God's purpose

NJ writes: I don't understand how a person's life has no purpose if they do not believe in God? This seems a bit more personal pronouncement than truth to me. Why couldn't an athiest believe the purpose is to reproduce?, to leave the world a better place than they found it?, to enighten instead of prounounce on all?Even some notorious athiests had a self-proclaimed purpose. For Stalin, it was the eventual victory of communism. For Napoleon, it was for the destruction of monarchy (although he seems to have lost direction in later years).I didn't use Hitler as an example here because his continuous appeals, and justifications from providence indicate he was not an athiest in the common definition of the term. Of course, feel free to rewrite the dictionary to suit your argument, you wouldn't be the first one to do so in this forum.BTW, I am speaking as a theist. Perhaps you should await the input of athiests to counter your accusations of a purposeless life prior to pronouncing judgment.

There is no source of data that would allow science to know those conditions.

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Compassionate conservatism - bringing you a kinder, gentler torture chamber

Our "purpose" in having children is that that is what living organisms do - they reproduce. You might as well ask, "What was your purpose in breathing?"Similarly, why can't God "reproduce" - i.e. create us "in His own image" - just because that is His nature? Why do you feel obligated to seek a "purpose"?

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Philosophically, how can God do anything without purpose and still be God? *shrugs* You can to some extent, such as freewill, but you didn't will yourself to exist. Well, personal opinions don't mean much to the laws of physics, but aside from which, we digress. We aren't talking about human beings, we're talking about God. I think that was Kuresu, not me. Sure you can exist without my understanding of what His purpose is. Again, the question was about God's purpose. If God's real, then He made beings for a reason. Parents have children without the directive or injunction of the child, right? The child is allowed to go his/her own way. We don't turn our children into robots to do our bidding just like God doesn't. But in the same way you or I had absolutely no control in our own existence, the purpose for that existence was established beforehand.I think you are confusing two different things. I'm not suggesting that God forces us to do His will, I said He created us with a purpose in mind.

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"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

There ya go... That's what I was trying to say. You worded much nore eloquently.

You can assign yourslef purpose. I wasn't questioning this. The question is, without God, how can there be purpose at all? What do the terms "better" and "enlighten" even mean in a meaningless universe? If one has these grand ideations where do you think they come from? How can one have an understanding of what meaning or purpose even is if such a term is merely some nonsensical or vacuous thing? Again, the question isn't what purpose they try to assign for themselves, the question is why they are here at all expressing those purposes? Hitler was a theist. He believed in a god-of-sorts. Whom did I cast judgement upon?

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"There is not in all America a more dangerous trait than the deification of mere smartness unaccompanied by any sense of moral responsibility." -Theodore Roosevelt

That question is utterly meaningless.If God is God (and for the purpose of this discussion, let's assume that He is ) then He can do anything He wants - including things that have absolutely no purpose. You are limiting God's power when you impose the need for purpose on Him. What does that have to do with "purpose"? We are human beings. We're always talking about human beings, even if it's human beings' ideas about God. You keep saying that, but how can you possibly know it's true? But how can you know that there was a "purpose"?Once again, the parent/child analogy: A lot of children are "accidents". There was no "purpose" in creating them. Does that make their existence less meaningful? Is a parent's relationship to his child somehow "less" because there was no "purpose" in having the child? I'm not suggesting that you are. But if you insisting that God had (or needed to have) some "purpose" in creating us, you are diminishing us and you are diminishing Him too.

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I don't argue that religion of necessity means certainty. Nor do I argue so as to recommend. I argue that if certain through some other means than science then all the science in the world cannot change that. Straggler, as so many others, seems to forget that the philosophy which places empiricism uber alles is just a philosophy.I don't see how the flawed nature of human reasoning impinges on something that is not accessed through reason. You don't reason (I have found) your way to God. God reveals himself to you. The currency of that interaction is a thing called faith. Not faith as defined by the atheist but faith as defined by the Bible. "Faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Not seen yet evidence for. And if not every aspect of our knowledge is fallible (I mean that which does not rely on us in order for it to become knowledge) then what? There is lots of knowledge, scientifically discovered and otherwise which is concrete. It's the stuff that Straggler talks about that is sumpremely tentivtive and speculative - yet he supposes gaps-a-filled. Go figure I have accepted that I may be wrong. In the sense that the reality we suppose to be is not actually. Otherwise I don't accept that I, of neccessity, must remain open on all matters. The Bible has a lot to say about this so-called wiseness. Foolishness is about the kindest thing it has to say about it. We must then decide on whose wisdom do we listen to.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Many people decide not to have children, although everybody breathes. I'm only talking about those who consciously plan to have children. I believe he did, although I'm not about to say how, and if he used the evolutionary process that's fine by me.So why do we purposely have children? For that matter why do we have pets? My view is that we have them, as we sub-consciously have a need for a recipient of our love and we hope to be loved and needed in return. I have a hunch that the creation of the universe was a pretty large undertaking even for God. It is logical for us to ask why, and the fact that we even ask the question is an indication of that there was purpose.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

False dichotomy.Your questions pose a choice between (1) 'ideations' of value that are meaningless or (2) ideas that originate with God.A third possibility exists: ideas about value are meaningful but come from a source other than God..

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

So you're assuming the conclusion: God must have consciously planned to create us - therefore He had a purpose? And many people have children without making a concious decision. Why not God? So God created us out of "need"? And my basic point is that your hunch might well be wrong.If I try to build a whole town by myself, that is a huge undertaking - one that might not be fulfilled. If I try to build one house by myself, that is more doable. If I try to build a sandwich by myself... that's something I do every day.How does the scale of your God compare to the scale of His creation? The more you try to "divine" His "purpose" - or even assume that He had a purpose, the more you diminish Him.Edited by Ringo, : @#$% spelling.

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Sure It is one thing to get pregnant without meaning to; it is another thing altogether to create something. Creation requires a conscious decision. Not out of need, but out of love. Do you really expect anyone to answer that. Of course I don't know. I am only saying that God created this universe, which from our vantage point seems to be something of a major undertaking, but there isn't anyone who knows how much or how little more He is capable of.I don't for the life of me see how God is diminished by having purpose. It certainly would diminish Him if I believed it was all done on a whim.Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

I didn't say that. You diminish the concept of God by suggesting that you can "understand" His purpose, by suggesting that He "must" have had a purpose. Not at all. Much of creativity involves "noticing" what happens accidentally. Creation from "scratch" is almost diametrically opposed to working from a blueprint.

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I'm not a literalist but I take the phrase from the Bible that we are created in God's image seriously. The Bible supports the concept of being created out of love, but it is also supported by the beings (us)that are created in his image. Certainly the desire to love is often perverted in humans but it I contend a basic feature of our consciosness.Who am I to say to the creator of the universe that He must have a purpose. I am saying though that if I have to decide between purpose/no purpose the argument for purpose is far more compelling. One thing to consider of course is that I don't believe that this physical life is the end of the story, so even though I suggest the purpose for our creation in the here and now is love, I believe on faith that there is greater purpose in what comes next. I see this as a strawman, but I'm curious as to how you create something from scratch without it being a conscious decision. You might through experiment come unexpectedly to a result that allows for creation but that doesn't happen without conscious thought.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

That's like saying, "I'm curious as to how you can ride a horse without ice cream."You have two separate concepts there - creation and conscious decision. If you think there's a connection, you'll have to explain it more thoroughly. Yes, I get that that is your opinion. I just haven't seen that "compelling" argument in this thread. You admitted in Message 87 that you are assuming a purpose. I don't see how an assumption is a "compelling" argument.

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