Why Would God Care?

You do have one solid reason for thinking the deity would care.As soon as one postulates a conscious being as creator of the universe, it is reasonable to assume this being would 'care about'--have some active interest in--the subsequent state of that universe. Why? Because the idea of a caring being is built into the premise. The being cared enough about the universe to want it to exist. Absent that interest, no creation.It is thus not a 'safe assumption' to take an uncaring creator as one's default setting and insist that all burdens of argument rest on others. Anyone making this assumption may reasonably be called upon to suggest plausible reasons why a being that cares enough about universes to create them in the first place would cease caring about them once they exist.___Edited by Archer Opterix, : clarity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

On the contrary: it follows with no trouble at all. A caring deity has already been postulated. The deity cared about the universe and everything in it enough to bother bringing it into being. So the idea of care is built into the premise.The only question remaining is how far this deity's active interest extends.You assume limits on the extent of this active interest. But apathy, unlike care, is not an intrinic part of the premise.It is therefore reasonable to ask what rational basis exists for supposing the existence of divine apathy. It is as reasonable to ask you why a creator would stop caring as it is to ask fundies why a species would stop evolving.ArgumentsYour post offers two arguments to support the idea of divine apathy:

1. 'Human beings are small in the immense span of the cosmos, therefore they are unworthy of notice.'

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2. 'I am indifferent to many things, therefore a deity can be indifferent to many things.'

The assumption underlying the first argument is that importance is determined by size. This is a widespread habit of thought but, if you examine it rationally, I doubt you even believe it. Are bodybuilders and obese people more important than thin people and children because they are larger? No. Is one's wallpaper more important than the cancer cells in one's liver because the wallpaper is much bigger than the cells? No. Importance and physical size are not the same thing. The argument is fallacious.The second argument is based on the likelihood that the deity is like us. A theist will naturally counter that we have limits on our ability to give attention to every detail. We also have limits on our ability to affect outcomes that a deity would not have. We also have limits on our investment that do not apply to a deity. We didn't create all this, the creator did.The unlimited nature of the deity is also inherent in the premise. So again, the burden is on you to show why limits would exist in an unlimited being's active interest.In making this second argument you also seem to be conflating two distinct theistic views. One is that a creative deity would reasonably be expected to take an interest in every aspect of its creation. This interest in everything would include our planet and our species. Whether or not you find such an interest likely, it does follow logically from the premise. The other idea is that a deity would take a special interest in our planet and our species. This does not follow logically from the premise. Like assertions of divine apathy, assertions of divine favoritism require additional support.AestheticsYou do raise an important issue in putting this second argument forward. By comparing the deity to yourself you come close to showing how much our ideas about God are a matter of aesthetics. We draw pictures, make analogies, for things we cannot really imagine.Many of our questions about a deity are built into the picture we draw at the outset. Change the picture and even some urgent questions become meaningless.As soon as we speak of 'creator' and 'creation' and 'caring' and 'active interest', we speak of a deity who is a conscious being like us who engages in creative work as we do. We anthropomorphize. Your comparison of a creative deity to yourself, despite the limits of the analogy, is thus not totally wide of the mark.But what if we abandoned the anthropomorphism and spoke instead of a deity who is the 'cosmic soil' from which the universe 'germinates' and 'sprouts' and 'emerges'? We still speak of this entity as the source of everything we see. But because the picture is different the questions change. We don't ask how much soil 'cares' about plants that take root in it. The question of caring makes no sense applied to soil. But we could still speak of that soil as a source of life and nourishment for the plant. We could even have theological debates about how far up the cosmic stalk the soil's nourishment extends. (If indeed any soil exists.)___Edited by Archer Opterix, : it's not easy being green.Edited by Archer Opterix, : really it isn't.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I liked my wording just fine, actually. I said 'The only question remaining is how far this deity's active interest extends.'I was describing 'the only question remaining' in this conversation you are having with Ringo and others. I did not mean that the question 'remains' out of logical necessity. It could very well follow from the premise--automatically--that the deity's concern for its creation is limitless.The premise of a creative deity necessarily entails 'caring'--taking an active interest in--the creation. The deity has to care enough about the universe to want to create it. It's a matter of logic. So in this model of deity the default position is already set. The deity takes a demonstrably active interest in the universe, or it wouldn't be here.If we also postulate the existence of deity that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent--limitless, basically--then there is no logical reason to assume the active interest this being takes in its creation would not be likewise limitless.I have shown you that in rejecting this idea you are asserting a limit on divine 'care,' not its absence. That's what you asserted at first: that apathy would be the default setting. (You called an uncaring deity a 'safe assumption' given the premise and attempted to put the burden of argument on others.) As you are very fond of this toilet talk, we may as well address it. You speak of the act as a matter of negligible importance, but the fact is that you do care if you take that shit or not. Go without a bowel movement for a week and this act will take on a higher priority for you. Go without one for a couple of months and few things in your life will be able to compete with it for your attention. And even when the act occurs, you will care very much about the results if your body produces something odd or unusual. So your shit analogy does not make the case for apathy you think it does.And it remains a poor analogy for any act undertaken by a deity. You take your dump out of biological necessity. You are compelled to this act because of constraints in your anatomy. But a deity that can bring a universe into being is presumably under no constraints, and thus does nothing from compulsion. Actions is purely voluntary. Because no logical reason exists to suggest that it wouldn't. Active interest is inherent in the premise. Apathy is not. If you are going to argue for the existence of divine apathy you... well, you really do have to argue for it.It's the same reason as to think evolutionary change is ongoing. No logical reason exists to believe in a limit. Anyone who asserts there is one is obliged to show where and why such a limit exists. Physical size illustrates it. You argument rests on fallacious assumptions about scale. If instead of 'mold in our showers' we said 'cancer cells in our livers', would you still assert the 'relative unimportance' of the organisms to be 'established from the get-go' because of the difference in scale?We assign value--importance--to this or that thing according to a variety of factors, criteria, and contexts. If we postulate the existence of an unimaginably vast creative being, the logical question is not why it should care about trivial features of its creation, but whether any aspect of that creation is considered trivial by this being at all.When you postulate the existence of a being created everything, it logically follows that everything in creation would be important enough, in the estimation of this being, to be worth the effort of creating. The 'insignificance' of one thing or another is thus something you have to make a case for. Insignificance cannot, from the premise, be logically assumed.Your argument here is really poetic. You are making a case for the sublime--a concept much discussed in philosophies of art and beauty. The natural human response to the sublime is a feeling of humility and insignificance. This response often has salutary effects for us. But the response is not logical. There is nothing about the Grand Canyon, or the Alps, or the Milky Way galaxy, or universe, or a deity, that forces us logically to the conclusion that awe and a feeling of humility are in order. We arrive at that response through other means. Yes. Your second argument has more going for it as logic, I thought, than your first. It is flawed, but the nature of the flaw corresponds to a questionable aspect of the premise. Why should the source of the universe bear much resemblance to us?Your strongest argument for an apathetic deity, I thought, was one you didn't make. (You probably made it earlier, but I tuned in late.) You could simply have argued from observation. Any deity that exists must not be taking an active interest in its creation, you could say, because its creation shows no sign of being actively maintained.Here again, though, a distinction exists. Are you denying the idea of a deity taking active interest in all aspects of its universe or the idea of a deity caring for one species in particular? The first idea follows logically from the premise of an omnipotent creator. The second does not. A special case would have to be made for that view anyway._Edited by Archer Opterix, : ongoing concern for literary creation.Edited by Archer Opterix, : still more ongoing concern.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.