What is the point of earth (to god)?

[Rhea]

Many's the time I've wondered why Christians never care to wonder why their god created an earth with suffering instead of just creating people in heaven which is defined as having none.

In another thread I articulated my theory on why Jehovah made an earth; to wit:

1. God made heaven to be happy and therefore no range of “maturity” exists, every soul there is “mature”
2. But god can’t make souls in heaven. (And for some reason he desires new souls - perhaps he feeds on them and they need replenishing?)
3. So god created earth as a soul-factory
4. And factory metrics include productivity rates.
5. The aborted souls repesent high productivity. Fast, perfect results.
6. But in order to get those, you need to use some of the imperfect previous product (“parents”) as what factories call “secondary raw materials” or “trim re-use” or “remelt” or “cullet” or “yeast mother” to be re-made into product
7. So aborted fetuses (including the majority god-abortions) represent top shelf product and are very efficient populators of heaven with no flaws or imperfections
8. Other Humans represent flawed-but usable product that can populate heaven after they do their turn as giving part of themselves into new product and they also realize how imperfect they are and prostrate themselves for mercy about it,
9. The Hell-bound represent product rejects, souls that won't recognize their imperfections and will therefore just run the in the trim grinder for eternity (whole nother topic on why there has to be an eternal trim grinder), although they are capable of using their excess materials to create new souls before they hit the eternal grinder. There is no buyer credit for this, though.
10. Corollary: Reincarnation explains this process more as “re-work” of defective products through several loops until finally nirvana.

That’s my theory.


your thoughts?

 

[bilby]

Humans are restricted to Earth (and it's VERY near vicinity), so to them Earth is very important.

But in a God's eye view of the universe, the Earth is nothing. Hell, the Earth is almost nothing from a God's Eye view of the Solar System, which is itself a dust mote from the God's eye view of the Galaxy, which in turn is a mere speck in the universe.

I can't see how Earth, or humans, could possibly be important or meaningful to any God. We are like the bacteria living in the guts of the dust-mites in a forgotten corner of the carpet in your little used spare room, wondering why the human who furnished the house cares so much for bacteriakind.

Of course, that analogy fails, in that those bacteria are astronomically more significant to us, than we would be to a God that created the entire universe. (Or even just the visible universe. Or even just the entire Milky Way galaxy).

Theists have such a small and stunted worldview that they think humans are of significance in the big scheme of things.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

Are you talking about Earth as the planet individually or Earth as meaning the physical universe as a whole?

If it's the universe as a whole, the point seems to be that God likes creating super massive black holes. If it's the Earth individually, the point seems to be that God likes it when bacteriophages kill bacteria in order to produce offspring, because that's the main thing that's happening here on any given day.

 

[steve_bank]

The biblical god is quite nasty, maybe psychotic. Goes to the trouble of creations, is dissatisfied, and wipes it clean with a flood. Poetic but not very efficient. Gave us complex brains, but threw Adam And Eve to the curb for thinking for themselves. Put us in heat 24/7, but we are supposed to resist.

Maybe this was his first experiment, and created more universes.

 

[Opoponax]

Whatever X God's reason for creating humanity, I can't imagine what a hell it must be to be It.

Or, as I've been told many times, "God is something you can't imagine." So okay. Then how is this god to be understood? I don't expect my very average* looking orange cat to be able to imagine driving a car. Thus, I don't punish him when he's too goddamn lazy** to go grocery shopping for me.

Earth, while in its early stages, was a pretty promising script with lots of potential for storylines, but couldn't it have been made much more interesting by say, putting 5 life sustaining planets in the same solar system? By now, we know what humans do with and to each other, but what will the humans do to other intelligent species? Or maybe the neanderthals got the test audience treatment for that and it was found that it was just a lot sadder than what humans already do.

*He's still way better than your ginger cat.
**This is like all the time. He still hasn't gone grocery shopping once in the past 5 years.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Many's the time I've wondered why Christians never care to wonder why their god created an earth with suffering instead of just creating people in heaven which is defined as having none.

This premise is incorrect because heaven certainly contained evil, what with Lucifer and all.

So I would argue that when space ghost made earth it screwed it up similarly.

Either that or both places are just as planned, just as space ghost wanted. We're in paradise.

 

[Rhea]

Many's the time I've wondered why Christians never care to wonder why their god created an earth with suffering instead of just creating people in heaven which is defined as having none.

This premise is incorrect because heaven certainly contained evil, what with Lucifer and all.

But! But! The bible _promises_ that there is no suffering or tears in heaven!!! _promises!_

 

[Horatio Parker]

The classic reason is God created the world to share his perfection. The reason for the universe to exist is desire for understanding.

Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

 

[Kharakov]

Earth=crib, diaper; God wants silent, peaceful, adult beings in heaven.

Of course, the reality is, God is the AI designed by the corrupt to give them monetary control over Earthly riches while the poor do the crap work for low returns.

 

[bilby]

So why hide your perfect and special creation in a vast universe that is almost entirely inimical to life, and wherein any other places that may be suited to life are almost completely inaccessible, being light years away?

For that matter, why tell your story to a small bunch of folks in the Middle East, while completely failing to tell the same tale to the Australian Aborigines, Native Americans, or even the Chinese and Indians (both of whom would have been rather surprised to know that the Jews of the Middle East were god's chosen people)?

The whole tale is just too small. It's understandable in the context of a small tribe of ignorant pre-industrial people who had no idea how big the world (much less the universe) was, and who assumed that it extended only a bit farther than the places they knew of.

It's incomprehensible in the context of people who had access to an all-knowing source of information about the universe - a source that was providing direct information to them about their place in the world (via stone tablets, burning bushes, or some kind of spirit parakeet whispering in the ears of their scribes).

And while ignorance of the scale of the world, and of the universe, were excusable for people in the pre-industrial past, such ignorance is not excusable for anyone in the developed world today, where we DO have access to a great deal of information about the exact size and shape of our world; and we have a very good idea what the minimum limit for the size of the universe is.

 

[Rhea]

And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be.

Wait. What?

 

[braces_for_impact]

That's what has really bothered me about ANY god concept. It's all so small. From the first explanations of why things are here, to end game, it's just tiny, puny, and well...not what one would expect from a god. Hell, it's not even what I would expect from a moderately smart human being. It's all so ad hoc...

 

[steve_bank]

The classic reason is God created the world to share his perfection. The reason for the universe to exist is desire for understanding.

Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

If we are made in god's image, then we can see how god created a horrific reakity.

 

[Horatio Parker]

The classic reason is God created the world to share his perfection. The reason for the universe to exist is desire for understanding.

Let me tell you then why the creator made this world of generation. He was good, and the good can never have any jealousy of anything. And being free from jealousy, he desired that all things should be as like himself as they could be. This is in the truest sense the origin of creation and of the world, as we shall do well in believing on the testimony of wise men: God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

If we are made in god's image, then we can see how god created a horrific reakity.

That's what the Gnostics think.

But the point of the Platonic dialogue imo is not that we were created as perfect, but that we can conceive of perfection.

Btw I never said God's image. That's you.

 

[jab]

God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

Not very attainable, evidently.

 

[Horatio Parker]

God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

Not very attainable, evidently.

And how do you know that?

 

[Opoponax]

God desired that all things should be good and nothing bad, so far as this was attainable.

Not very attainable, evidently.

And how do you know that?

I think the entirety of human history gives some insight into that.

 

[Horatio Parker]

And how do you know that?

I think the entirety of human history gives some insight into that.

No doubt, but beside the point. The point is that perfection can be envisioned. That's the sharing of divine power. Thought, understanding, not goodies.

 

[Opoponax]

And how do you know that?

I think the entirety of human history gives some insight into that.

No doubt, but beside the point. The point is that perfection can be envisioned. That's the sharing of divine power. Thought, understanding, not goodies.

What does "perfection envisioned" even mean?

I can imagine all kinds of shit, but that doesn't make it real.

 

[Horatio Parker]

No doubt, but beside the point. The point is that perfection can be envisioned. That's the sharing of divine power. Thought, understanding, not goodies.

What does "perfection envisioned" even mean?

I can imagine all kinds of shit, but that doesn't make it real.

How do you know anything is imperfect?