Why create a universe? It's mostly empty space and the places that aren't empty are mostly pretty lousy places for life. Why hellish places like Venus? How about instead of a universe, just creating somebody to be nice and loving to?

Yeah, when our concepts of God came about everyone thought that the Earth was the center of the universe.

OTOH, the stars, galaxies and planets are pretty, so maybe that's why God created them. And if God just created the Big Bang, then at least one galaxy would be required for the Earth to be created and life to evolve (as most of the Earth's atoms were created in other stars).

Still, the kinds of reasons some contemporary philosophers give for believing in God are things like: the universe seems to be 'fine-tuned' to allow for the emergence of intelligent life, therefore it makes sense to believe there's a fine-tuner.

That always stikes me as a bit circular. If there are other Universes with different physical properties that end up with the emergence of intelligent life as we don't know it, then they could say the exact same thing about their Universe.

I don't quite know what, "The question is whether such a God gives, not whether he's aiming for a set of criteria" means. Is there supposed to be a word after "gives", or does it modify "a set of criteria"?

No, it's that 'all-loving' is here being treated as a property of God, and that loving without the desire to give is too sparse a concept to sustain the term. (As a single example, does it make sense to say "X loves" without saying "X gives love"?) I did once read a sci-fi story where Earth, facing destruction for some reason, is coincidentally visited by a Lovebeast, who wants to love everyone. The Earth is right on board with the concept, but the poor bewildered Lovebeast doesn't know what to do with all the cries of "Save us! Save us!" Not being omnipotent, of course.

That always stikes me as a bit circular. If there are other Universes with different physical properties that end up with the emergence of intelligent life as we don't know it, then they could say the exact same thing about their Universe.

Yeah, and if there are other universes where intelligent life is impossible, there would be no intelligent creatures to notice this.

This is a common argument, called the anthropic principle.

Then why keep living?

Inertia, and not wanting to upset my mother. In case you think I'm kidding or being arch to provoke you -- consider my suicide attempt at age 9. I was curious about death, and wanted to try it out. After a bunch of pills I realised that I was going to die eventually anyway, so no need to rush, and it'd be kindest to my mother if I did it after she did. Plus, there was a whole other bunch of stuff I was curious about, and it was possible that I wouldn't get a shot at it after dying.

Stomach hurt like a bitch though.

As I said, empiricism is entirely the wrong way to go about such a problem. It hardly matters what evidence you see either way on the matter; if it's not a position you can live, rather than simply propose to score points, why should I take it seriously?

You've lost me here.

I again repeat -- what is inherently beneficent about creating the universe? You state it, but I don't understand why?

Then why keep living?

Inertia, and not wanting to upset my mother.

Plus fear of death (for most people, anyway).

Just because God creates a universe that is in time, it doesn't follow that he creates all of it at once.

Why not. If God exists outside of time as he must to create the universe, then he can't create some of the universe now and some of it later, time is a property of the universe itself. It's like doing half of a painting, taking a break, and then coming back to finish it. The half done part of the painting isn't going to change while you are gone taking your break.

Really have to go now.

Do the other major religions have an all-powerful, all-loving God?

I'm pretty sure it exists in Judaism and Islam, although I don't think it's quite as central as it is in Christianity. I just don't know enough to say, though.

As for Hinduism and Buddhism, there is a God in Hinduism, although again, I don't know enough to discuss it. If memory serves, though, it's considered to be a Self, and our "selves" are just various ways in which this (big) Self manifests itSelf. Buddhism is, from what I've been told, atheistic, but the lay practicioners are generally theists (according to the sociologist of religion, Rodney Stark).

If God exists outside of time as he must to create the universe, then he can't create some of the universe now and some of it later, time is a property of the universe itself.

He could, if he leaves time until last.

I think.

My brain hurts.

Yeah, and if there are other universes where intelligent life is impossible, there would be no intelligent creatures to notice this. This is a common argument, called the anthropic principle.

Yeah. It may have some relevance if we could know that this is the only universe there is (back on conditional probabilities), but if there are an infinite number of universes, each with different characteristics, then it becomes meaningless to wonder that we happen to be in one that supports life.