In a designed universe, would we expect to find inefficiency, uselessness, or ugliness?

Question

So God (who is perfect) couldn't make a perfect universe without flaws?

Between sin the structure of the entire universe (including the human body) was different?

Answer 1

It would depend on the designer and their wishes.

Answer 2

If I were to go out and buy the best designed automobile on the market, and then run it for 300,000 miles without ever doing any maintenance on it, it would probably be inefficient, useless, and ugly. But that does not tell us how it was originally designed.

The universe in which we currently live has been infected by a plague called "sin". It causes not just morality, but everything to degrade, break down, and "die". The results would be a universe that looks like a car after 300,000 miles without repairs.

Such a universe would not properly reflect the initial design, care, and craftmanship placed into its creation.

So, yes, I would expect to see inefficiency, uselessness, and ugliness in a sin-ravaged designed universe.

Answer 3

I suppose the response will run along the lines of "Well, look at products of human design - are they always perfectly efficient, useful and beautiful?"

Of course, we're talking about "God" here. It's like when people take God to be a human father-figure on a cosmic scale. It illustrates the mentality of the type of person who believes this, and it shows quite clearly that man has created God in his image rather than the other way around.

"God" is perfect by definition. Any defects in His creation, therefore, must be deliberate. And in this world there is so much waste, so much suffering, so much cruelty, so much ugliness. Contemplation of the universe is bound to be an almost intolerable anguish for anybody who's even capable of making the effort without resort to all the soothing-syrup palliatives of religion, which have evolved for this very reason.

The response that "beauty" has no meaning save with reference to "ugliness," etc, is more compelling - except it's no excuse for the concept of "God."

As for the "argument" that the evil we perceive in the world is the result of "sin" - not even worth answering. To hell with these sniveling, guilt-ridden troglodytes and their morbid inferiority complex.

Answer 4

Efficiency needs ineffeciency to compare itself to. I would not use arguments like this. They can rationalize it, and at the same time claim not to know the mind of God. The notion that the universe is tailored for us just need not be.

Answer 5

You certainly wouldn't think so -- if life occurs by divine fiat rather than by random mixings of chemicals, why do you need the planets of a billion trillion stars, mixing and matching compounds for 10 billion years before something that can replicate itself springs up?

Answer 6

Ever hear of Rube Goldberg?

How about Picasso?

Answer 7

yes every design has flaws

Answer 8

These things are the result of sin.

Answer 9

I'd expect a lot more teal.

Answer 10

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029899