(March 13, 2021 at 12:33 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: Imma go out on a limb and say that it means that God’s actions, motivations and desires are centered around human beings.

Hmm the story is about God's dealings with Man is it not? And so the narrative logically revolves around us. But the book of Job has many examples in which we are not the center of God's actions, motivations, or desires (including the first chapter where we find out we might not even be the only planet).

We are the burning house on the street; not the only house nor the greatest—just the one firefighters are trying to rescue.

I notice that God spends precious little time concerned with the salvation of flatworms.

Boru

Perhaps you only notice what you look for, right? I noticed God describes himself as a Lion and Lamb rather often. I noticed the Flood is a story about God putting man to work to save animals. I noticed God says he feeds the sparrows and adorns the lilies. And I noticed that wolves and sheep will feed together in heaven, implying animals will be there.

In psychology, the term imaginary audience describes a kind of belief common in adolescence where people think they are the center of everyone's attention. I think you might be approaching scripture the same way.

(March 13, 2021 at 12:33 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:

(March 13, 2021 at 10:44 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: What do you mean he's human-centric?

Imma go out on a limb and say that it means that God’s actions, motivations and desires are centered around human beings.

Boru

(Non-Christian) Theists have made this exact same point. The Stoic Chrysippus made the exact same observation:

We should infer in the case of a beautiful dwelling-place that it was built for its owners and not for mice; we ought, therefore, in the same way to regard the universe as the dwelling-place of the gods.

I think this is obviously true, but it offends the more narcissistic. They want to think that the universe exists for them, that its centred around them & exists for their benefit. They certainly don't want it to be the other way around. It's why Christianity had such appeal in the Late Roman Empire. While their world was ending, it promised them that God loved them and had a pie in the sky waiting for them, he just wanted to make sure they deserved it before giving it to them. It really took off on the Roman cities, which by that point had become human landfulls, collecting all the worst elements from across the empire like moths to a lamp. Then the more airheaded & fashion-conscious of the upper orders of Roman urban life noticed the trend & began converting. Soon enough even greasy politicians like Constantine began to take notice, and the feel-good narcissism won out.

Secular humanism is an expression of the same narcissism, albeit without the supernatural hockuspockus. But instead of making a man out of God, like the Christians, secular humanism seeks to make a God out of man, or some notion of 'humanity.'

(March 13, 2021 at 5:58 am)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: I agree about Apollo's argument being human-centered, but I kind of think that was the point. Design proponents will frequently try to make their case that the universe was designed with humans in mind.

The flaw in arguing that the universe is human centered doesn't lie with Apollo, but with people try to prove design.

Boru

What I have maintained throughout this thread is that design is an anthropomorphic notion. When we talk about a designer we inevitably talk about intent and purpose—we can call this intent and purpose human-centric but we can even take it further and say that the intent and purpose is matter-centric —i.e, designer intents the matter particles to form complex structures which further perform some function. We humans are one such manifestation of complex structure—but we are not the only thing. Sun, planets, solar systems, all are such matter-centric designed object from that point of view.

The reason we take these structures into consideration to further build predictive models to hypothesize that whole universe would like this (with abundance of structures) and NOT predominantly empty space is because “design“ is an anthropomorphic notion and we have to use the same anthropomorphic principle to build the predictive model to verify if universe is rife with structures or not.

It makes no sense to say we see motion and structures all around us and in the galaxy but I betcha most of universe is empty. What are the basis of such model? It’s the same with life elsewhere in universe: we predict that there is life elsewhere in universe and NOT that there is not.

I have yet to hear a predictive (and not after the fact) basis of predominant empty space in the universe building upon design argument.

(March 13, 2021 at 3:16 pm)Apollo Wrote: The reason we take these structures into consideration to further build predictive models to hypothesize that whole universe would like this (with abundance of structures) and NOT predominantly empty space is because “design“ is an anthropomorphic notion and we have to use the same anthropomorphic principle to build the predictive model to verify if universe is rife with structures or not.

Can you clarify this point further? And as an aside, how does your view of emptiness fit with the Lawrence Krauss notion that nothing is not nothing?

(March 13, 2021 at 3:53 pm)John 6IX Breezy Wrote:

(March 13, 2021 at 3:16 pm)Apollo Wrote: The reason we take these structures into consideration to further build predictive models to hypothesize that whole universe would like this (with abundance of structures) and NOT predominantly empty space is because “design“ is an anthropomorphic notion and we have to use the same anthropomorphic principle to build the predictive model to verify if universe is rife with structures or not.

Can you clarify this point further? And as an aside, how does your view of emptiness fit with the Lawrence Krauss notion that nothing is not nothing?

What I am saying is that humans when they see water they predict that there will be other life form around (animals, fish, plant life) as they have seen such pattern before where usually water means presence of others who use that water.

When humans see a “clockwork” solar system with repeated and reliable cycles of sun rising and setting they perceive that as design and predict that this is common. That can also predict that this not common but what are the basis of such prediction unless you’re trying to contort a previous prediction to fit the later observation. So the prediction that there will be more matter than not in the universe is more anthropomorphically likely than not.

As far “nothing“ is concerned it’s also an anthropomorphic notion that we usually use to describe world at our macro level (at the non-quantum level—the level where reality has taken shape after the underlying quantum fields interactions. The atomic, the molecular, and bigger level). So when we say “there is nothing in the room”, we are assuming a level that is even bigger than molecules and mean things like furniture etc but technically there is air in the room or space in the room with vacuum energy. Point is, there is no such thing as nothing if you consider quantum level too as part of conversation but most of the time we are only talking about macro level so nothing makes certain sense to us in that context.

But in objective reality, quantum fluctuations happen all the time even in “nothingness”. But that is not the level at which design arguments made so are not considered. If you do take those into consideration then it becomes even more less design centric because quantum level nature is probabilistic and does not follow same design patterns we see at classic/macro level..

(March 13, 2021 at 9:26 am)Angrboda Wrote: The Christian God is human-centric, Bel.  If you're arguing about some other god, let us know, because if the design isn't human-centric then it wasn't made by that god.

I don't know why you're putting some of my sentences into bold type. I remember what I wrote.

As for the Christian God being human-centric, that's true. I have never said I am talking specifically about the Christian God. That's something you assumed. 

The topic here is if there were a designer God, would the universe look different. There are many many concepts of what a creator God would be like. 

I understand that when many people on this forum use the word "God" or even "religion" they are talking about a very specific modern American-style literalist Christianity, of the type that TV evangelists represent. That's a narrow view. 

In addition, we can think about the cosmology of some Christians in the past. For Dante, for example, the vast majority of the created universe is not inhabitable by people. From the bottom of the sphere of the moon to the top of the sphere of the fixed stars, there is no air and no one could live there. This is by far the greatest percentage of space in the universe, according to that model. So even for Christians who see their religion as human-centric, the percentage of space that's usable by humans may be quite small.

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(March 13, 2021 at 3:16 pm)Apollo Wrote: What I have maintained throughout this thread is that design is an anthropomorphic notion. When we talk about a designer we inevitably talk about intent and purpose—we can call this intent and purpose human-centric [...]

What makes you think that a creator God, if it existed, would be human-centric? Are you a Christian?

(March 13, 2021 at 7:32 pm)Belacqua Wrote:

(March 13, 2021 at 9:26 am)Angrboda Wrote: The Christian God is human-centric, Bel.  If you're arguing about some other god, let us know, because if the design isn't human-centric then it wasn't made by that god.

I don't know why you're putting some of my sentences into bold type. I remember what I wrote.

I was highlighting where you had said the things you denied saying. And no, you apparently don't remember what you wrote.

(March 13, 2021 at 7:38 pm)Angrboda Wrote:

(March 13, 2021 at 7:32 pm)Belacqua Wrote: I don't know why you're putting some of my sentences into bold type. I remember what I wrote.

I was highlighting where you had said the things you denied saying.  And no, you apparently don't remember what you wrote.

I don't deny saying those things.