Then you’re not really a creationist in the standard political sense. I believe you’d find that most people who believe in evolution also believe that God created the universe. By the standard definition of the terms as they are used in our public discourse, you are actually an evolutionist.
Spectrum, is the standard term for her view “theistic evolutionist”?
Man. I was hoping to open this thread and find Jesus horses.
Salon has a pretty good article on some creationists down in Kansas. Requires membership or a short web commercial for viewing.
You empty shell, you!
I made no statements about individual purpose, or even higher purpose. Some things are created with a purpose, e.g. rat traps, screwdrivers, paintings. Some things have no purpose, they simply arise, e.g. footprints, snowdrifts, dandruff.
If the universe arose without a creator, then it has no purpose. If it has a creator, then it MAY have a purpose. If it has a purpose, it could be important to us, or it could be irrelevant to us. That’s all I was saying. Personally, I consider no creator and no purpose to be most likely.
That was my guess, oh about
90 posts ago 
So it was! Credit where it is due. 
I realised after posting that it sounded as if I thought you were a purpose advocate and was arguing. Far from it. I knew you were just stating a couple of possibilities.
As to purpose, or higher purposes, it has been my experience that the “higher purpose” followed by many people who claim that there is a purpose in life somehow turns out to be congruent with that which advances their own interests, and quite frequently does so regardless of consequences external to them.
I do not think of God as a physical being,Just Being, even a force can exist, so if God is a force((and may just be that) God exists as a force as well as everything else. The word God to me means existance, or the totality of what is.
Monavis
Well, after looking up “qua”…
If you mean, is the universe perceivable without any entities capable of perception to perceive it, no.
If you mean, does the universe exist without any entities to percieve it, I don’t know. It seems a good working assumption, but it can’t be proven.
Let’s take it from the bottom, and you can pounce on me when I stray off course.
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I perceive a subjective reality. My own existence is axiomatic (we’ve been there, done that.) The objective existence of anything I perceive is not provable, since I might be in the Matrix, or in a rubber room hallucinating. The subjective existence of anything I perceive is a given, by definition.
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My interactions with my subjective reality result in positive and negative internal states. In fact, not interacting with my subjective reality isnt really an option for me - I tried just standing in the corner, but shortly became bored (negative internal state 1), tired (negative internal state 2) and eventually needed a piss quite badly (negative internal state 3). So for better or worse, I interact with my subjective reality.
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My subjective reality appears to be predictable. This is useful because it helps me in my interactions with it, so I can maximise my positive internal states and minimise my negative internal states. Part of the predictive process involves internal maps and models of my subjective reality. I can predict that my coffee will get cold and nasty if I don’t drink it. I predict that my bike will be found in my garage when I use it to head into town shortly. These maps and models are NOT my subjective reality - they simply correspond with my subjective reality well enough to be useful to me.
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Logic, or mathematics, cannot be used to prove the correspondance of a map/model with reality. They can be part of a model itself, but they have nothing to say about how well a model corresponds with reality, e.g. its predictive power. That is a matter of observation, or perception if you prefer.
Now, if I’m understanding you, you are claiming the universe is a map, and subjective reality is the territory. But to my mind, subjective reality IS the universe, or as much of the universe as we can know about. A map has to be either an internal construction, or an object within our subjective reality that describes part of that subjective reality. Hence my confusion.
The only way the universe can be thought of as a map is if it exists objectively, in which case you can regard it as an external entity governing my subjective reality. So if I’m actually in the Matrix, the Matrix Universe software is the “map” governing my subjective reality. That’s a different concept of “map” to the one I usually understand- it’s not a predictive construct. It also has the problem that it’s irrelevant - such a “map” of the universe IS the universe as far subjective reality is concerned.
Your other statement is that “the universe is nothing more than a probability distribution”. A probability distribution is a mathematical construction, a model. It can be used to make predictions about the universe, but it isn’t the universe, and you can’t say the universe is one.
So - first, am I following your line of thought or am I way off base? Second - please explain to me what you mean by “essence”, from the bottom up? Third, if God were not included in the Matrix universe software, how would she be compelled to arise? Or are you saying that Love would arise in the Matrix Universe, and Love is God?
I’m not sure. It seems to me that what you described was your own line of thought. I do believe that the universe is objective, but not real — much like the number 2. I believe that it serves as an amoral mis en scene in which we may make moral decisions. Unlike most people, I do not consider morality to be within the purview of ethics, but rather within the purview of aesthetics. Goodness does not follow from what is correct, but from what is valuable. Goodness is beautiful. Thus, if a man sucks the penis of another man, then the morality of the event is not measured by a set of rules, but by the edification of the two men. If their act is an expression of love — the facilitation of goodness — then their act is good, and therefore Godly. The driving purpose in every man’s life is the pursuit of what he treasures, what he most values, what he considers to be good. And therein lies the subjectivity. Every man decideds for himself what is good. Jesus teaches that neither He nor the Father judges us, but that we judge ourselves by His standard. If what we value is the same as what He values, then we are one with Him — pursuing the same thing, headed for the same goal. But every man is given exactly the desires of his heart. For some men, that includes being one with the same God I worship. For others, it does not. And for still others, it includes no god at all. The essence of a man is his heart. (*American Heritage * definition #9). As Jesus teaches, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”
I really don’t think it’s complicated enough to warrant a bottom up treatment. What I mean by essence is perfectly straightforward. It is that which identifies an entity, that which is intrinsic and inherent. Note that existence is not necessary for an entity to have essence. You know what identifies a unicorn or a Sasquatch despite that neither exists.
The universe is a set of variables. It is not real. Its essence is amorality. It has no aesthetic value. Our moral decisions are merely the solutions of local variables. The universe is an abstraction. The observation of it is a tautology. And the perception of it is an illusion. It is the perfect setting in which free moral agents may act out their morality. It exists, but only in the sense that a geometric figure or graph of an equation exists. It describes and is describable. It is the composite of random wave collapses. We, as men, are dual creatures. We are not essentially physical, but essentially metaphysical. Our bodies are composed of electromagnetic energy suspended in gravity, but our aesthetic fulfillment is a spiritual quest. Whether we are brains in a jar or brains in a bag of water makes no essential difference. What we really are is the same stuff that God is. And because goodness edifies, it cannot be the case that the Agent Who values and facilitates it does not exist. Goodness compels Her to exist because without edification, existence collapses. Love — the kind of love I am describing here — is indeed God. She is not the Genie Who grants wishes, nor the powerful Figure in the Sky Who punishes, nor the Team Captain Who rewards only the faithful. She is the source of the most beautiful aesthetic and is happy to share it freely with all who value it as much as She.
By the way, I meant to comment on this:
I thought you might enjoy a humorous philosophical story:
A metaphysicist and an epistemologist are walking down the street on a hot summer day. The metaphysicist looks at a thermometer and says, “God, it’s 90 degrees in the shade.”
“Don’t worry,” says the epistemologist, “it should get cooler. They’re calling for a high of 85 today.”
for those who have playfully indicated that those who bleieve in God are somehow feeble minded I have a question. Even if you’re an atheists without the superiority attitude please comment.
If there is no God or any need for one, {not just fundie concepts but any concept}
then where does morality come from? Where does conscience come from? Kindness?
Compassion? Why is there any sense of family structure, or of unity?
What is that voice within us that calls us to seek, to strive, to learn, understand, or wonder?
Let me ask a counterquestion: If there is a god, where does morality come from? The existence of a god changes nothing about morality, unless you define morality as “What god wants is moral, what god doesn’t want is immoral”.
We are a social and cooperative species that has developed these traits.
A consequence of our main evolutionary advantage: our brains. Humanity is an extremely successful species and owes a lot of that success to this “voice”, which is why we have it.
It was! But I was also trying to establish some common ground before taking the discussion further. Probably failed.
Could you give an example of something that IS real? How are you defining “real”?
If I squint a bit I think I might be understanding what you’re saying. Personally I’m not sure if numbers or geometrical figures are objective - never really thought about it. Something for me to chew on. Are numbers metaphysical? Are you saying the universe is metaphysical?
Here you lose me again. The first two statements are consistent with your declaration that the universe is objective but not real. But I can’t reconcile that with the notion that the “electromagnetic spasm” is “really there”. Are you saying that atoms and light and gravity are components of the objective-but-not-real universe? What am I missing here?
Fair enough. My screwdriver serves to open tins of paint and shrink-wrapped packaging. What something serves as is a limited description of its nature.
Okay. So something’s essence is its set of inherent attributes. That idea could get sticky really fast.
[Rincewind]Look, he’s six inches tall and lives in a mushroom! Of course he’s a bloody gnome![/Rincewind]
[Twoflower]He hasn’t got a red hat.[/Twoflower]
That’s IT? It would take me a few paragraphs to describe the essence of a unicorn, so as to differentiate it from a horse or a narwhale or a goat that had knocked one horn off on the gatepost, but the universe gets a ONE WORD essence? Nothing about entropy, which you alluded to earlier in your answer to Stone Girl? Nothing about change? Nothing about mass, or pattern?
Does to me. In what sense are you using aesthetic? Aren’t aesthetic judgements subjective?
I’m lost again, I’m afraid. Could you elaborate on your understanding of “aesthetic”?
I highly recommend The Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, for an evolutionary and Game Theory perspective.
Part of the human evolutionary solution to the problem of staying alive and reproducing. We have few young, and invest time and energy into giving them a good shot at making it. Humans who have a sense of family structure will outbreed those who don’t.
Another solution, favoured by turtles and frogs and crabs, is to invest all your energy into having thousands of young, and none at all into looking after them.
Another part of the human evolutionary solution to the problem of staying alive. Cats enjoy stalking and hunting, because it’s their way of getting enough to eat. Dogs and wolves enjoy running their little hearts out, because it’s their way of getting enough to eat. Humans enjoy figuring stuff out, because it’s our way of getting enough to eat.
Existance itself is purpose,the purpose of life can be just to live,and live one’s best. You could ask( if you are a religious person what is the purpose of God)? I do not see why we need any special purpose to exist, we were born to live, that is purpose to me. Being kind and understanding of others makes my life and theirs much more rewarding.
Monavis
Okay. Well, I had no way of knowing that. Your question wasn’t about common ground, but about whether you had followed my line of thought. Inasmuch as it was not my line of thought, but yours, that you described, I naturally couldn’t answer your question.
I think that part of the reason you’re having trouble understanding me is that you are seeing words that you aren’t used to seeing together. Short sentences packed with meaning follow one after the other, and say things like “the universe is not real”. What has often helped me get through unfamiliar philosophy (as when I first read Fa-Tsang) is to read very slowly, allowing each word and word-pair to coalesce as I pondered their meanings, and to re-read as necessary.
God is real. Anything that is eternal, essential, and necessary is real. I am defining real as “Existing objectively … regardless of subjectivity or conventions of thought or language”. (American Heritage)
The objectivity of the universe is contingent on conventions of perception. Consider, for example, how we humans discern a tree separately from the ground it grows in. A snake might have a very different perception. As it slithers down the tree and encounters the ground, it does not understand that it has moved from one thing to another. It perceives only that the slope has changed. For it, there is only prey, mate, offspring, and then all else.
It is convention to say that the universe is physical, but since it isn’t real, its classification is moot.
Well, the point is that what is “really there” amounts to nothing significant in se. Electromagnetism is a contingency; specifically, it is contingent upon how the universe works. It’s like the way that the length of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is contingent upon the lengths of the other two sides.
I was talking about the purpose of the universe. The purpose it serves is as an amoral mis en scene. In every other way, it completely lacks significance.
Can you name something that cannot get sticky really fast? If we wish, we can obfuscate and complicate anything. Consider, for example, the very topic of study for biologists — is there anything more sticky than defining life? We are grown-ups, and intelligent ones at that. There is no need to make something sticky out of something plainly simple unless we wish merely to avoid the topic.
Certainly, those are aspects of the universe, but are only incidental. Were it not for its amorality, it would serve no significant purpose whatsoever.
Yes. I believe that I said exactly that: “The driving purpose in every man’s life is the pursuit of what he treasures, what he most values, what he considers to be good. And therein lies the subjectivity. Every man decideds for himself what is good.”
A philosophy may be identified by its component parts: its metaphysic, its ethic, its epistemology, and its aesthetic. The bulk of philosophy has always been about the first three. Few philosophers have dealt at length with aestheticism, with the notable exception of Schopenhauer. An aesthetic is something of value, something important, something prized, something beautiful.
Why do you care whether someone else’s life is rewarding?
[QUOTE]
The still small voice. The voice of God within us that is too often buried by the illusion that we are seperate and pursueing seperate lives with seperate interests.
The voice of God calls us to wake up from that illusion. It is the stirring within us that allows us to wonder, “Is this right or wrong?” Is this truth or untruth?" “Is this good or evil?”
Socially coopererative?? An extremely successful species?? We are infants.
It is our lack of ability to listen to tat voice that keeps us such.