuously synonymous with loving. If He isn’t there is a contradiction somewhere…

 

[oldcelt]

You are equating a sense of futility with immorality! Your appreciation of the value of life implies that God is good - which is virtuously synonymous with loving. If He isn’t there is a contradiction somewhere…

I didn’t mean to. There goes my International Cynics card.

Actually, I said that God did not create me. I am the result of my parent’s interactions, nothing more or less.

 

[tonyrey]

I didn’t mean to. There goes my International Cynics card.

Actually, I said that God did not create me. I am the result of my parent’s interactions, nothing more or less.

How did procreative interactions originate?

 

[roselily]

I do not know it, but in Genesis God regret created human and after flood God regret flood all human only left Noah and family, we ask God mercy that only God is all powerful and all goodness, and all wonderful .

**Genesis 6
6And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’

Genesis 6
21And when the Lord smelt the pleasing odour, the Lord said in his heart, ‘I will never again curse the ground because of humankind, for the inclination of the human heart is evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. **

 

[HailAllalalalah]

Because he’s like a modern artist, he likes to create pieces of ****. As said in the true bible, God himself said - “Owa ar ochinchin ga daisuki da yo” and thus the universe was created .

We’ll all understand after fisting a donkey, that God also wanted vaginal implants. I haven’t actually fisted a donkey, but I’ve fondled a deer which is close enough, and I must say, I understand the world clearly now The universe is like a vaginal crease; it looks beautiful at first, but when you take a closer look, it’s pretty revolting.

I remember one day, I found a baby bird and regurgitated my left over spicy halal but spat it into the trash and jerked off into the birds willing and able to buck a toothed sexy beak; we all like chicks. This made him **** a worm on a Sunday morning. The bird died but that’s okay because what’s the difference between Winnie the pooh and a teenage girl? Nothing, they both have severe eating disorders if you don’t eat sandwich crust you need to grow up, and if you don’t watch your **** swirl down the toilet as it flushes, you need to rethink your life. My girlfriend is like the new windows too, she’s 8. God created this universe, we need to do everything we can.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It comes from observation of the world around us. What we see everyday, to us, is inconsistent with the version of God that most of us were taught.

Which aspects of our God do you see as inconsistent with the world around us?

Can you give just two or three examples?

 

[oldcelt]

Which aspects of our God do you see as inconsistent with the world around us?

Can you give just two or three examples?

We were taught of an active God in the OT, one who spoke, commanded, etc. I see no evidence of that today. It’s the old loving God would not allow this and I believe that to be true. Rather than being a unifying point among nations, the concept of God is divisive…the OT God would have smote somebody.
So far as how creation turned out, it is beautiful for the most part, but doesn’t look to me like it requires ant divine intervention to function. It is a self-contained system that evolution explains nicely.

 

[Counterpoint]

Hello,

Why would God create the universe in the first place?

God did not create the universe as you see it; the world is the projection of our collective unconscious.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

So far as how creation turned out, it is beautiful for the most part, but doesn’t look to me like it requires ant divine intervention to function. It is a self-contained system that evolution explains nicely.

If it required a deity to create, why wouldn’t it require a deity to function?

Evolution explains nothing nicely. It concerns only plants and other living organisms.

It tells us nothing about why man is so extraordinary among all creatures of the Earth.

There are too many wonderful coincidences on this planet to say evolution is random.

Even Darwin agreed:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.” Origin of the Species, 1872 (last edition before Darwin’s death).

 

[tonyrey]

We were taught of an active God in the OT, one who spoke, commanded, etc. I see no evidence of that today. It’s the old loving God would not allow this and I believe that to be true. Rather than being a unifying point among nations, the concept of God is divisive…the OT God would have smote somebody.
So far as how creation turned out, it is beautiful for the most part, but doesn’t look to me like it requires ant divine intervention to function. It is a self-contained system that evolution explains nicely.

Does evolution explain itself? If so how?

NB This is not a question about evolution but about its nebulous and non-existent predecessor!

 

[tonyrey]

God did not create the universe as you see it; the world is the projection of our collective unconscious.

How do you justify that hypothesis? It implies that you are an independent observer of humanity…

 

[Aloysium]

God did not create the universe as you see it; the world is the projection of our collective unconscious.

:twocents:

Being visually impaired, I know the universe to be more than what our eyes reveal. (BTW- Isn’t the existence of colour simply, totally amazing!!)
I can relate to what is through my senses and intellect.
I can divide that relationship into me and it, and consider my experience to be a part of who I am ( a “projection of our collective unconscious”?). At the same time, the experience includes what is.
It’s all about relationship, which in its perfect form is love.

 

[Counterpoint]

Counterpoint:

God did not create the universe as you see it; the world is the projection of our collective unconscious.

How do you justify that hypothesis? It implies that you are an independent observer of humanity…

It implies idealism, not solipsism.

How do I justify it?

1. It has the support of various philosophical systems (e.g. both Schopenhauer and Hegel spoke of the unconscious).
2. It has the support of various schools of psychology (e.g. Jungian psychology posits the “collective unconscious.”).
3. It has the support of various mystical traditions (e.g. Neoplatonism, Vedantism, Buddhism - all three subscribe to emanationism).
4. It has the support of various interpretations of quantum mechancis (e.g. Wheeler’s “participatory universe.”)
5. It gives a compelling reason for “why the world” (the subject matter of this thread). Why the world? It is the medium by which the unconscious world-soul becomes the divine self-conscious spirit.

6). It provides a compelling solution to the so-called “problem of evil” - a problem which plagues the Abrahamic religions. In short, the birth of self-consciousness is a dialectical struggle.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

It implies idealism, not solipsism.

How do I justify it?

1. It has the support of various philosophical systems (e.g. both Schopenhauer and Hegel spoke of the unconscious).
2. It has the support of various schools of psychology (e.g. Jungian psychology posits the “collective unconscious.”).
3. It has the support of various mystical traditions (e.g. Neoplatonism, Vedantism, Buddhism - all three subscribe to emanationism).
4. It has the support of various interpretations of quantum mechancis (e.g. Wheeler’s “participatory universe.”)
5. It gives a compelling reason for “why the world” (the subject matter of this thread). Why the world? It is the medium by which the unconscious world-soul becomes the divine self-conscious spirit.

6). It provides a compelling solution to the so-called “problem of evil” - a problem which plagues the Abrahamic religions. In short, the birth of self-consciousness is a dialectical struggle.

I’m sorry, but none of what you say here means a lick of sense to me. How have you proven anything but to rope in various and sundry authorities to make your point.

It would be nice if you could get beyond these names and get to a thought that is compelling. If the world was pure subjectivity, then every experience would be as true or as false as every other experience. There would be no measuring stick to separate the true from the false because there would be nothing “out there” beyond consciousness.

By the way, the problem of evil does not plague the Abrahamic religions, unless you can explain why it is a plague rather than a puzzle. And you certainly haven’t explained at all why it solves the “problem” by calling it a “dialectical struggle.”

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

It implies idealism, not solipsism.

Good Evening Counterpoint. Do you mean Monistic Idealism, such as that posited by Amit Goswami?

Thanks,
Gary