Even if one disregards the Bible. If we had no knowledge of the Bible, we'd still come up with the same conclusion. The universe is too intricate to be constructed by randomness, so there must be intelligence behind it. My premise is that the intelligence behind the creation is neither good nor bad, just uncaring. It set things in motion and now just has fun watching events unfold where each event fractures into in infinite timelines. He got bored and created the universe and humans. Now He's just having fun, that's all. Any comments?
Zeno, "the word of God is unknowable to us at this stage". Are you saying it could be revealed at some point? Doesn't this assume existence of the word of God? On what basis can the existence of this hitherto hidden "word" be justified? Bsmeter2, If an "intelligence" "created" the universe, this obviously leads to the question of how the creator came into existence; how was he/it created. Then it's a an infinite regression (if that's the correct term). Grant.
The threads main thesis statement is: " Is God Vain"? So the physical nature of God or how He came into being is tangential at best. Lets stick with the main premise.
Bsmeter2, It is these inevitable (in forums) "tangential(s)" which are more interesting than the original question. Speculation of God's vanity does not strike me as being particularly fruitful nor conducive to lively debate. You stick to the original question, I'll stay with the tangents. Grant.
The nature of the physical universe is based on our mental perceptions and quantifiable observations of our own immediate physical reality. For all we know, our physical reality could very well be inside of our minds, ala "The matrix". If our physical reality is based only on mental perception, then any idea of what is behind that perception is a useless conjecture at this point. So it is better to stick with the present physical perception as the base reality, find logical answers to the base reality, and only then can we extrapolate back to viable conjectures of the "pre-reality".
Much of the Old testament needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The new testament was given to us by Christ. The old testament was thrust upon us by those who killed Christ. One must note that much of the "bad" side of God is in the Old testament. It's almost as if someone put the Old testament out before Christ came into the big picture. To me it was propaganda put out by those who are against God so as to raise doubt on the teachings of Christ. As evidenced by the discussions in this thread.
I don't know who the "we" is that you refer to. You will call me whatever you like, as if it matters at all either way... TK9 said he was an atheist, not agnostic. Atheists belive in, and practice faith in non God, hence the worshiping factor of non God, i.e. the human intellect that concludes non God. Atheists worship the human intellect as supreme...