the stars

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Imagine a planet much like our earth forms somewhere in the galaxy. Abiogenesis(the process of life arising from non living constituents) occurs around a volcanic vent deep the planet's primordial ocean. For the sake of discussion just imagine these first simple beings pondering their environment. They would ask why their god made such a vast ocean all of which except a tiny spot around the volcanic vent is lethal to its existence. The atheists among these most simple creatures would say "aha....this is evidence there is no god for a god would not create such vast barren wastelands".

A billion years passes and life has evolved and moved beyond the volcanic vent to fill the entire ocean. For the sake of discussion just imagine these more evolved beings pondering their environment. They would ask why their god made such a vast world of the atmosphere, land, and ocean...the majority of which is lethal to the existence of these more evolved creatures. The atheists among these more evolved creatures would say, "aha....this is evidence there is no god for a god would not create such vasts barren wastelands"

Three or four more billion years passes and life evolves even further still such that it now flies in the atmosphere and craws about the land. At night these even more evolved creatures would look up at their sky and ponder their environment. They would observe that their world is but a tiny speck in a vast landscape which is lethal to their existence. There would surely be atheists among those even more evolved creatures who would say, "aha....this is evidence there is no god...for a god would not create such vast barren wastelands". However a few of these beings have evolved something called foresight and imagine a day when life masters and makes fruitful the environment that the pessimistic and short sighted atheists call a wasteland.

Actually I think the atheist life forms would just be asking for the theist life forms to back up their claims that a god created anything at all.

Never know, maybe the theist life forms in your scenario would be able to do something the human theists never have; back up their God claims with something of substance rather than nothing at all.

[Heywood]

There need to be no compelling argument against a word the means nothing, masqurading through the use of various fallacies as a concept that could somehow "exist". The vacuousness of God is compelling enough.

The concept of God obviously has meaning to theist(and probably most atheists) even if is has no meaning to you. The argument presented in the OP was directed at the conception of God that theists and most atheists take it to mean at least in a general sense.

You're not really presenting a rebuttal to my counter argument. Instead you trying to steer the conversation toward the meaning of God rather than does the vastness or reality say anything about God's existence.

[Mudhammam]

The "wasted space" argument is not a compelling argument against the existence of God.

What's compelling is the apparent dissonance between theists who believe that God created humans to deliver their "souls" into a "spiritual communion" with him and decided that the best route to take is the world we live in with its hostile conditions to (physical) human life lurking around at nearly every corner in a Universe that--considering its scale of magnitude--is simply unfathomable in its irrelevance to this goal.

[Heywood]

The "wasted space" argument is not a compelling argument against the existence of God.

What's compelling is the apparent dissonance between theists who believe that God created humans to deliver their "souls" into a "spiritual communion" with him and decided that the best route to take is the world we live in with its hostile conditions to (physical) human life lurking around at nearly every corner in a Universe that--considering its scale of magnitude--is simply unfathomable in its irrelevance to this goal.

Negative Pickup.

The universe as it is might simply be a means to accomplish a goal. That goal might be to bring into existence beings who could freely choose to love God but who are not directly designed to love God.

One contradiction I see theists often make is claiming that God wants us to love him as an act of our own free will. But in a second breath they will claim that we are designed by God. A windmill doesn't grind grain into flower because of its free will. A windmill grinds grain into flower because it is designed to grind grain into flower. A human designed to love God doesn't love God because of its own free will....he/she loves God because he/she is designed to love God.

If I wanted something that would grind copious amounts of grain into flour that wasn't designed by me to grind grain into flower.....I would need to create a massively-huge universe.....just like ours with emergent properties.....just like ours. And if I am all powerful, I could do this without even breaking a sweat. I could do this with no effort at all. And since I am eternal, any time it takes would be merely an instant to me. From my perspective, there would be no way to accomplish my goal that was more efficient.

The reason you think in terms of "best route" is because you anthropomorphize God. Put yourself in Gods shoes instead of putting God in your shoes. The apparent dissonance will go away.

[Mudhammam]

One isn't free to love anything that they perceive to be little more than a shoddy product of our species' muddleheaded imagination.

[The Grand Nudger]

If I wanted something that would grind copious amounts of grain into flour that wasn't designed by me to grind grain into flower.....I would need to create a massively-huge universe.....just like ours with emergent properties.....just like ours.

Really? Because I don't need to look anywhere further than about 5 feet to find a suitable object. I don't think it's very clear that all of this stuff is required to pound grain. The things I might use to pound grain with are a tiny fraction of whats available, and they don't depend on any of the other stuff for their existence or efficacy in pounding grain.

And if I am all powerful, I could do this without even breaking a sweat. I could do this with no effort at all. And since I am eternal, any time it takes would be merely an instant to me. From my perspective, there would be no way to accomplish my goal that was more efficient.

I would hope so, since I'm neither all powerful, nor eternal, nor working with the entirety of the cosmos....and I can do it too. I don't know how you've determined the relative efficiency of any given route to pounding grain with a "found object" though, got some math?

[Heywood]

If I wanted something that would grind copious amounts of grain into flour that wasn't designed by me to grind grain into flower.....I would need to create a massively-huge universe.....just like ours with emergent properties.....just like ours.

Really? Because I don't need to look anywhere further than about 5 feet to find a suitable object. I don't think it's very clear that all of this stuff is required to pound grain. The things I might use to pound grain with are a tiny fraction of whats available, and they don't depend on any of the other stuff for their existence or efficacy in pounding grain.

Lets see that thing that was not designed by you or anyone else, grind 5 pounds of grain into flour without any help from you or anyone else.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well, even though the conditions you've set for me are a little bit more strict than the conditions set for god, np. Do you want a rube goldberg machine (I think that we're going to require one in order to stick to the handicap you've demanded) or do you want something simple and straightfoward?

[Heywood]

One isn't free to love anything that they perceive to be little more than a shoddy product of our species' muddleheaded imagination.

Well if you think God is little more than a shoddy product of our species muddleheaded imagination because He doesn't take the "best route".....your thinking is flawed.

[SteelCurtain]

Had a lovely clear sky here in Ireland tonight. Stars everywhere. Then the thought hit me. If this was all made for us then why make space ridiculously massive? Surely that would be entirely pointless? My girlfriend suggested it might be because stars are pretty but what about the billions of planets we can't see. Sound like a good plan to you?

This was one of my first questions when I was a young proto-atheist. I never really bought in to the dogma, but the idea that we are just some biological detritus on a rock in the boonies of a galaxy that is just one of billions like it was too much to accept when the alternate explanation is that it is all for us.

What hubris.