God's purpose

I have no right to tell you that your beliefs are wrong as you are right that I cannot prove in any way that they are so.
You have the right to believe whatever you choose. However I have the equal right to dispute the basis of that belief.
There are many things that cannot be proved wrong which would be considered crazy by most and probably by you as well. I can see no more reason for believing in God than in fairies, unicorns or Apollo.As for mutually exclusive...well only you can decide if God (capital G as you put it) is compatible with belief in the Roman gods, the greek gods, the norse gods, the Hindu gods, the jewish god, Allah, the pagan gods, the spaghetti flying monster etc etc. etc.
As a non believer my understanding is that belief in GOD (in any conventional sense) would preclude many of these if not all. There is no rational reason to believe in any of the above so the only rational response is to base beliefe on physical evidence alone.This thread is about the purpose of God. Your only real claim to God is that science explains the mechanics but not the wonder of nature. I don't really dispute that but fail to see how that could be in any way considered evidence for the existence of God?? All it does is point oit the limitations of science.
Nature is wonderful. What does God necessarily have to do with that?

Now you are being pedantic.I claim that scienctific understanding replaces religious explanations for physical phenomenon.You claim that it does not.Make your own definition of "adequate" if you want to but I still defy you to come up with an area that mainstream religion still makes a claim to explaining, that science does not have a rival experimentally verified theory for.By contrast there are many religious explanations of physical phenomenon that have been abandoned due to scientific understanding of said phenomenon.Creation of universe, creation of life and post death are difficult (but not impossible) for science to deal with due to practical limitations and are therefore the only remaining areas that religion can lay any claim to. As we understand these more and more religious "explanations" will be abandoned the same way other religious explanations of physical phenomenon have been.

Okay. Once again, that is fine. Actually I use GOD to refer to GOD, God to refer to various possible reasonably accurate charicatures of GOD and god to refer to some of the less likely caricatures.But all of those, every human portrayal including the Christian God are but constructs, creations of humans. As I said, they are maps, not the reality, the Territory. Again, I can only tell you what I believe. I believe GOD is the creator, the sustainer, the sovereign, our guide and judge. GOD is a friend, a companion, my mentor and my guardian. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Reminder for everyone on the topic.Although the title is "God's Purpose" the opening question isn't really aimed at discussing God's purpose other than the possible loss of purpose. It is not about whether God exists or not.Please mind your direction.Please direct any comments concerning this Admin msg to the Moderation Thread.
Any response in this thread will receive a 24 hour timeout.Thank you

On what basis do you believe that? It sounds rapantly delusional wishful thinking to me. I would love to have a "friend, a companion, my mentor and my guardian" but have no reason whatsoever to believe in one. What have you seen that I have not?
That may sound blunt and rude but if I cannot ask that question here, where else can I ask it? Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

Personal experience. Okay, no problem. I don't know. I can't even guess what you have seen. But I can tell you that absolutely nothing I have seen or experienced could ever be confirmed scientifically. Of course you can ask. You can ask most anything.Please remember though that even the God I believe in is but a caricature of GOD. That is fine. Frankly, it doesn't much matter whether you believe in GOD, are aware of GOD or even absolutely KNOW there is no GOD. If there is GOD, She is aware of you, and with you and watching over you, guiding you and acting as your mentor. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This is one of those theological discussions that needs to have agreeable definitions among the participants--or at least an awareness of the differences between our conceptualizations.Did humanity imagine/create God or is there in fact a God who imagined/created us long before we even were able to conceptualize Him?In other words, did God always eternally exist? (an uncaused first cause?) It may be true that humans are used to a belief that can be conceptualized, but in the case of God---it ain't always so. The purpose of God is at best speculation, anyway. As was said in the Bible, I Am that I Am. We have no more right to assign a purpose to God than our computers have to assign a purpose for us.Edited by AdminPD, : WarningEdited by Phat, : add

Absolutely. No one living will ever know. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I don't think I have made a claim one way or the other on that issue.Gould made an argument for non-overlapping magisteria. It was, in effect, an argument that religion and science have separate domains, and should be able to peacefully coexist.I'm for peaceful coexistence. You seem to think that science should declare war on religion. It doesn't matter whether Gould was right or wrong, and he certainly has critics. We still don't need a war between science and religion. There are bound to be skirmishes, as YECs and similar group take issue with science. But science has enough to do without declaring war on religion.If you want to declare war on religion, that's your right. Dawkins does that. But don't do it in the name of science.It is an observable fact that there are many religious people whose religion does not require that they limit themselves to a "god of the gaps". Such people have apparently found a purpose for God that science will not displace.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

This objection to science you mention--that it 'removes God from the equation'-- is not really an argument. The objection is emotional, not rational.The objection begins with the a priori assumption of God's existence. In the process it anthropomorphizes God as a being who might get bored if he has nothing to do, or who might get his feelings hurt if he isn't invited to the same party the rest of us are attending.The premise is rather silly when you think about it. But that's my point: those who raise this objection don't think about much the premise. I mean, really. Why is it the task of science to give deity something to do?What theyare voicing is the need they feel to preserve a place for their belief system in the world of explanations. The more phenomena science can explain, the more they feel their religious explanations being crowded out.The fear: a religion powerless to explain any natural phenomena. On a social level, they are afraid of irrelevance. How are you going to sell the Bible as an 'answer book' to people who feel they're making progress finding answers on their own? On a personal level, they are not sure their faith can survive the displacement. Their belief system has always involved literalizing the supernatural in the realm of the material. What happens if they are left with a purely spiritual religion? They fear having a purely spiritual religion would be like having no religion at all.At bottom is an assumption that spiritual realities are not real enough. They want God to be evident in the material world because the material world is where the action is. They honestly don't know where their religion can go if science takes away too much of material turf. 'No room for God' means no room for them._

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

This thread is about Gods purpose. My argument is that science impinges on "Gods purpose" by ultimately removing any physical role for God. I use the historically shrinking role of religion(s) to explain physical phenomenon to support this assertion.You seem to fundamentally disagree with this but also seem unwilling to be specific as to exactly how you think this wrong in any practical sense?The fact is that (whatever Gould says and no matter how much you wish it to be otherwise) science and religion do continualy come into conflict wherever religion purports to tell us about the physical world. Science and religion can only coexist peacefully if religion ceases to make any claim to explaining physical phenomenon in supernatural terms of any sort. This does not seem to be a position which those of faith are comfortable with (as the OP implies). Presumably this is because people find it difficult to reconcile their idea of a personal God with one that has no physical role in the world at all including no role in physical creation.If people choose to worship a God that is comforting and internal then I (despite personally thinking they are fooling themselves) would certainly not "declare war" on them as you put it.However where those of faith are invoking their Gods to make claims about the physical world* I would argue that science should insist that these claims are not given equal footing to scientific evidence based claims and that science should forcibly assert why such faith based claims are inherently inferior.
The danger of not doing so is ID and other such nonsense being taught in school science classes, declarations of the sort that evolution and cretionism are just theories which should be considered equally and a general inability to differentiate the findings of properly conducted research from the rantings of charlatans and opportunists. Whether you are comfortable with the fact or not science is the enemy of irrationality in matters of the physical world. Where religion is guilty of perpetuating irrationality regards such physical matters science can, and should, confront such claims.If that removes a physical role for God or limits the areas to which religion can lay claim, and that in turns offends people - Too bad.*whether that be the creation of the universe, the beginings of life, whether there can exist a form of consciousness seperate from the physical, the occurrance of "miracles" or anything else to which science can provide insights and evidence based knowledge*Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

These appear to be the very things about which science itself recognises its limitations. It is silent in these areas and there is no reason to suppose it is going to comment anytime soon

There are many scientists who believe that God created the conditions for the big bang. I don't see that science impinges in any way on this purpose.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

You are right that science does not have adequate answers to these questions. That is my point. These are the only areas left for religion to lay any claim to, exactly because science has not yet provided sufficeint insight. However to say science is silent on these issues is just wrong. There is good reason to believe that science will have much more to say on these issues in the not too distant future -
Particle accelerator experiments into the very early universe and theoretical investigation into the nature of quantim fluctuations, research into abiogenesis and replicating chemical compounds and artificial intelligence and the nature of consciousnes are all areas of science that I would argue are destined to come into direct conflict with religion at some point. When they do religion will be forced to retreat yet further back in it's claim to explaining anything about the physical world at all.

That is a consequence of science not knowing the conditions for the Big Bang and how these could have come about. Investigation into this area, if fruitful, could well change that.
In the same way that knowledge of the Big Bang and expansion of the universe changed the view that God created the universe as it currently is, to a view that he initiated the conditions for it to develop into it's current form.
If science did tackle the question of the conditions that gave rise to the Big Bang would those of faith claim that God made the conditions for the conditions that resulted in the BB? Very probably but the direction of retreat is clear.