Why Would God Care?

Since we're human... what choice do we have?Suppose a married woman "touches herself". Might her husband conceivably be jealous? Might he feel inadequate?If the bride of Christ can do without Him in one area or another, does that make Him feel inadequate?That seems to be the position that some Christians take: God "cares" about us to the extent that He wants us blinkered in His direction all the time. We can't do anything on our own, can't have any time away from Him, can't have any friends that aren't His friends too.From a human perspective, we'd call that an abusive relationship. I'm not sure what "truly insecure" means.But if He was "truly secure", wouldn't He have faith in His creations? Wouldn't He allow them to run wild, run free with minimal supervision?Wouldn't He concentrate His caring on patching up their skinned knees?An insecure parent makes an insecure child.
A "truly caring" parent makes an adventurous child. So you're only concerned that your son's actions don't have negative consequences.God would/should be the same kind of Father.

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But you do care enough to flush, don't you?And you do care what went in at the other end to necessitate the flushing, don't you? You do care that its journey through your system is relatively smooth and painless, don't you?It seems unreasonable to focus on one small step in the process and assert, "I don't care."

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Omnipotent is not the same as uncaring. Who's to say we don't effect God?I'm saying that we can only "understand" God in our own terms. If we care about things, we assume that God does too because we have no other frame of reference.The only way to make God not care about anything is to make up a fictional reference frame like you're doing. Essentially, you're saying, "God doesn't care because He doesn't care."

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When you become omnipotent we'll take your opinion of "sensible reasons" seriously. If you're willing to admit that He might care, the next step is to admit that He might care about the same things that other caring beings care about - namely us. But you haven't been talking about God as if He was a fictional character. If you were, you would have had to lay out that fictional reference frame from the beginning. But instead of telling us that a fictional character doesn't care, you're asking why He would care.You're implying a real (pre-known) character. Use a real reference frame.All the sentient beings that we know about do "care". They care about themselves. They care about other beings like themselves. They care about other beings unlike themselves."Caring" seems to be a natural property of all sentient beings. It seems reasonable to conclude that unknown sentient beings would also care about things. It seems quite unreasonable to assume that one particular being would not care about anything. Or, "it's safe to assume evolution is a lie, because after hundreds of topics and thousands of posts over the course of many years, nobody has been able to convince all the creationists that it isn't."Forgive me if I don't trust your safety standards. Edited by Ringo, : Pluralized "beings".

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You're not paying attention. I'm not omnipotent either. Neither of us is capable of knowing what an omnipotent being would think. No, the next logical question would be, "What would God care about and what would He not care about?""Why" would God care about us is only relevant in the sense of, "Why would God care if Jimmy touches himself?" because there is no sensible reason why he would care. "Why" is not relevant in the sense of "Why would God care if Jimmy murders Suzie?" because presumably God cares about Suzie the same as He cares about Jimmy. He doesn't want to see her get hurt. No, I didn't say that. I said (or tried to say) that you are making up fictional properties for a God that - as you said in the OP - we are assuming is real. Ah, yes, the "semantics" accusation - the last refuge of the cornered fundie. Misrepresent what I say and then accuse me of playing semantics. And I have answered: because that's what sentient beings do - they care.You might as well ask, "Why do rocks fall?"Answer: Gravity. It's built into the universe.Question: But WHY do rocks fall? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Yeah, that's pretty much exactly what you're saying. Now you're not even talking about caring any more. You're talking about blame. Try to get your story straight.Figure out what you're really trying to ask and try again.

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Had to go all the way back to the station to find my train of thought. For example:

quote:

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Nothing we can conceivably do can hurt him. Message 152

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We have agreed since then (I think) that we have no way of knowing what might effect an omnipotent being. While we might not be able to hurt/damage Him, we might very well be able to make Him "feel bad".So His lack of feeling/caring is a fictional property. I never said "everything". Sentient beings care about some things, at least. By inductive reasoning, God probably cares about some things. But you do know why caring is. You do it yourself all the time. You know as much about it as anybody. So asking "why" is not a sensible question. So apply what you do know. You don't care if Jimmy touches himself but you do care if Suzie gets murdered. For a first approximation, you can conclude that others will care about things in a similar way. If/when you get more information about another being's caring history, you can fine-tune your conclusion. Nope, you weren't. An artist caring about his picture being damaged is certainly not the same as blaming it for damaging itself.

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Please stay with the tour. I didn't say anything about violating laws of nature. I said that your "we can't effect God" is an add-on, a fiction not included in your description of God in the OP:

quote:

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Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that there is, in fact, a God. And not just any old God, but an elderly man, with a long white beard, who sounds a bit like James Mason. His thought process is at least superficially comparable to a human's, and he watches over all of His Creation, taking an active (if at times mysterious) hand in its development.

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You even admitted in the OP that "His thought process is at least superficially comparable to a human's". Doesn't matter. People care about stuff. Doesn't have to be unanimous.If God's thought process "is at least superficially comparable to a human's", then it's reasonable to conclude that He cares about stuff too. The salient question isn't "why" He cares, but what He cares about. We're not saying it does. We're saying that all the evidence we have indicates that He probably does care in some way. Didn't say He did. (Have you noticed how often I have to point out to you what I actually said?)I have said - and more than once, I think - that He probably has concerns. I didn't say "the same concerns". I didn't say "chocolate concerns".His concerns might be similar to ours or they might not. Having concern for shower mould can mean you want to cuddle it and protect it from harm, or it can mean you want to prevent it from harming you. I don't think it does. I think the "blame" aspect was just a squirm on your part.Why can't we go with this? The Artist cares enough to take the time to create a painting. He cares enough to prevent one colour from running into another one. If the paint behaves itself and doesn't wander out of bounds, He doesn't care how fast it dries.

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If His thought processes are somewhat comparable to ours, then what effects us psychologically might comparably effect Him psychologically. I'm not telling you what your question "really" is. I'm telling you what it should be. And again, I'm not saying that what we care about "does" have any bearing on what God thinks. I'm saying it's the only information we have to go on. I'm trying to get you to argue intelligently instead of arrogantly. You haven't actually shown that the artist metaphor does fall apart.

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Congratulations on acknowledging the arrogance. It's the first step on the road to recovery. Didn't say we were equal to God, just similar. It's not a postilate, it's a conclusion. And it works just fine, given the data we have available. If God's thought processes are somewhat similar to ours (your postulate), then we can extrapolate our feelings to Him. The extrapolations may not always be accurate, but the process is more sound than your steadfast refusal to acknowledge any consequences of your own postulate. Didn't say they were. You're one of my heroes around here. You're a very funny guy, if somewhat lacking in subtlety. That could be used more effectively if the schoolyard bully aspect gave way to a little more finesse. The medium isn't "responsible". It sometimes does what the artist doesn't want. It drips or bleeds. He cares enough about the outcome to correct those faults. You're the only one who's saying that. Straw-metaphor.

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The extrapolations I'm making are based on the only information we have. You can't just arbitrarily deny them based on no information. Aren't you embellishing a bit on the OP? We're saying "he watches over all of His Creation, taking an active (if at times mysterious) hand in its development." We're not talking about how He does it.The artist metaphor will stand up just fine if you stop trying to sabotage it.

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Nor does it suggest otherwise.It's an extrapolation based on the principle of if-it-walks-like-a-duck-and-quacks-like-a-duck-there's-a-good-chance-it-tastes-like-a-duck. Humans have been doing that kind of "flawed" extrapolation since before they were human.Occasionally, you get a poisonous duck. Usually not. "The Western God™" is too broad a description for the narrow conclusions that you insist on.

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Exactly. And if you had postulated invisible flying elves in the OP, I would hold you to that description. Based on the God described in the OP, it is quite reasonable to expect some degree of caring. That whole equals/inferiors thing is irrelevant. We're dealing with the only information we have. You can't just willy-nilly assume that God is somehow "different" just because He's "superior".And who's to say God considers us His "inferiors" anyway? For most tasty purposes, the difference between a duck and a chicken is minimal. Doesn't really matter, since we're not talking about The Western God™. We're talking about the God of the OP, and He's already defined. It's hard to "know the gist of what you mean" when the gist of what you say has changed substantially in just the last few posts.If you're talking about the God formerly known as Yahweh, are we allowed to take the Bible as an accurate account of His Life and Times? If so, it contains considerable "evidence" that He does care very much about details of our lives, right down to Jimmy's nocturnal practices.If not, I'm getting too old to play tag with the goalposts.

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I have given you two reasons (or at least two variations):

1. The why He cares is (probably) the same as the "why" we care.
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   If you want to know how His (and our) thought processes work, ask that question and maybe somebody will be able to explain it to you.
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2. God, the Artist, wants His creation to be true to His vision.

The general extrapolated answer still stands and the more specific "artistic" answer still stands. Handwaving and foot-stamping have failed to topple them.

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I guess we'll leave it to the jury. You, too. It's been a slice.

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The question is: If God really cared about the children, why didn't He prevent the Egyptians from making such a disastrous decision? "Going into Goshen" wouldn't have helped them. The Israelites were warned to mark their doorposts with blood to protect their children. The Egyptians were never warned. That was the whole point - to separate the Israelites from the Egyptians, to save the Israelites and kill the Egyptians.God clearly didn't care about the Egyptians.Edited by Ringo, : Missspelled 'Equiptions' five times - at least I'm consistent.

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“Faith moves mountains, but only knowledge moves them to the right place”
-- Joseph Goebbels
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