Zak -

I am not sure I am saying there is a high purpose to the creation, I am just saying that the cosmos is unlikely to have been created on a whim.

It seems to me that the creation can best be characterised as an act of will.

Teh best analogy I can think of is that of a an artist who paints on canvas. I believe most such good artists would actually find it very difficult to paint anything that was meaningless or even very badly composed. Their creative spirit is just too overwhelming for that to be possible.

Can we apply probabilities to God? I think this is a replay of the medieval debates over whether God ocudl do anything He wanted. Rationalists have to believe that he cannot. He cannot create Himself. He cannot make a created thing uncreated. He cannot make the truth untrue. And so on...

I think these observations are really a way of saying God is as much a natural phenomenon as we are. God may therefore have some sort of "history" (one that we of course cannot understand).

I was suggesting God had some sort of "compulsion" to create the cosmos - a feeling of incompleteness perhaps.

IN relation to ourselves God may appear perfect and infinite from our distance but close up - perhaps not. It seems more likely to me that God is finite and imperfect.

David

But what if he didnt set out to create us. What if God just Threw up and out came the univerese?(i know this sounds ridiculous but its hard to get my point across) He wouldnt have any need for it. HE most likely wouldnt take any pride in it he might just disregard it.

Zak -

What you say is perfectly reasonable. To put it another way - we might just be a kind of by-product of the divine intellect meditating on itself. Who knows? Nobody does.

I suppose I take an existentialist line, saying that we have to deal with the phenomena that our consciousnesses provide us with. Teh first thing we have to accept is that there is a lot of uncertainty about fundamental reality.

We then have to decide how we engage with that uncertainty. Pascal recommended we take a gamble on faith in a benevolent God who is interested in our fate. I suppose my arguemnt woudl be we should (a) try and enjoy the life we have and (b) engage with the uncertainty in constructive ways.

Despair seems to me an odd path to follow, since if everything is uncertain then everything is possible.
I think it is a rather positive state of affairs, not unlike youth itself - when we are young and the pattern of our life is undecided, it is an exciting time. Difficult perhaps, but potentially full of hope and joy and expectation.

David

"if everything is uncertain then everything is possible. "

That is a great quote. It explains alot for me. Thank you.

"Reality is an illusion, although a persistant one."

--------Albert Einstein

are you familiar with relativity?

simply put, you aren't likely to move through things that are harder than you, such as brick walls but will move through softer things than you, such as air.

...THAN YOU is the relative bit.

'real' is one rotational energy experiencing another rotational energy. this is often called 'sub-atomic structure'.

you are real relative to like, perceptible energies.

or not. that's up to you- belief is also relative, after all!!

sean