Thread: God's Reason For Humans?

Assuming there is a God, why did he create humans in the first place? It seems to me there can only be 3 motivations here:

1) He had a “need” for humans.
2) He “wanted” humans.
3) He had no need or want, but just created us willy-nilly, so to speak, attaching no significance to us.

I think we can rule out number 1, because an omnipotent, omniscient, self-sufficient, supreme being certainly has no “need” for anyone or anything else. Otherwise, he would lose his status as omnipotent. And certainly, as inferior beings, we cannot offer him anything that he cannot attain without us.

What about number 2? Why, after what can presumably be an infinite period of time existing in blissful solitude, did he decide that he “wanted” humans? (let’s sidestep the whole issue of Angels here, as the same arguments can be made of them). Was he merely lonely? Bored? However, the qualities of loneliness or boredom don’t strike me as very “Godlike.” And besides, if he was lonely and/or desirous of "sharing his love and compassion", then why not just create us immediately in his heavenly realm? Why the “test” of an earthly existence first? And why has he created (and continues to create) billions of souls? (100 billion humans have come and gone by some estimates). Doesn’t he have enough souls? Is he STILL in need of companionship (if that’s the case)? And why send those souls that are deemed not worthy to eternal damnation if all you wanted was to share love in the first place?

What about number 3? Were we just a cosmic “experiment”, created by a being that is indifferent to us? If he didn’t necessarily WANT us, but created us anyway, then clearly we can’t be that significant to him.

I know that some may say that “we cannot know the mind of God”, and that it’s useless to speculate on his reasons for creating us. But surely there must be SOME logic to his actions. I cannot accept that a (benevolent) God does not employ logic and meaning in his actions.

So then, why would a God need/want inferior beings in the first place? To me this is a topic that doesn’t get enough play when it comes to arguments for and against there being a God.

On the assumption that a god exists: he needed an observer.

Originally Posted by TvEye

On the assumption that a god exists: he needed an observer.

Assuming God exists, assuming souls exist, assuming that said God created us instead of creating the universe and just allowing things to happen, assuming siad God actually gives a crap ... etc.

I'd rather go with what I know ... I woke up this morning! Woo-hoo!

Richard

It took you forty-four words to say "I'm an apatheist".

Originally Posted by Ron

Assuming there is a God...

To me this is a topic that doesn’t get enough play when it comes to arguments for and against there being a God.

I think the problem here, Ron, is that as soon as you open up the argument with 'assuming something exists,' in which that something is indistinguishable from nothing other than what can be gleaned from the imaginative, you open the floor to literally every and any notion which can be conceived by the imaginative.

Sure, theists will rush in to regurgitate their doctrines, and even with those, you'll find plenty of opposites and extremes when those various doctrines are placed side by side for comparison.

So, by process of elimination, we are left with one conclusion.

All three of your arguments are correct. :wink:

if he existed, its to inflate his ego

He didn't make human's on purpous. He tried making some kind of hairless ape... We are the bi-product of his experiment.

Why create a universe if no-one's there to see it.

why create a universe for someone to see?

Why do painters paint?

Why do paintings get painted. Seriously

I'd say that asking questions like "what made God?" and "why did God make us?" should really destroy the very foundation of the concept of there ever being a God, and yet people still believe in that concept. Are we - as human beings capable of reason, logic and conception - intentionally dense?

Originally Posted by Ron

Assuming there is a God, ...

see what logical knots the assumption of god's existence creates ?

in truth, the reverse question (what's humankind's reason for a god ?) is a far more interesting one

Originally Posted by Obviously

Why do paintings get painted. Seriously

Because painting paintings is what painters do. And, hypothetically, creating universes is what gods do. Why create your masterpiece and never let anyone enjoy it.

If I were a god, and there was nothing around but infinite nothingness, I'd definately create a few stars to make life a little more interesting. I'd test drive those super powers like nobody's business. Then I'd create sentient beings. You can't create all this cool stuff and keep it to yourself. That's selfish. And simultaneously, creating sentient beings would be my greatest work yet.

Originally Posted by Obviously

I'd say that asking questions like "what made God?" and "why did God make us?" should really destroy the very foundation of the concept of there ever being a God, and yet people still believe in that concept.

"What made god", is an excellent question. "He was just always there" is not an answer, nor is "We can't know".

Originally Posted by TvEye

It took you forty-four words to say "I'm an apatheist".

I could go on longer, but I'm no longer interested.

Richard

painters paint to impress others, and to earn money.
so why would god have to impress someone, when theres no-one else to impress than itself?

I think he saw what another god in another universe had to play with and wanted the same, only he really fucked it up - didn't he!

Originally Posted by dejawolf

painters paint to impress others, and to earn money.
so why would god have to impress someone, when theres no-one else to impress than itself?

I forgot what i was gonna say....

Originally Posted by Ron

Assuming there is a God, why did he create humans in the first place? It seems to me there can only be 3 motivations here:

1) He had a “need” for humans.
2) He “wanted” humans.
3) He had no need or want, but just created us willy-nilly, so to speak, attaching no significance to us.

Since you insist that every answer must be stuffed into one of these, I shall give my answer and let you do the stuffing.

God being complete in Himself without any need of any kind is naturally and purely motivated by the desire to give of His infinite abundance to another and therefore He set out create other beings apart from Himself with which He could have a relationship and to which He could give without limit. Our best analogy in our own lives is the best motivations that we imagine of a parent. In truth, however, human parents have rather often fallen very far short of this ideal.

Originally Posted by mitchellmckain

Since you insist that every answer must be stuffed into one of these, I shall give my answer and let you do the stuffing.

Can we assume your answer will be on par with stuffing?

God being complete in Himself without any need of any kind is naturally and purely motivated by the desire to give of His infinite abundance to another and therefore He set out create other beings apart from Himself with which He could have a relationship and to which He could give without limit.

Yet, many examples can be extracted from both the bible and history that completely nullifies such an answer. It might be your ideal god, but it certainly isn't a god that appears in any scriptures.

being god must be the worst job in the world.

1. creating humans
2. finding out that 10% of people don't believe in him
3. finding out that he is divided into over a thousand different Gods from different religions
4. not having the need to do anything at all. God doesn't have to move around to get from point A to point B; he can just use his mighty powers. If he doesn't have that "mighty power" then he is not god, because that contradicts the "all mightyness" of him(it). What a boring job!


Think about it. If God exists then the previous statements would probably be true. What a sucky sucky job

Ok, God created everything. The opposite of everything is nothing, does this mean that God is nothing? I like to think that God didn't create the Universe, man did. Man also created God. After all, before man did any creature on the planet know they were on a planet, in a solar system, going around in a galaxy, floating through the universe? Did any creature know of or believe in a God? The truth is right in front of us, Man is God!