Why did God create the universe?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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LuckyR
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by LuckyR »

Greatest I am wrote: November 10th, 2021, 3:43 pm God would not have a choice in the creation of the universe.

It was the only way he could communicate.

The raison daitre of a God is to be acclaimed so and humans muxt exist to do so.

Without us, there is no God or any other question to be asked.

God is dead, or never was, which is the reality, without a universe with us in it.

Regards
DL
Why are humans necessary? Humans have existed for a mere 2/1000ths of 1% of the age of the universe.
"As usual... it depends."
Belindi
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Belindi »

Greatest I am wrote: November 10th, 2021, 3:43 pm God would not have a choice in the creation of the universe.

It was the only way he could communicate.

The raison daitre of a God is to be acclaimed so and humans muxt exist to do so.

Without us, there is no God or any other question to be asked.

God is dead, or never was, which is the reality, without a universe with us in it.

Regards
DL
I agree that humans are necessary in the sense that every event (including human lives)is a necessary event and could not have been otherwise than it was. Strong determinism implies design but does not imply a supernatural Designer. Nor does strong determinism imply that humans were created by design for the purpose of acclaiming God, or any other purpose. Natural design is not purposeful. Only living animals purpose when they design stuff.
EricPH
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by EricPH »

Belindi wrote: November 6th, 2021, 9:56 am
God is absolute not partial. The Absolute is not partial.
Agreed
Human ideas are neither God nor the Absolute. However some human ideas may be nearer to God (or the Absolute) than other human ideas.
How might we identify those ideas that are nearer to God(or the Absolute)?
If God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen, then we cannot know the mind of God. We do not have that knowledge or power to do likewise.
An absolute God would have the power to create anything that he might wish for.

The thread title asks; Why did God create the universe?

It might be philosophically possible to search for a greatest good purpose, even with our limited knowledge; by asking,

What is the greatest good thing that God can create? And Why?

What is the greatest good purpose to create these things? And Why?
Belindi
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Belindi »

EricPH wrote: November 11th, 2021, 9:10 am
Belindi wrote: November 6th, 2021, 9:56 am
God is absolute not partial. The Absolute is not partial.
Agreed
Human ideas are neither God nor the Absolute. However some human ideas may be nearer to God (or the Absolute) than other human ideas.
How might we identify those ideas that are nearer to God(or the Absolute)?
If God is the creator of all that is seen and unseen, then we cannot know the mind of God. We do not have that knowledge or power to do likewise.
An absolute God would have the power to create anything that he might wish for.

The thread title asks; Why did God create the universe?

It might be philosophically possible to search for a greatest good purpose, even with our limited knowledge; by asking,

What is the greatest good thing that God can create? And Why?

What is the greatest good purpose to create these things? And Why?
God did not create the universe: nature created the universe. God is by definition a/ /the supernatural being. It is impossible for many to believe in a supernatural sort of existence.

For this reason, since we do need a universal moral code, we need to think of how we may have a moral code without what used to be presumed to be the authority of God.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Sy Borg »

God was the Planck scale virtual particle that did not disappear. Usually, virtual particles pop straight back out of existence as soon as they arrive. They are the briefest of tiny ripples in the fundamental fabric of reality.

But one ripple did not pop out of existence immediately because it was in a strange, unique, ridiculously tiny and temporal "low pressure system" formed by outrageous random chance. For just one Planck time unit the virtual particle had no immediate neighbours to extinguish it, so it expanded. It expanded ever more, consuming all virtual particles that formed around it, driving an exponential frenzy of growth - creating a bountiful whole from the annihilation and amalgamation of countless smaller entities.

Bon appetit :)
EricPH
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by EricPH »

Belindi wrote: November 11th, 2021, 1:58 pm God did not create the universe: nature created the universe.
Where is the science to show that the universe came into being purely by natural causes?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Sy Borg »

EricPH wrote: November 11th, 2021, 7:57 pm
Belindi wrote: November 11th, 2021, 1:58 pm God did not create the universe: nature created the universe.
Where is the science to show that the universe came into being purely by natural causes?
There is a ton of evidence dating back to not long after the big band, all of it pointing to natural causes. At no stage has any evidence pointed to supernatural causes, if that is actually possible since it would imply a break in the perceived chains of causes and effects.

There is no absolute proof of anything, only evidence that supports some scenarios more than others.

After all, if God and the afterlife exist, they may have precious little to do with creation. For instance if God is, as some posit, subjectivity itself, or the "higher" part of subjectivity or love, then it may be emergent. What of the idea that God is a supreme being? For all we know, God may exist as what we perceive to be a supreme being without being the supreme being of the universe.

For instance, in a sense our Sun is the supreme being of our living experience, making up a whopping 99.8% of the solar system's mass, rendering the Earth as mere;y a lump in its extended atmosphere. Any greater being than the Sun in our lives would be theoretical rather than visceral. The Sun created the solar system, it maintains life (and takes it). Similarly, the supermassive black hole at the centre of our galaxy, Saggitarius A*, most likely created the Milky Way, and it somewhat controls all that orbits it, including all of our solar system.

Sag A* has the deity-like qualities of not being made from physical matter and relative timelessness in its core, and it will last many quadrillions of years.

The question for deists is to describe how they posit that God created the universe and why the explanation supersedes scientific explanations, eg. the expansion of a virtual particle in a pre-big bang vacuum.
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Greatest I am
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Greatest I am »

LuckyR wrote: November 11th, 2021, 2:49 am
Greatest I am wrote: November 10th, 2021, 3:43 pm God would not have a choice in the creation of the universe.

It was the only way he could communicate.

The raison daitre of a God is to be acclaimed so and humans muxt exist to do so.

Without us, there is no God or any other question to be asked.

God is dead, or never was, which is the reality, without a universe with us in it.

Regards
DL
Why are humans necessary? Humans have existed for a mere 2/1000ths of 1% of the age of the universe.
Your point provides it's own argument against your view.

Who or what are we necessary to?

Certainly not nature or life. Those do not need or even want us about.

Humans are the only ones who think humans are worth more than other natural species.

We are, but only to ourselves.

Regards
DL
EricPH
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by EricPH »

Sy Borg wrote: November 11th, 2021, 9:08 pm
The question for deists is to describe how they posit that God created the universe
The thread topic is not how God created the universe; but Why did he create?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Sy Borg »

EricPH wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 4:46 pm
Sy Borg wrote: November 11th, 2021, 9:08 pm
The question for deists is to describe how they posit that God created the universe
The thread topic is not how God created the universe; but Why did he create?
Okay, it (not "he") must have created the universe for the same reason anyone creates anything - because there's no choice. Being is inherently creative.

Note that what we refer to as "destruction" is just as transformative as building and growing - creating something not present before the destruction, eg. a bombed city is transformed into ashes and debris.
EricPH
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by EricPH »

Sy Borg wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 7:11 pm Note that what we refer to as "destruction" is just as transformative as building and growing - creating something not present before the destruction, eg. a bombed city is transformed into ashes and debris.
The Big Bomb should have ended with debris and destruction, but the aftermath is the universe we observe today.
Sy Borg wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 7:11 pm Okay, it (not "he") must have created the universe for the same reason anyone creates anything - because there's no choice.
If you build a car you can have front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive; plus thousands more options. There are choices. Why choose any of these options?

If God creates the universe. he could create it with the greatest good intentions; or with evil intentions. He did not have to create man; but we are here and so we ask why?
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Sy Borg
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Sy Borg »

EricPH wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 7:34 pm
Sy Borg wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 7:11 pm Note that what we refer to as "destruction" is just as transformative as building and growing - creating something not present before the destruction, eg. a bombed city is transformed into ashes and debris.
The Big Bomb should have ended with debris and destruction, but the aftermath is the universe we observe today.
Sy Borg wrote: November 23rd, 2021, 7:11 pm Okay, it (not "he") must have created the universe for the same reason anyone creates anything - because there's no choice.
If you build a car you can have front wheel drive, rear wheel drive, four wheel drive; plus thousands more options. There are choices. Why choose any of these options?

If God creates the universe. he could create it with the greatest good intentions; or with evil intentions. He did not have to create man; but we are here and so we ask why?
There are choices, but the act of creation itself is inevitable.

Humans are necessary because the biosphere is almost four billion years old and has only thousands of years of complexity left before the Sun's ageing makes the world only fit for simple organisms. In a billion years the Earth will be more like Venus than its current state. For whatever reason, life is compelled to be fecund - at cellular level, at organism level and at group level and, seemingly, at the biosphere level.

So how will the biosphere be able to expand further, to send "seeds" to other worlds to continue the story? Via intelligent great apes with technological capacities. So humans are acting like the Earth's gonads, constructing the AI, loaded with blueprints, that will create things conceived of on Earth out of the material of other worlds via 3D printing. At this stage it would seem that the biosphere has not yet reached reproductive maturity.

Of course, this merely pushes the question back a few steps. Why life at all? Why is life inherently driven to grow and spread its influence? Why anything at all? Why stars and planets? Why black holes? Well, we know that, at the BB, a very large system spread out and started breaking into smaller, more complex parts. And this process of particulation with associated complexification has continued apace for the last 13.8 billion years.

If all this seems pretty mind-blowing (and it does for anyone even who is even half-awake), consider the universe in another 100 billion years, where life forms may have evolved to a whole other level of sophistication. What hope would we have of understanding the big picture by comparison? It would be akin to an amoeba trying to understand a 5-year corporate plan.
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Re: Why did God create the universe?

Post by Tegularius »

Most posts deserve a short reply.

Because it's boring having nothing to do, living and being in a place with no furniture; with nothing to observe except the contemplation of one's own useless divinity, unless employed. More interesting to create the stage in which a near never-ending soap opera can be played out from one scene to the next in endless sequential increments...a play in one Act of always shifting perspectives. The question is, have there been previous such Acts, this one following previous ones in which only the compiling of sequels is endless.
The earth has a skin and that skin has diseases; one of its diseases is called man ... Nietzsche
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