Thought Game For Atheists
Posted on: Wed, 2007-01-31 11:09
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Thought Game For Atheists
This was inspired by GodAndScience.org.
Imagine for a moment that you are God and you, of course, exist. You set out to create a universe that supports human life. Describe the overall size and aspects of your universe...Explain as much as you feel like, but make sure to answer these questions:
1. Will the beings you create be equal to you or less powerful?
2. What degree of free will will you allow to those beings?
3. How will you prevent those beings from hurting you, each other and their creation?
4. What will you do with those beings who break your rules?
What defines my abilities? Am I only omnipotent, or do I become benevolent also? Omniscent?
Do I have to create a universe at all? That for me is a very strange proposition... as a God, what motive is there for me to create life? What motive is there for me to to anything, if I know how it will turn out?
My creations would be less or of equal power to me. However, I agree with Agnostic Atheist why should I create life? Why not just make a machine that could make awesome books and read them or a machine that makes awesome video games? If I created Life I would make sure that I could have a conversation with it regularly - and I would increasingly converse with it the smarter it got ( we do not talk about high level ethics or philosophy with small children, but when they have developed they can add new insights)
BTW, If I was all knowing then I would not do anything, the same goes for If I were all powerful. There would be no point as nothing could entertain me.
that is my thought exactly. What motive could there be behind creating life or doing anything at all. The only thing I could think is that I would be bored and create life but that would be boring to, for there would be no suspense as to what would happen. So because God, meaning the christian god, is omniscient and omnipotent, he could not exist, atleast not as our creator, because he would have no motive to create us.
Lenoard Peikoff (and I believe Ayn Rand) has a very good case against a motivated all powerful/all knowing god.
I believe that he (or she) likens it to a robot which is indestructible. It ends up that the only reason for our motivation is the struggle to survive. If we cannot struggle to survive then all things lose their value. Nothing would hold value to us, good or bad. We would eventually curl up and do nothing... just exist... not achieve or destroy. Funny as it is, this is what the chrtisian concept of god seems to have done.
I believe it is under "value" in "Objectivism: the philosophy of Ayn Rand" but I cannot find my copy of it, so I cannot give as good of an argument.
I find that many fundies seem to avoid that concept, that god would have no motivation. What type of arguements would fundies use against it?
Well, I see about 50-60 fundies a day (if you count teachers and kids)
My sunday school teacher said that god is above motivation (later he said that he makes his own motivation... so...)
Mostly they just dodge it.. and then tell me to go pray
If I EVER get them into a simple logical knot (easy to do in LDS ville) they tell me to go pray about it... it is an easy out for them
[i]1. Will the beings you create be equal to you or less powerful?[/i]
I'd create a laptop and a RollerCoaster Tycoon game to entertain myself. Although a real roller coaster would be nice...
[i]2. What degree of free will will you allow to those beings?[/i]
If we had freewill, then doesn't that mean that our beliefs are based on chance? I was always a skeptic even when I was a small child. So either, I was a skeptic by chance, or your god created me to be a skeptic (which violates freewill). And if I was a skeptic by pure chance, then am I still destined to be punished?
[i]3. How will you prevent those beings from hurting you, each other and their creation?[/i]
By not creating them at all.
[i]4. What will you do with those beings who break your rules?[/i]
If I created them and that happened, erase them out of existence.
[quote=noor]
If we had freewill, then doesn't that mean that our beliefs are based on chance? I was always a skeptic even when I was a small child. So either, I was a skeptic by chance, or your god created me to be a skeptic (which violates freewill). And if I was a skeptic by pure chance, then am I still destined to be punished?[/quote]
Plus, chance isn't really random, it's kinda deterministic for the most part.
If I were God, I would try to find out where I came from.
1. Equal power to my beings? So you asking if I would give them God powers? Why should I created them in the first place?
2. Degree of free will? I' d first wonder what and how should I create these beings, and what form of intellegence I should give them. I could give them no reasioning (ex. sponges, dogs, etc). But why would God only create one being with reasiong enough to worship him?
3. How can they hurt me? Im God, I feel no pain, it's part of the God's Superpowers Rulebook. They cant hurt themselves if I make my people imorrtal or give me happy thoughts so they wont hurt each other.
4. First, I guess the rules are one's I decide. But since thier always happy they dont need rules. How do I know whats an ethical rule? How do I know human philosphy before I created them?