he usual claim is omnipotence - God can do anything and everything, which if the author and creator of the universe we live in, he would pretty much have to be. — tim wood
Why do you conclude this? Do you have absolute control over anything you created? Why do you think that God would have absolute control over the universe He created? It seems to me, that "creations", whether they are by human beings, some other creatures, or even God, are just not like that.
And if constrained, then not God — tim wood
Why? What makes you think that God must be absolutely unconstrained? I think that if you took the time to read some theology, you would see that even if it is often said that God is "all mighty", and sometimes said that He is "omnipotent" these conceptions are qualified, and it is not very often meant that he is absolutely unconstrained. Consider for example that it is often said that God only does what is good, and he exercises complete self-control to only do good. Clearly this indicates a special sort of constraint, which we as human beings also share with God. However, since we do not really understand self-constraint, and therefore have not been able to perfect it, we tend to imagine it in a very strange paradoxical way. The complete and perfect self-constraint which God is often said to have, is portrayed as an absolute freedom to do anything. And this is paradoxical because even though there are many things God could do, He also cannot do them, because of His self-constraint.
As to any necessity for his reality - yours sounding like Anselm's - that is only a "proof" for those who already take that real existence as axiomatic. — tim wood
I was not handing you that argument as a "proof". I was only trying to make it clear to you that if you want to talk about "God", then you need to talk about "God" as He is understood. I find this to be a common problem with the atheist approaches to God. The atheist commonly approaches God with the presupposition, that God is an imaginary, fictitious thing, not real. But this is not how God is understood in theology. This prejudice which the atheist holds is completely contrary and contradictory to how God is actually understood, so it prevents the atheist from having any understanding of God. Aquinas, for example, asserted that God's essence is His existence. This implies that the very first principle one must accept before being able to understand anything about God, in any way, is that He has real existence. So if the atheist has any bit of intent whatsoever, to understand God, this prejudice must first be dismissed. Otherwise it's a waist of time.
Reality is the realm of nature, and recall we put that to the question. — tim wood
Your claim, "reality is the realm of nature" is fundamentally false. By saying "the realm of nature" you imply the possibility of other realms not contained within the realm of nature. And as a "realms" these must be real. So even the statement itself, as written, implies its own falsity. It's like saying "there is only one multiplicity". The statement is self-defeating.
Consider, that "the artificial" is often contrasted with "the natural". We cannot say that the artificial is not real. So many will class artificial as part of the natural. But by doing this we lose the meaning of "natural", which is defined as "not artificial". The intent of the person who redefines "natural" in this way, may be to include the artificial into the realm of the natural, to argue that only the natural is real, but what's the point? That statement is self-defeating as shown, and to class the artificial as natural, is to ignore the substantial difference between the two.
As to hearts, I have to own up to my ideas about "purpose" being pretty clearly not as clear as I thought they were, or would have liked them to be. — tim wood
This is why it is a very good thread which you have started. If you learn something new then the thread is good, right? The issue here, I think, is the presuppositions which we commonly take for granted. These are what are commonly known as bedrock or hinge propositions. Since they are taken for granted they are not subjected to our doubt. Since we do not doubt them or subject them to any form of methodological skepticism, then we do not develop an adequate understanding of their meaning. So the use of many words, such as "purpose", just floats freely, being a facilitator of mundane communication, a word whose meaning is taken for granted allowing for fluid conversation. Because of this, the word's meaning gets shaped to the circumstances of conversation, and what comes out on top is the most common usage. If someone asks what is the meaning of "purpose", we have all sorts of examples in common usage to refer to. But since its such a commonly used word, we can restrict the meaning we express, to these common examples, and having not applied a methodic analysis like the skeptic does, the true deeper meaning escapes us.
However, I think I can distinguish between purpose and function. — tim wood
This is a good start. Let's look at the difference between "purpose" and "function". At first glance, we can say that the two might commonly be interchangeable, "a thing's purpose is the thing's function". But invert that and say "a thing's function is the thing's purpose", and that's not necessarily the case. This implies, right off the bat, that "function" has an even broader meaning than "purpose". Not all functions are purposes.
Further, we can see that "function" is most often an activity, whereas "purpose" is more often the goal of the activity, the end, or objective. This opens an even bigger rift between the two. What is exposed here is that "purpose" is something we attribute to an activity, the property of an activity, which puts it into a specific relation with an end, a goal. This makes the activity a means to an end. "Function" in its common usage does not necessarily imply such a relation of means to an end, because the function may be the activity itself, regardless of the purpose of the activity. So we might say, of a thing, that the thing has a function, and this function is the activity of the thing, without even indicating the purpose of that activity, or whether it even has a purpose.
So for example, if I am involved in a cooperative effort, I have a function, which is to bring the others coffee. That can be referred to as my function, what I am doing, bringing the coffee, and this can be said without any reference to the purpose, why I am bringing the coffee. In the heart example, the function of the heart can be stated as "to beat". The beating is the function of the heart, and this may be stated with a complete disassociation from the purpose of the heart. The thing has a function, an activity, and this is completely irrelevant to whether there is a purpose, goal, or end to that activity.
You can see how this has become a very convenient way to separate "function" from "purpose" thereby ignoring the question of "purpose". This is the way language evolves according to social circumstances to avoid areas of doubt, and facilitate mundane communication. We can talk about all sorts of things, and the function of each thing, with complete disregard as to whether that function has a purpose or not. That helps us to avoid having to think about whether or not natural activities have a purpose, thus keeping us away from the volatile "God" question.