> Creationist Hypothesis

Purpose of Life - Creationist Hypothesis

This is a continuation of the purpose of life article that describes how motivations will inevitably be a part of any animal capable of significant learning. An alternate view is that some sort of intelligent life, that we will call "god," had engineered the whole process in order to give rise to humans such as they are today.

I am using the word "god" in a very generic way, so it doesn't matter whether god is one person, or a collection of people, or some other form of intelligence that we might not recognize.

Under this hypothesis, the elements of happiness (motives) were designed into the thinking system built into the people. So, unless god's design is flawed (or if perhaps humans are still a "work in progress"), when a person fulfils his desires, the typical result should be to fulfil the purpose that god intended for him. When that fails, it is due to the people's own ignorance of how best to fulfil their god-given motives.

There are various religions that purport to describe and explain god, typically based on claims of communication between god and the founder(s) of the religion. It is not my intent to evaluate those claims here, but I will make some comments about how the "intentional design" concept may affect happiness as a purpose of life.

It is typical of religions to believe not only in the existence of a god, but also of one or more devils. This is necessary in order to explain unwanted things in the world such as natural disasters, disease, wars, etc., which are typically attributed to the devil rather than god. Religions worship god, not the devil.

"God" is a symbol of good, and you can see that right in the english name itself. Add one "o" to "god" and you get "good." Likewise, take the "d" off of "devil" and you get "evil." Both god and the devil are described as immortal, and they have incredible powers to influence people or to create life, but only the god is good. The devil by contrast is portrayed as a deceiver, who tricks people into bringing misery upon themselves.

If we hypothesize that a god and a devil both exist, then we differentiate between them by which of them encourage us to do things that bring happiness rather than misery. That is the only way that one could truly verify that one is following god and not the devil.

And that is why religions generally encourage people to do good things. It's because god wants what is best for them--because god wants them all to be happy. He does not have arbitrary favoritism, so he would not advise one person to obtain happiness by means that produce misery for others. Moreover, he knows the very best way for people to achieve happiness, because he designed them; therefore it would be wise to for people follow his advice. That assumes, of course, that there is a reliable communication channel from god. Whether any religion actually provides such a path I leave it to you to decide.

The point here is that we end up at the same point I recommended initially for a purpose of life: to pursue happiness, and to do it in a way that is mutually satisfactory across all intelligent life.

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