Why Would God Care?

In what way does it follow that we can hurt or affect him? It does if you're saying that "you can conclude that others will care about things in a similar way." People telling me what my question really is instead of answering my question just never gets old. When instructing me on how to determine if God cares, you said, "for a first approximation, you can conclude that others will care about things in a similar way." Given the above two points, I'm including this for chuckles. And I've agreed with this, many times. So... what, your answer is "I don't know if he cares or not?"Fine. What are you arguing for, then? You know it wasn't my metaphor, right? I don't feel a tremendous need to squirm in its defense. Because the metaphor falls apart for reasons that cause you to say, "AHA, but that's blame, not caring!"Edited by Dan Carroll, : No reason given.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

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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On the contrary: it follows with no trouble at all. A caring deity has already been postulated. The deity cared about the universe and everything in it enough to bother bringing it into being. So the idea of care is built into the premise.The only question remaining is how far this deity's active interest extends.You assume limits on the extent of this active interest. But apathy, unlike care, is not an intrinic part of the premise.It is therefore reasonable to ask what rational basis exists for supposing the existence of divine apathy. It is as reasonable to ask you why a creator would stop caring as it is to ask fundies why a species would stop evolving.ArgumentsYour post offers two arguments to support the idea of divine apathy:

1. 'Human beings are small in the immense span of the cosmos, therefore they are unworthy of notice.'

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2. 'I am indifferent to many things, therefore a deity can be indifferent to many things.'

The assumption underlying the first argument is that importance is determined by size. This is a widespread habit of thought but, if you examine it rationally, I doubt you even believe it. Are bodybuilders and obese people more important than thin people and children because they are larger? No. Is one's wallpaper more important than the cancer cells in one's liver because the wallpaper is much bigger than the cells? No. Importance and physical size are not the same thing. The argument is fallacious.The second argument is based on the likelihood that the deity is like us. A theist will naturally counter that we have limits on our ability to give attention to every detail. We also have limits on our ability to affect outcomes that a deity would not have. We also have limits on our investment that do not apply to a deity. We didn't create all this, the creator did.The unlimited nature of the deity is also inherent in the premise. So again, the burden is on you to show why limits would exist in an unlimited being's active interest.In making this second argument you also seem to be conflating two distinct theistic views. One is that a creative deity would reasonably be expected to take an interest in every aspect of its creation. This interest in everything would include our planet and our species. Whether or not you find such an interest likely, it does follow logically from the premise. The other idea is that a deity would take a special interest in our planet and our species. This does not follow logically from the premise. Like assertions of divine apathy, assertions of divine favoritism require additional support.AestheticsYou do raise an important issue in putting this second argument forward. By comparing the deity to yourself you come close to showing how much our ideas about God are a matter of aesthetics. We draw pictures, make analogies, for things we cannot really imagine.Many of our questions about a deity are built into the picture we draw at the outset. Change the picture and even some urgent questions become meaningless.As soon as we speak of 'creator' and 'creation' and 'caring' and 'active interest', we speak of a deity who is a conscious being like us who engages in creative work as we do. We anthropomorphize. Your comparison of a creative deity to yourself, despite the limits of the analogy, is thus not totally wide of the mark.But what if we abandoned the anthropomorphism and spoke instead of a deity who is the 'cosmic soil' from which the universe 'germinates' and 'sprouts' and 'emerges'? We still speak of this entity as the source of everything we see. But because the picture is different the questions change. We don't ask how much soil 'cares' about plants that take root in it. The question of caring makes no sense applied to soil. But we could still speak of that soil as a source of life and nourishment for the plant. We could even have theological debates about how far up the cosmic stalk the soil's nourishment extends. (If indeed any soil exists.)___Edited by Archer Opterix, : it's not easy being green.Edited by Archer Opterix, : really it isn't.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Thats certainly true.

If an omnipotent Being could create and uncreate at will, why indeed would such a Being have to care about its creation? The only obvious answer would be because such a Being would have empathy for our pains, trials, and tribulations.

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We can endlessly speculate on how such a Being would think or could think. The final analysis will have us doing just that---speculating. There really is no answers.

1) I'll make you a deal: start using "affect" and "effect" properly, and I'll tone down the arrogance. I'm not trying to be a dick on this point, it's just a quirk that drives me nuts.2) Humans are equal to other humans, but not equal to God. Therefore, postulating that God would care about our equals because we do doesn't work.3) As I already stated... humans with similar thought processes care about different things from one another. So it doesn't work to say that because God has a similar thought process, he must care about the same things as us. And it's not enough to make an assumption. Which means we have no basis to say God cares. I have never found the two to be mutually exclusive. 1) If the medium in which the art is made is responsible for the outcome of the piece, then the artist is irrelevant. He's not an artist, he's more comparable to a paint manufacturer; the piece itself is the artist. And a paint manufacturer doesn't have the vested interest in the piece that the artist does.2) When the metaphor has to be extended to "the artist cares about his piece, and wants the paint to behave so it comes out right, so he gives the paint a book of rules, and tells it to behave, and..."...shit, maybe "artist" isn't a properly encompassing metaphor? If nothing else, an artist that finds that his medium isn't working right for him says, "fuck it, start over, maybe with another tool."Now as it happens, I have a busy day at work today. I'm taking the next two days off, so I have to haul ass today to get ahead. So if I don't respond until Monday, there you go.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

Hey Phat, I would say that God does care about our pains etc, but to a big degree, intervention is a major will-issue. I think personally, that there can be intervention of God depending on a few things, such as it being in line with the trajectory of the individual's destiny.From God's angle, he made a system which would allow for bad things to happen. Logically, it would be somewhat silly for God to then cry about the effects of having that system.If I made a swimming baths, I know that the consequences could be that someone might potentially drown.Indeed, I don't think God struggles to come to terms with the system he has created, but we certainly do, for we are within it. Therefore the parasite is an oddity to God, as much as Dan's hearty dump. But the ingredients allow some evils it seems, when God bakes his cake. Is then, God evil? I think not, but I do think that God cannot withold evil completely, otherwise it is greater than good/God. Thus Christ. For he has already seen that evil would come.As Christ-believers, Christ was also subject to the system, and suffered at the hands of it. Full well knowing that by conquering the system once, it is logically conquered completely. For us; this is the power of God's intelligence, that he deals with the harvest and indeed, everything, in it's time. The NT says God is patient.

So, in other words, it doesn't automatically follow that the deity's interest extends to us.Even if we assume that bringing the universe into being was a distinct act of caring, not akin to taking a cosmic shit, (which isn't a assumption one can reasonably make,) what is the reason to assume that the interest extended past the act of creation, and into a day-to-day maintenance? Apathy is an absence of caring. Unless absolute and total caring about everything is included in the premise, which it's not, as seen above, then apathy is absolutely included in the premise. Yes, that's exactly what I've been saying. God is ten feet tall, while we are a measly six, and therefore we are unimportant. Thank you for listening.Physical size has nothing to do with it. God is meant to be omniscient and omnipotent. Unlimited wisdom and power would put this being farther up in terms of importance, relative to us, than we are above the mold in our showers, just by definition of what he is. Our relative unimportance is established from the get-go. That was, as I recall, part of the premise. There are many things about which we are aware, and which we have an ability to affect, about which we don't care. Do you go out of your way to step on anthills?Same caveats as to Ringo, off work the next couple days, etc. etc.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

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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Time enough for a quick one. The feelings you're extrapolating are for our equals. If God has equals, we can extrapolate his feelings towards those equals. Not towards us, his inferiors. God's method of correction is, according to major religions, to tell us what to do, threaten us with punishment if we don't do it, reward us if we do, and let us make our choice. If an artist is correcting flaws in their design, they just go ahead and correct them.If God's interest was as simple as correcting faults, one would think he'd just go ahead and do so. Since his actions are more complicated than that, there's presumably a reason beyond that of an artist correcting a painting. So the artist metaphor falls apart; it doesn't cover the actions in question. Except for all those people who follow a book God handed down to correct their behavior, sure.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

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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It's a flawed extrapolation. The available information is enough to know that. Saying that we care about our equals, and that God thinks in similar ways as us, does not suggest that God cares about his inferiors. We're talking about the western God, here. If I didn't describe him in enough detail in the OP, my bad.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

I have a couple of quick rhetorical questions for you, Dan:1) What are the overall implications if God does not care?2) What are the implications if He does?

Pretty sure I've gone over them already in this thread, and really don't have the time to do so again today.

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"I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book. Next time, look it up in your gut."
-Stephen Colbert

I see the argument limiting God with humanistic inequalities. I don't see why God would have to tend to the universe where He has to juggle things. It is ambiguous because it has no satisfying answer for someone in your current philosophical position. "Why wouldn't He care?," then becomes just as applicable. That's why we are called to juxtapose scripture with everyday life. The ink is only the mechanism that animates what is in the mind of the artificer, which makes the mention of the ink or pen almost ineffectual. The point is the skill and what lies in the mind of the artist. The pen and ink could do nothing without us. Why would you care about your children? Wouldn't we be more likely to care about our children than not care about them? If God has invested the time to lay the groundwork for our lives, to bring His thoughts to life, isn't that sufficient reason to assume that God would care? I think the problem is that you don't know God so this is all unimaginable for you. Exactly what kind of answer are you looking for? I mean, not one of us can prove God to you or anyone else. That's the dichotomy for the believer. They know God exists, and yet, are incapable of proving that to anyone else. That's the dichotomy the believer faces. The most anyone can do is to live in rightstanding with God and be used as His vessel so people can see God in the believer.How can I prove that God cares to you when you reject and forsake all the answers given by someone like Jesus? Look at Jesus, which is humanity at its greatest, when its reached the point of divinity, and then ask whether or not God cares. The entire gospel narrative is focused on God's love for us, a love so powerful that God would sacrifice Himself in our stead.The problem is that you don't believe in the gospel narrative. Even if you don't believe that Jesus and God are one, doesn't the fact of his deep desire to heal us through his own massacre stir something in your heart? At the worst the unbeliever calls Jesus a deluded idiot who killed himself because he was naive to think he could change the world. But at best even the unbeliever can respect that kind of hope he instilled-- a devotion so deep that He would spend Himself for a people's that both love and despise Him.

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"Somewhere at the back of my father's mind, at the bottom of his heart, in the depth of his soul, there was an empty space that had once been filled by God and he never found anything else to put in it... At the centre of me is always an eternally terrible pain - a curious wild pain - a searching for something beyond what the world contains." -Bertrand Russell

I liked my wording just fine, actually. I said 'The only question remaining is how far this deity's active interest extends.'I was describing 'the only question remaining' in this conversation you are having with Ringo and others. I did not mean that the question 'remains' out of logical necessity. It could very well follow from the premise--automatically--that the deity's concern for its creation is limitless.The premise of a creative deity necessarily entails 'caring'--taking an active interest in--the creation. The deity has to care enough about the universe to want to create it. It's a matter of logic. So in this model of deity the default position is already set. The deity takes a demonstrably active interest in the universe, or it wouldn't be here.If we also postulate the existence of deity that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent--limitless, basically--then there is no logical reason to assume the active interest this being takes in its creation would not be likewise limitless.I have shown you that in rejecting this idea you are asserting a limit on divine 'care,' not its absence. That's what you asserted at first: that apathy would be the default setting. (You called an uncaring deity a 'safe assumption' given the premise and attempted to put the burden of argument on others.) As you are very fond of this toilet talk, we may as well address it. You speak of the act as a matter of negligible importance, but the fact is that you do care if you take that shit or not. Go without a bowel movement for a week and this act will take on a higher priority for you. Go without one for a couple of months and few things in your life will be able to compete with it for your attention. And even when the act occurs, you will care very much about the results if your body produces something odd or unusual. So your shit analogy does not make the case for apathy you think it does.And it remains a poor analogy for any act undertaken by a deity. You take your dump out of biological necessity. You are compelled to this act because of constraints in your anatomy. But a deity that can bring a universe into being is presumably under no constraints, and thus does nothing from compulsion. Actions is purely voluntary. Because no logical reason exists to suggest that it wouldn't. Active interest is inherent in the premise. Apathy is not. If you are going to argue for the existence of divine apathy you... well, you really do have to argue for it.It's the same reason as to think evolutionary change is ongoing. No logical reason exists to believe in a limit. Anyone who asserts there is one is obliged to show where and why such a limit exists. Physical size illustrates it. You argument rests on fallacious assumptions about scale. If instead of 'mold in our showers' we said 'cancer cells in our livers', would you still assert the 'relative unimportance' of the organisms to be 'established from the get-go' because of the difference in scale?We assign value--importance--to this or that thing according to a variety of factors, criteria, and contexts. If we postulate the existence of an unimaginably vast creative being, the logical question is not why it should care about trivial features of its creation, but whether any aspect of that creation is considered trivial by this being at all.When you postulate the existence of a being created everything, it logically follows that everything in creation would be important enough, in the estimation of this being, to be worth the effort of creating. The 'insignificance' of one thing or another is thus something you have to make a case for. Insignificance cannot, from the premise, be logically assumed.Your argument here is really poetic. You are making a case for the sublime--a concept much discussed in philosophies of art and beauty. The natural human response to the sublime is a feeling of humility and insignificance. This response often has salutary effects for us. But the response is not logical. There is nothing about the Grand Canyon, or the Alps, or the Milky Way galaxy, or universe, or a deity, that forces us logically to the conclusion that awe and a feeling of humility are in order. We arrive at that response through other means. Yes. Your second argument has more going for it as logic, I thought, than your first. It is flawed, but the nature of the flaw corresponds to a questionable aspect of the premise. Why should the source of the universe bear much resemblance to us?Your strongest argument for an apathetic deity, I thought, was one you didn't make. (You probably made it earlier, but I tuned in late.) You could simply have argued from observation. Any deity that exists must not be taking an active interest in its creation, you could say, because its creation shows no sign of being actively maintained.Here again, though, a distinction exists. Are you denying the idea of a deity taking active interest in all aspects of its universe or the idea of a deity caring for one species in particular? The first idea follows logically from the premise of an omnipotent creator. The second does not. A special case would have to be made for that view anyway._Edited by Archer Opterix, : ongoing concern for literary creation.Edited by Archer Opterix, : still more ongoing concern.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.