# God's motivation for creating life? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 13, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829 "2004-07-13T02:21:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![MelCthefirst](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MelCthefirst](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MelCthefirst)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/1 "2004-07-13T02:21:30Z")
This is the part of christianity that I don’t get. Yeah, sure, everyone should live in his image and do as he wants etc etc, go to heaven or hell. But why would a Supreme Being create life in the first place - where’s the motivation? It just doesn’t make sense to me - and I don’t think that a Supreme Being would be bored or just wanting to see what happens, that’s what humans would do. ---
**Author:** ![Lord\_Ashtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ea924/32.png) [@Lord\_Ashtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Ashtar)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/2 "2004-07-13T02:33:30Z")
I always looked at it as He just wanted companionship. After all, He was speaking of Himself in the third person. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/3 "2004-07-13T02:46:57Z")
Based on what we see around us, I always imagined God as something like a mischievous boy who has an ant farm and a magnifying glass and a sunbeam coming in through the window. ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/4 "2004-07-13T02:54:08Z")
> [@Lord Ashtar](#): > > I always looked at it as He just wanted companionship. After all, He was speaking of Himself in the third person. 😉 Companionship from people that he made inferior to himself, that cannot “understand” his plans, are demanded to worship him, and are mortal and exist in vast numbers? To me this sounds like somebody with a chip on his shoulder making a race of beings exclusively to worship him, but that could just be me. Companionship just doesn’t seem a very likely motive. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/5 "2004-07-13T03:01:02Z")
Well all the other gods had playthings, and he is, after all, a jealous god… ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/6 "2004-07-13T03:01:23Z")
> [@MelCthefirst](#): > > It just doesn’t make sense to me - and I don’t think that a Supreme Being would be bored or just wanting to see what happens, that’s what humans would do. As a Christian, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have absolutely no clue as to the motives of God, or even, for that matter, if God is an entity for whom the concept of a motive makes sense. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/7 "2004-07-13T03:08:48Z")
Maybe there are a whole bunch of gods, and the one that created us is the equivalent of a four year old, in god-years. I hope his mom finds out what he’s doing pretty damn soon. ---
**Author:** ![Brandus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@Brandus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brandus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/8 "2004-07-13T03:23:56Z")
I’ve always though it was in order to love them. I mean, look at how cute he was being with Adam in the Garden; he brought Adam all the creatures he had made just for him just to see what he would name them! It sounds like a Dad surprising his little boy with a new toy to me. ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/9 "2004-07-13T03:33:37Z")
I actually had a really really weird idea about this a while ago. I’m not sure if it makes perfect sense or it’s just pure insanity, but you be the judge. God created us out of the paternal/maternal desire to give birth to something. That something just ended up being us. People do a lot of talking about how cloning would be “infringing on God’s territory,” but…maybe that’s the point. Maybe, in the same way that we raise our children and instill our sense of morals into them so that they can be good parents themselves someday, God is doing the same with us. And it will therefore be our duty to someday arrive at a position of Godhood as a species and then give birth unto the next form of existence. Surprisingly, I didn’t have to get high to come up with a theory like this. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Soapbox\_Monkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed655f/32.png) [@Soapbox\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soapbox_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/10 "2004-07-13T03:35:31Z")
Oh, and if any of you dare steal my idea in order to cash in on it with a sci-fi series, I will personally hunt you down! :mad: 😛 ---
**Author:** ![bughunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@bughunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bughunter)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/11 "2004-07-13T03:46:34Z")
Well, I asked too many questions to be a good Catholic, but here’s my take on it from Sunday School and Catechism: God created the heavens and the earth and all the good little animals and plants, and even Adam because that’s his nature. It was just understood to be, and if you ask “why,” the answer really depends a lot on who you ask. If you ask the Nuns at St Rose Elementary in Chelsea MA, you’re a no-good troublemaker and should go contemplate the crucifix and be grateful you don’t get a rap on the head with a ruler. If you ask Father Delano, my kindly sunday school teacher, it was because God had a creative urge. The same urge that causes humans to create art and music and etc. – of course, it’s all to honor God, whether the artist knows it or not. (Unless, of course, the art is pornographic, or rock and roll, or – nowadays certainly – hip hop and video games, in which case it is the work of the Devil.) My experience is that these questions are not supposed to be asked, as any inquiries into the motives of God stray far too close to the domain of blasphemers and heathens and agnostics. ---
**Author:** ![Darkhold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@Darkhold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darkhold)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/12 "2004-07-13T04:14:36Z")
Because angels are boring. Really all they can do is sing your praises or rebel with no middle ground. Humans on the other hand have free will and can get into all sorts of mischief, we can deny his existence (like me) rebel against him and worship Satan, worship the grass and tress, go to war against those that worship him differently, etc etc. We’re more fun then a barrel of monkeys with knives…on heroin. I always thought (when I believed) that he created us just so he’d have something he could watch that HE couldn’t predict what we’d do next unlike everything else he created in the universe. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/13 "2004-07-13T08:25:20Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > As a Christian, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have absolutely no clue as to the motives of God, or even, for that matter, if God is an entity for whom the concept of a motive makes sense. Sorry, but that strikes me as a copout. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question whether there is a god and what makes god tick. If you believe in god, why would you believe you shouldn’t use that wonderful brain to understand the universe? ---
**Author:** ![Epimetheus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c4cdca/32.png) [@Epimetheus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Epimetheus)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/14 "2004-07-13T10:55:35Z")
> [@Soapbox Monkey](#): > > Oh, and if any of you dare steal my idea in order to cash in on it with a sci-fi series, I will personally hunt you down! :mad: 😛 Sorry, already been done. Look up Ben Bova’s Orion books. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/15 "2004-07-13T12:35:38Z")
I think it’s a mistake to try to assign a human attribute, motivation, to God. God does not need a reason or motivation, if we try to understand Him through attributes that we understand, we’re going to fail. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/16 "2004-07-13T14:01:23Z")
> [@bughunter](#): > > My experience is that these questions are not supposed to be asked, as any inquiries into the motives of God stray far too close to the domain of blasphemers and heathens and agnostics. Agnostics or gnostics? Seems like it’d be the latter to me… ---
**Author:** ![Metacom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ecae2f/32.png) [@Metacom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Metacom)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/17 "2004-07-13T14:41:08Z")
> [@sturmhauke](#): > > Sorry, but that strikes me as a copout. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question whether there is a god and what makes god tick. If you believe in god, why would you believe you shouldn’t use that wonderful brain to understand the universe? I didn’t say it wasn’t reasonable to question, I said it was reasonable to not know the answer. There’s a really big difference. ---
**Author:** ![Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac8455/32.png) [@Bippy\_the\_Beardless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bippy_the_Beardless)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/18 "2004-07-13T15:45:11Z")
I blame boredom, God needed to create free-will to counteract his own boredom. ---
**Author:** ![borschevsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/97f17d/32.png) [@borschevsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/borschevsky)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/19 "2004-07-13T15:46:38Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > God does not need a reason or motivation, if we try to understand Him through attributes that we understand, we’re going to fail. How are we to try to understand Him, then? Through attributes we _don’t_ understand? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2004, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829/20 "2004-07-13T18:22:28Z")
> [@Metacom](#): > > I didn’t say it wasn’t reasonable to question, I said it was reasonable to not know the answer. > > There’s a really big difference. Hmm, OK, I guess I misread your post then. Sorry about that. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gods-motivation-for-creating-life/254829.md?page=2)