Purpose Unpacked

From the pattern of history, God seems to want humans to build thriving civilization, develop scientific understanding and technological prowess, and grow our power as a species. 

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Maybe you can make the case that God wants us to do something other than these things, but the God you are citing would not be the one running the world.  Because those things are what is going on.  This is not a fluke, it's a trend.  You could say it has nothing to do with God, it's the human spirit, and I couldn't argue with that.  That's why God likes humans.  We're doing what God wants.  I mean really, if God was against this do you think we could be pulling it off?   In fact, more often people try to thwart God's intent.  I suspect the motive is sometimes black magic.  If you can block God's plans, the thinking goes, you can elicit favors.  They are trying to shake God down like a protection racket.  Of course, God knew they were going to do this and put them up to it.  It's all part of the long game.    When it works.  Which it often doesn't, except  you don't hear about that.  You just hear about pianos falling on people's heads.    Sometimes necessity is counterintuitive, and I know that sounds like a cheat because it is in fact a way to excuse anything.  It's "it's a mystery my child."  But the evidence is clear.   The cheat isn't needed in most things.   Things are getting better, despite sometimes having setbacks.   So it's not inconsistent with the evidence to say its possible that problems are necessary evils within general goodness.

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If there is a "God's justice" it is this:  insignificance leaves you subject to higher necessity or even just higher convenience.  On the other side of the coin the real divine commandment is to become significant.    Significance comes with its own burdens but they are at least important ones.  If you have an important purpose you will be preserved for that.  If not you can be squandered--squandered in an object lesson that it is our purpose to grow strong as a species; or not even as a species: our mission is to strengthen not just homo sapiens sapiens or any one civilization but all sapient beings, all sapients.  And all sapience.   This is not a pleasant message to deliver.  But it's the one that serves all best.  

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Is this "might makes right?"  Well, that's an implication of the concept of a just God (a just God would make the righteous mighty so righteousness could be inferred from might), but in fact no, because God isn't about justice.  Might is a multiplier, it's a distance not a direction.   People with power or ability or in advantageous positions are not more deserving or exemplary.  Multiplied with rightness of direction, power can indicate great worthiness, but applied to pointless endeavors might can be meaningless, and multiplied by malice power can constitute a wrongness that demands correction.    God plays a much more complex game than simply empowering those with good intentions.  God empowers those with productive results.   While someone has power that exists because it has productive results currently.  It indicates nothing about how that person should be treated because value to God varies constantly and is only partly a product of intentions.  There's not just potential, there's potential potential, and potential potential potential.  In fact it kind of integrates to infinity.  You probably can't handle that, but you know who can?

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This constitutes a rejection of the concept of grace.  God doesn't, for its own sake, bestow undeserved boons on insignificant gerbils, much less bad people.   If I am right that God does things for effect and wants our kind to gain power, then it must be that God considers people as a whole "good" to start with, not needing grace just bigger muscles.   The concept of grace is a way of getting around the conflict between saying people should be kind to other people and yet also saying people are morally corrupt.  If people are bad and justice matters, why shouldn't we be cruel to people?  So there's grace, which some people get because they've proven a tendency to bow to pressure by accepting the sacrifice of a whipping boy. Lovely.  

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We can extrapolate from this, along with our understanding of God's essence and character, to conclude that God wants us to colonize and transform the entire universe. 

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How do I know God wants us to colonize the universe?  Just take the trend of what we have been doing and recognize that if we keep doing it we will do just that.  We will transform the entire universe.  Infinite growth is impossible only on a finite planet.   Some people are opposed to growth, however.   Did I tell you about bad magic?    A great deal of growth is possible even on a finite planet, and without squandering the irreplaceable gifts placed here for our responsible use.   Most of the universe is rocks and we need to upgrade it.  Earth is a unique gem.  Growth need not be simply raw material consumption, it can be production of ever greater intensity of quality.  A computer chip and a pane of window glass are the same thing materially, but switching from making glass to making computer chips constitutes economic growth.   Criticisms of growth conflate it with other things that produce bad effects such as unregulated markets, creating a false dichotomy.

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God's overall plan is too much to consider in daily life, but we can see how our own lives may fit into the plan. 

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It would drive you crazy to try and figure out how every decision affects the infinite collection of time space continua or even the near future of humanity.   You can't even base your big life decisions on such things much, unless you are a very powerful person.  But you can make big decisions, like choosing a life style or career arc.  You can choose to make your life one that that makes things better rather than worse.  Then, if  your big decisions were right, every little thing you do can be measured against something much more manageable.  You just look at how every detail fits with or conflicts with your chosen way of life.  

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As a rule of thumb, getting along and being productive and decent human beings, as promoted throughout many effective cultures, tends to support God's plan for the universe, so promoting and exemplifying such behavior tends to be a wise role to play.

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For the most part, people have already figured out how to be a good person.  Be kind, work hard, play by the rules.  Most people are good people.  Target practice was introduced to military training not because shooting is technically difficult but in order to train people to be able to kill.  Generals found that the average human is resistant to killing other humans they don't have personal animosity for.  So you have to practice it until it is reflexive, in the right circumstances.  Until taught otherwise, people tend to be kind and docile.  The psychopaths and sociopaths ruling us insist on it,  except when they want their sheep to be wolves for them.   Then they strip us of our superpower, the ability to expand the tribe, and turn us back into something more primitive.  But the rest of the time they want us docile.  So cultures have already figured out ways to behave and get along and be productive contributors to society rather than destructive parasites.  As a rule of thumb, we should go with that.   Sometimes God will call you to do something counterintuitive.  I'm going to leave that between you and God.  Make sure, that's all I can say.  Possibly discuss it with your order.  

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