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.

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

Imagine the following parallel: the odds of winning at a particular slot machine are 1 trillion to one. You pull the lever ten times in a row and win each time. Now, if you hadn't won, you wouldn't have been in a situation where you could experience the win. But the fact is, despite the incredible odds, you did win, and you won ten times in a row. Wouldn't you think the machine was rigged?

Now, if there were one trillion machines with one trillion people pulling levers, and after ten tries there were ten wins, you wouldn't think it was rigged. In fact, the result is what you would expect, given the odds.

Similarly, imagine the odds of a universe being capable of housing intelligent life is 1/10^120, and we just happen to have a universe that is capable of housing intelligent life. Wouldn't you think our universe was rigged--i.e., designed--, especially when the odds of it coming to be randomly are so much smaller than winning at a slot machine ten times in a row?

Now, you wouldn't think the universe was rigged/designed if there were 10^120 universes, only one of which was capable of housing intelligent life. It's precisely considerations of this kind which drive contemporary atheists to say that there must be a nearly infinite amount of universes, most of them lifeless. (In the interests of fairness, though, there are still some atheists who think that we just got lucky to get a universe that is capable of housing intelligent life.)

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

It's not. It depends on the motivations in doing so. You're still looking at it from the end product and working back to a God, which is the second conditional, not the first. Can you attach any meaning to 'all-loving' that doesn't involve giving?

I'm going to bed. Happy philosophizing, all!