Humans not important to a deity

Originally posted by josephw
Are you saying the Ghost is obnoxious? God forbid! 😉

🙂

Was commending him for reducing his obnoxiousness, not for being obnoxious.

That said, the Ghost does happen to be a little bit obnoxious. But that's okay, as an atheist God 'forbids' him nothing.

Originally posted by josephw
By making statements based on the misunderstanding of the subject or topic of discussion.

So if someone does not understand a subject or topic of discussion, then what they write on it is 'childish and immature'? Would you feel that is an accurate assessment of anything you write about evolution - a topic you clearly know very little about.

Perhaps, but not because I intended it to be so. I have a hard time thinking of myself as being "better" than another, at least in terms of worth or value. I may be "better" at doing something or understanding something, but that doesn't make me "better" in the sense of superiority as a mere man.
Calling what someone else writes comes across at as a clear attempt to paint yourself as superior - whilst simultaneously dismissing the other posters thoughts as not worth addressing.
If you honestly feel he doesn't understand the subject then why not explain to him what he is getting wrong?

True, I did come across as rude. sonhouse can be agrivating with his persistent diatribes which underscore his lack of understanding, and are in and of themselves rude and insulting. What goes around comes around. If one can dish it out, then one should be prepared to receive it back again.
Fair enough.
Have you ever tried to correct his understanding?

Originally posted by sonhouse
In my opinion, a deity capable of breathing in entire universes would have many things on its mind than building such things as hell or heaven for humans. I say we are way too low on the spiritual totem pole for such a deity to have any interest in us at all. It seems to me hyper arrogant for humans to think a deity capable of making universes would have an ...[text shortened]... on the idea that a deity would be interested in mere humans? As if we are the kings of creation?

Why would a deity create humans only to have no interest in them?

Originally posted by Suzianne
[b]And you clearly did not answer any of my reasons for hating theism.

Just as adults (except maybe for mommy or daddy) also don't address every babble coming from an infant child, either.

'fear of death', 'MO of theists'

Bingo. Didn't take long to get to this, I see, Duchess' comment notwithstanding.

You all live in a background ...[text shortened]... e life MORE ABUNDANTLY. That's the whole point, in case you missed it the first thousand times.

Maybe ma and pa SHOULD address every "babble" coming from the infant.
I see adults dismissing children all the time. I believe that's a form of ageism and I note you only used this as an example, however it seems a very prevalent problem and I hope you understand the point I'm trying to make

Originally posted by vivify
Why would a deity create humans only to have no interest in them?

Because if a deity breathed in this universe, there are literally trillions of stars in it and even if only 1 in 10 have planets and even if only 1 in a million of those planets have intelligent life that still leaves hundreds of thousands of planets with life as intelligent as humans.

Many of those would be on a higher spiritual plane than humans, and maybe not have gone through the hundreds of millions of killings in wars of every nature including strict religious wars.

I say we would not rate the time of day from such a deity, said deity already dealing with beings a lot smarter and more compassionate than we will ever be.

So again, I say it is the central arrogance of mankind to think a deity would give us the time of day. Assuming there is such a deity, the point you theists cannot answer is why there were allowed to be literally hundreds of millions of people die in wars and those only in the last 200 years. And the plight of say, homeless children with cancer. Or an infant with cancer. If they have souls, are you going to lead us to believe it is all in god's plan for an infant to have terrible pain and then die, perhaps as a lesson for the parents?
How stupid do you have to be to just accept all that coming from a supposedly loving god? That is one of the points, the basic stupidity of humankind to have not developed much of a BS meter, enough to tell the originators of these clearly man made religious diseases to bug off and try to convert monkeys, not us with actual brains capable of thinkink for themselves.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Because if a deity breathed in this universe, there are literally trillions of stars in it and even if only 1 in 10 have planets and even if only 1 in a million of those planets have intelligent life that still leaves hundreds of thousands of planets with life as intelligent as humans.

Many of those would be on a higher spiritual plane than humans, and ...[text shortened]... ug off and try to convert monkeys, not us with actual brains capable of thinkink for themselves.

If we were deliberately created, wouldn't it be fair to say that this deity has at least some interest in is?

To take any trouble to create not only something that's sentient, but is also capable of language, able to appreciate and ponder creation, and is willing to have a deep, meaningful relationship with this deity to the point worshiping it. . . only to not care?

Originally posted by vivify
If we were deliberately created, wouldn't it be fair to say that this deity has at least some interest in is?

To take any trouble to create not only something that's sentient, but is also capable of language, able to appreciate and ponder creation, and is willing to have a deep, meaningful relationship with this deity to the point worshiping it. . . only to not care?

My point is (supposing this deity created the universe and us included), we cannot possibly be the only intelligent it created, there are literally trillions of stars and there have to be trillions of planets and even if only one planet in a million has intelligent life there would be a million intelligent life forms in the universe.

So a god developing all those life forms like we develop a garden, weeding out the stuff we don't think leads to a good plant, concentrating good plants together and so forth, would mean such a being would necessarily have its concentration split among those million species on a million planets. That would be besides the background work it would have to do to make sure the universe stays safe enough for life, like no supernovae nearby to disrupt a planet with sentience and so forth, so there would be a lot more going on for such a deity than just concentrating on Earthlings. So maybe this deity shows up every 5,000 years or so, just to pick a number out of a hat.
In the meantime, a lot of water goes under the bridge and humans are very warlike and under that scenario hundreds of millions of people got killed in the world wars and the pogroms, all unknown to said deity because it was concentrating on a billion other things at once.

This of course is only assuming there is some kind of deity like that which I strenuously doubt. And of course the theisitic answer will be the 'you don't know the mind of god' card.

It's just that a universe run by a deity just sounds like too much work, it seems if anything, a deity breaths in the universe, rolls the dice and if things work out for beings becoming sentient, which may or may not even be on the deity agenda, then fine, otherwise, it can make plenty more and probably already has millions of times over, experimenting with what laws gives the best chance for sentience if that is what it is after. Maybe it is just after what makes a universe last the longest, without regard for whether sentience evolves or not, like humans worrying about fleas developing on a rug.

Originally posted by sonhouse
My point is (supposing this deity created the universe and us included), we cannot possibly be the only intelligent it created, there are literally trillions of stars and there have to be trillions of planets and even if only one planet in a million has intelligent life there would be a million intelligent life forms in the universe.

So a god developing ...[text shortened]... gard for whether sentience evolves or not, like humans worrying about fleas developing on a rug.

You're comparing sentient, rational, thinking beings with a wide variety of emotions, complex thoughts, languages and accomplishments to plants. That's rather faulty, isn't it? Creating beings that have such complex emotions would mean that this deity has such emotions itself, such as love and compassion. It's not logical that such a being would bother creating such creatures only to treat them as cattle, is it?

Also, you're banking a whole lot on "if". It's not outside the realm of rational thought that life on earth is simply a freak coincidence that doesn't appear anywhere else in the universe. That's why the term "Goldilocks zone" exists, which describes a specific distance from a star based on its mass, where life as we know it could possibly exist. Simply put, we're only gambling on the fact that life exists elsewhere.

Lastly, why assume that humans are bottom of the barrel? If it turns out that "trillions" of similar life-forms exists, why not assume they may be worse, less civilized, or less intelligent? Couldn't it be possible that humans are the greatest of these creations, as well as the worst?

Ultimately, it doesn't matter, since we're discussing the possible mindset of some deity that probably doesn't exist in the first place. We're imagining traits of an imaginary thing.

Originally posted by vivify
You're comparing sentient, rational, thinking beings with a wide variety of emotions, complex thoughts, languages and accomplishments to plants. That's rather faulty, isn't it? Creating beings that have such complex emotions would mean that this deity has such emotions itself, such as love and compassion. It's not logical that such a being would bother cre ...[text shortened]... y that probably doesn't exist in the first place. We're imagining traits of an imaginary thing.

Well, a number of things here: Earth is in the goldilocks zone for sure and it is for sure the jewel of our solar system. But the fact is there are literally trillions of planets around trillions of stars, we already know of several thousand. We have not had the luck as of yet to find one that isn't frying next to its sun but that is because our detection methods are rather primitive at this point in time. I have no doubt there will be an ever expanding set of goldilocks planets we will have found in maybe another 100 years if our science advances like it has in the past 100. Which is not to say every goldilocks planet HAS to have live on it. My guess is anywhere there is the slightest biological zone there will be life, but that is just me, that of course has to be proven. We may even have life in our own solar system outside Earth, my guess is if indeed we find such life it won't be very advanced, also freely admitted to be speculation.

But it seems to me the universe is just too dam big for Earth to be the only one with life and intelligence. When I say sentience, I am including the whole spectrum of possible mind sets, believe me, there have been hundreds of sci fi books speculating about what kind of minds real aliens might have, peace loving, war like, artistic, whatever, I was just pointing out there probably is all of the above in the universe, probably races we would not want to be within a thousand light years and others who could sell ice to Eskimo's. All pure speculation but I think I and others who think like me or I think like them🙂 will be vindicated, eventually.

Maybe it takes 500 years, don't know, but I bet we will find life wherever we go in deep space.

It is QUITE logical for a being capable of breathing in whole universes to treat us and every other sentient beings as cattle, look at what would be the difference between us and a real deity with those kind of capabilities and the difference between us and Cattle. We are a LOT closer to cattle than some kind of god, any kind of god.

The only ones 'gambling' is the theist, they don't WANT life to be found elsewhere, they would have to revise their thinking, something they will do only at the end of a gun,,,,,

I also don't put humans on the low end of the sentience spectrum, maybe in the middle, who knows? I would hate to think humans are the crown of creation, a deity can do a lot better than us. You maybe forget the hundred million or more who died in the 20th century wars and even earlier? Not our finest moment, if we had to explain such insanity to a god.

Originally posted by sonhouse
It is QUITE logical for a being capable of breathing in whole universes to treat us and every other sentient beings as cattle, look at what would be the difference between us and a real deity with those kind of capabilities and the difference between us and Cattle. We are a LOT closer to cattle than some kind of god, any kind of god.

Again, if all this deity wanted was to treat us like cattle, why make humans any more intelligent and intellectually complex than actual cattle? That seems to be more trouble than it's worth, if the plan is not care about us any way, right?

Originally posted by sonhouse
Because if a deity breathed in this universe, there are literally trillions of stars in it and even if only 1 in 10 have planets and even if only 1 in a million of those planets have intelligent life that still leaves hundreds of thousands of planets with life as intelligent as humans.

Many of those would be on a higher spiritual plane than humans, and ...[text shortened]... ug off and try to convert monkeys, not us with actual brains capable of thinkink for themselves.

God created man above the other creatures and also in His own image because he apparently had a higher purpose in mind. So I would say God is still interested in humans because we have not yet reached the full potential God had in mind and He has a plan to fulfill that purpose.

HalleluYaH !!! Praise the LORD! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by sonhouse
Well, a number of things here: Earth is in the goldilocks zone for sure and it is for sure the jewel of our solar system. But the fact is there are literally trillions of planets around trillions of stars, we already know of several thousand. We have not had the luck as of yet to find one that isn't frying next to its sun but that is because our detection m ...[text shortened]... ntury wars and even earlier? Not our finest moment, if we had to explain such insanity to a god.

I agree that a deity could do a lot better than you. That is why some will be thrown into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. 😏

HalleluYaH !!! Praise the LORD! Holy! Holy! Holy!

Originally posted by RJHinds
I agree that a deity could do a lot better than you. That is why some will be thrown into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. 😏

HalleluYaH !!! Praise the LORD! Holy! Holy! Holy!

In other words, anyone who disagree's with your POV is damned to eternal torture. It is pretty tortuous right now dealing with the likes of you so I welcome your eternal torture, it couldn't be much worse than it is right now.

You can't even bring yourself to consider what I said, only a sweeping condemnation you think destroys all my arguments in one fell swoop.

In reality, it does nothing of the sort. All it does is show you up for what you are: Blind.