God, the universe and us

Who are we? We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people.

Carl Sagan

In his post god…, John, has attempted to respond to a comment, I am assuming by an atheist, and tells us nothing really. The comment

The idea that is some super powerful entity created the universe 13.8 billion years ago, then waited about 9 billion years before creating our solar system, then waited another 4 billion years before creating humans, then waited until about a few thousand years ago to reveal himself. He did all of this, created a universe with billions and billions of galaxies, each containing billions and billions of stars, most of which we cannot see, all for the benefit of a species of carbon based organisms on a small planet orbiting a small to medium sized sun. And this species has only inhabited its planet for less than 1/100 of 1 percent of the life of the planet. And this super powerful being in this gigantic universe watches what people do and listens to their wishes and cares whether someone gets a job, or recovers from an illness or wins a football game. This idea is so ridiculous, so outlandish that it should be considered effectively impossible.

So that’s why people don’t believe in your mythological deity…. because it’s stupid.

A comment I agree with. It is not of interest to us. I copy it here for those uninterested in going to check John’s post.

John attempts to turn the comment on its head to argue the probabilities of our existing are close to nil but forgets the little detail that regardless of what possibilities/ probabilities say, we are. This is one fact you can’t assail. And our being, does not shine a light on the existence of a god.

John writes

This notwithstanding, what interested me most about this reply was the portrait of God presupposed in the description. The argument only really works if you presuppose that God does not conform to a concept of God, but to the realities of what it’s like to be a human being.

I hope he intends to tell us about his conception of god is.

He tells us the above portrayal of god is inaccurate. He says

These are no doubt interesting questions but they presuppose a rather anthropomorphic understanding of God.

But one must ask, isn’t a god who suffers, who dies, who hears prayers, loves and hates anthropomorphic? How else would one describe the god of the Abrahamic religions? Isn’t it anything but anthropomorphic?

The god of the bible, is said to have given man dominion over all things on land and in water. Essentially, to this god, man is at the apex of creation. John, by denying this should at least tell us which god he serves.

In Genesis god rested on the seventh day. I don’t know whether it was out of tiredness or lack of ideas. Whatever linguists want to take the rest to mean, it is there in the bible. So when John says

when one doesn’t have to rest

he at least should tell us why the author of that part of Genesis had god resting. And the claim that is metaphorical will not wash for everywhere, Christians justify resting on their chosen days of worship by referring to god’s rest.

While I don’t know what god is, I would be interested in knowing how John purports to know the mind of god. I would like to know how he knows

God can at any single time have before him with full attention every single piece of existence, as it were, as if it were the only thing that exists. In other words, there is nothing exceptional from God’s perspective in his ability to be interested in prayers, ponies, water-polo, and the Polish all at the same time—intimately and immediately.

this about god. The only perspective I can claim knowledge of is mine. I can from my own experience make inductive judgments on other humans, but how John can make such statements about god waits to be demonstrated.

I don’t know about you, but at the end when John writes

In fact, to construe God any other way, is, I proffer, to misunderstand what the concept of God is.

I am left unconvinced that he has shown his conception of god to be not anthropomorphic. What he has done is to increase the abilities of god infinitely but still, it is, as far as I can tell, a man with superpowers.

I don’t think John has answered to the critique raised in the comment above. Neither has he demonstrated how his god isn’t anthropomorphic.