What I don't understand is that with the presumption of omnipotence, why would such a deity be in the process of "constructing" a universe, like a carpenter building a house? Why not just one fabulous blink and, presto, the whole thing is complete? Boredom? From Zeus's peccadillos to the "jealous" god of the Abrahamic faiths, I can't I cannot help but look at the gods averred by humanity and see how humans created them in their image, not the other way around.
I believe, not from boredom but out of love for what he was doing. When you care about what you are doing you tend to spend a little more time on the details of it.
I agree with the God in man's image idea. If God is beyond the 4th dimension (time) then perhaps it is a blink to God and a slow passage of time to us. Just a philosophical question there really isn't an answer and it doesn't really effect the price of beans. So here is another one. If you imply that God is the creator doesn't that imply that god needs a creation for meaning and existence? Often people ask how does creation exist without a creator but the reverse is just as true. To imply that God needs creation is a limited view of God and if God is omnipotent and omniscient (I like omnipresent too) then any limits placed on God are false. K so on that note, if you cannot accurately apply any limit to God then you cannot describe God at all. Not what God does or how. Not what God wants or even if God wants at all. So I am back to God is a paradox and that is still fine with me. P.S As far as monotheism vs polytheism (and all the weird in-between theisms) I like the masonic idea of a Grand Architect who makes the plan in one great epiphany then sends all these little forces to go out and do their part. I take it a step further in my little theology and add in the idea that all of nature and humanity too is part of this work force of the universe. I don't even care if it is empirically true either, as long as it works for me for now and when my little theology doesn't work for me I change it. If when I die Peter is standing at the gate and won't let me in I will at least have some interesting conversation for him. Who knows I might end up with his job.
But, aside from man's little screwup, given his freewill and all that, isn't creation perfect? If it's perfect, what details remain? I used to be into earthfaze's notion - a deist vision of a Founding creator that set in place the rules of play, then retired. Today, I marvel more at the happy accident; nature is.
Truth is we dont know, What i believe is what was taught in biblical times. Which can be read from the bible. As far as the accident of nature, thats harder to swallow for me than the existence of God. If this earth was just the slightest bit different than it is now, life would not exist on it. One degree more on its axis, and no life. It seems nature was put in place, aligned just right to allow for the inhabitance of life. Thats one heck of an accident friend. There is a great video somewhere, about the privileged planet, or something like that. It gives a great account on how perfect this planet really is.
I am really stuck on this idea of paradox myself. The deist thing just happens to work out well for me in my logical mind but really it comes back to paradox for me. The idea that there is something that exists but yet does not exist. Something that permeates existence yet surpasses it into unmanifestation. God is greater than the sum if its parts type of thing I suppose. But none of that is really useful even if it feels right to me Wonder in nature is always useful Makes the days brighter and all that.
I agree, we don't know. To me, when you consider the universe, and the worlds of worlds, and the aeons of time, though - my wonder isn't that life happened, but the incredibly low probability it doesn't exist elsewhere, in countless worlds.
Do those who disbelieve not see that the heavens and the earth were sewn together and then We unstitched them and that We made from water every living thing? So will they not believe? (Quran, 21:30) It was only possible for people to come by the information, that humans were created from water, clearly expressed in that verse, hundreds of years afterwards with the invention of the microscope. It is therefore impossible for this fact, now accepted by the scientific community, to have been known at the time the Qur'an was revealed. Yet, attention was drawn to it in the Quran 1,400 years before its discovery.
Today I believe because I just beat a migraine easily that would normally kick my butt. I beat the migraine because of advice I got on here, but I think that is how God usually works his wonders for you... through other people. That could be spun any direction though, just the way I choose to see it.
Hmm. Water is everywhere, it's true. Don't understand what you mean when you say "originated." And clay is mostly silicates. How, again, is the human body fashioned from silicates?
Why, are you saying that I am wrong? Because I'm not, you can ask any scientist in the world, we originated from water, evolved or created.
No, I don't. Care to elaborate? I am questioning grab's statement that the Qu'ran, in saying the human species originated in water and silicates, is in any way correct, much less predates modern science.
Water is hydrogen and oxygen. We didn't "originate" from water, though water is a major component of our body, and creatures live in it. We are a water planet. Now - I'm waiting: clay - silicates - as the origin of the human species as well?