Why, God? Why?!

[Amarok]

 Haven't seen you disprove anything I've stated from the Bible.

And I don't need to . Because their nothing that you have said that requires it . Just empty preaching .

Of coarse it's relevant, because it's what I said and it differs from what she said. God creating is only irrational to you because you do not know God and the love He gives. You make a statement that wants and desires are from imperfect imperfect beings yet you've given no proof, you can yammer all you want but without proving your point it is just that yammering.

I have demonstrated my point . Their is no rational reason as stated by any theist here why a being who is perfect would desire or want things . Imperfect being desire things this is a fact and they have reasons to desire things . And I care nothing for you assertions of having mystic magic personal knowledge of your invisible friend . So no it is in fact you who is merely yammering like a crazed mystic zealot .

---

 Haven't seen you disprove anything I've stated from the Bible.

FYI this was not about disproving the bible . It was about biblical . Knowledge which you show a great lacking .

[LadyForCamus]

Uh, no.  Your reading comprehension just sucks.  Bold mine.  Try actually reading and thinking about what I wrote.

 I wasn't concerned about what you wrote because it doesn't represent what I wrote, like I said and you still have not cared to notice is this God wanted/ desired to, not needed to.

And you’re still not paying attention, lol.  The distinction between want and need for a perfectly complete and self fulfilling entity is irrelevant.  If God wants something, that means he doesn’t presently have it.  How does a complete and self fulfilling entity lack anything?

[Neo-Scholastic]

The distinction between want and need for a perfectly complete and self fulfilling entity is irrelevant.  If God wants something, that means he doesn’t presently have it.  How does a complete and self fulfilling entity lack anything?

I guess I'm not seeing the problem. People say they want to exercise but if they really did want to exercise they already would be.

[LadyForCamus]

The distinction between want and need for a perfectly complete and self fulfilling entity is irrelevant.  If God wants something, that means he doesn’t presently have it.  How does a complete and self fulfilling entity lack anything?

I guess I'm not seeing the problem. People say they want to exercise but if they really did want to exercise they already would be.

But, we aren’t wholly complete, self-fulfilling, and all powerful beings.  I mean, if I think, “hmm...I want a Big Mac”, I’m experiencing a desire for a thing that I don’t have, and must acquire.  Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t at least one definition of god such that he should already have everything he could ever want or need?  To me, wanting is borne of lacking.  I’d also be very interested in your thoughts on Jor’s response.  If our wants and needs are fueled by our values, and our values are rooted in our evolutionary biology, what drives god’s values?

[Edwardo Piet]

I have a question for our Christians:  Why did God create people?   Further, why did he create anything at all?

Because he's a sadist.

He goes up to crippled people dancing too.

Points for anyone who gets the reference

[Neo-Scholastic]

If our wants and needs are fueled by our values, and our values are rooted in our evolutionary biology, what drives god’s values?

I believe that is the wrong question. To speak of His wants and desires is just anthropomorphism. In any doctrine built on Neo-Platonism, God embodies the highest Good and it is up to us to recognize and choose His Being as an independently existing object of reference. As Sartre said, "Man is condemned to be free..."

[The Grand Nudger]

You;re not accurately conveying neo-platonism.  You're saddling it with christianity. The one is unknowable, and so unrecognizable. It is beyond our ability to "choose" it, as all choices reduce to it. I always found it ironic that some subset of early christians were so completely unsatisfied with the philosophic underpinnings of their god that they directly lifted the philosophy of the group of pagans that presented the greatest and last opposition to their god in the classical world. Two thousand years later, it appears as though this is still true..at least for some christians.

I guess the trick, for neo-platonists (of the pagan or christian variety) would be to convince all the christians that they have been completely wrong about god since the beginning.

[Amarok]

If there is an after life i imagine the ancient greeks are laughing themselves silly .

[LadyForCamus]

If our wants and needs are fueled by our values, and our values are rooted in our evolutionary biology, what drives god’s values?

I believe that is the wrong question. To speak of His wants and desires is just anthropomorphism. In any doctrine built on Neo-Platonism, God embodies the highest Good and it is up to us to recognize and choose His Being as an independently existing object of reference. As Sartre said, "Man is condemned to be free..."

Isn’t calling god, “good”, just more anthropomorphism though?   If it’s incoherent to talk about god’s wants and needs, then it’s equally incoherent to talk about him as good and not bad.  If god is essentially inexplicable, why bother attempting to define his attributes at all?  The ‘highest good’, or, ‘The One’ described in Neo-Platonism (as I understand it) is not a sentient being with a stream of consciousness as the Judeo-Christian god is so often described, correct?  Are you blending the two concepts?

[The Grand Nudger]

It's not a being at all (sentient or otherwise).  It's simpler than that, beyond being. Beings exist below "the one" in the neo-platonic heirarchy of existence. Beings like gods..such as the one christians believein...well below...having been formed themselves by primal forces. Gods, in that framework, are barely above us, by one rung or less and all the way at the bottom....mostly the same as we are..just "bigger" versions.

---

-the philosophy concerning christer god was shit..in that there was none..and so about as soon as they'd eliminated paganism they assumed it for the sake of their own intellectual poverty (this is what the ruckus about christians teaching the classics revolved around in 300ad).  Neo, here, being a big fan of aquinas,..ought to be well aware of this fact, as aquinas life work was the attempt to syncretize pagan philosophy with christian superstition. He never managed it, ultimately conceding that the christian god required "revelation" - aka..magic books and visions of risen apparations. In sum, he made it no further than those who;d preceded him by a thousand years. He pitched himself onto the pile we're still familiar with to this day. "Well, that sounds like my god". Unsurprising, the faithful think that everything sounds like their "god".

Eddie Izzard had a great joke about that, concerning the romans and the greeks- that when the romans came along and subsumed greek culture, they were relieved to find the gods..because their gods were crap.  They had jeff, god of biscuits.  

That's pretty much how I view the judeo-christian god. For all the hub-bub, Yahweh is the god of biscuits, whereas the "god of the philosophers" is a pagan non-deity and out-right rejection of christian superstition.

"you just don't understand" in 3.....2......