This is my very first post here…I just wanted to test the waters on a Topic im intrested in. What does every one think. I will hold back on my beliefs until a later time, until i get a feel for what surrounds me.
My login name is self explanitory… Thats who i am, im a newbie and just always thinking…thinking about life and philosphy falls in life fairly often…at least mine. I try to examine everything…right. The unexamined life is a shortcoming.
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To preface his reply I would just like to say that im new here too…so dont base the temp of the “waters” soley on me.
Now to your question.
Going back to what i wrote in the thread “the sould and theism” http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=138106
i stated that we created god out of pure lack of comprehension…(this is sort of ironic seeing as how we created god to explain natural phenomena which was previously inexplicable yet ive heard god defined as(more irony) something which is so great it can’t be defined…so the never ending loop of things we cant explain goes on and on and on…). Humans are curious beings and we need to know what is going on around us, why things work, why they dont yadda yadda. So we strive for answers and when they dont come easily we resort to laziness a.k.a God. so we created god to please ourselves, to make our lives a little easier which is also ironic considering how many wars have been fought over religion.(whats with all this damn irony im getting sick of it)…i think thats it
have a nice day
I am a theist and I believe that God created us. Personally I think jinxed is rather wrong about religion. It fills a void that man has, yet it hardly ever makes life easier. Your outlook on life might change, but rarely life itself.
The problem with his explanation is that it applies to about everything man does. The scientific method often sets it’s goals before it’s research. We need something that we can’t explain and then we try to find an explantion that fits what we ‘know’. After we have a reasonable hypothesis we need to try to falsify it. This is something that we rarely do.
I think that the most problems theists run into is just bad philosophy. jinxed pointed out an obvious fallacy. This only means that most theists are too ignorant to think. However, I have examined several world views and tried living some of them. With what I know, have experienced, and have felt, I believe theism is the best explanation for my origins.
I look forward to discussing this further.
Creationist - ‘‘God created everything from nothing’’
Athiest - ‘‘nothing created everything from nothing’’
I dont think we resort to God because we are lazy …many great thinkers who have spent lifetimes searching for meaning, have in fact concluded faith in an unseen God is rational.
I dont think people who believe in a God are lazy.
I dont think we resort to God because we are lazy …many great thinkers who have spent lifetimes searching for meaning, have in fact concluded faith in an unseen God is rational.
I dont think people who believe in a God are lazy.
To say that god created the universe is not to answer the question. It only renames it. What made god? A higher god perhaps? But then what made this higher god? Following this hierarchy, how could the nth god spring from nothingness?
Of course you could simply imagine that the first God always was and ever will be. That would dispense with the need for the ascending series of gods. But I might define the universe in exactly the same terms by saying that it always was and always will be. Still, it’s not quite good enough to define one’s way out of a question, is it?
“The practice of naming something that is not understood is one of our oldest psychological tricks to hoodwink ourselves into believing that we have made the unknown familiar.” The Splendid Feast Of Reason, S.J. Singer
Theists accept god on the basis of faith. They’ve elevated faith, based upon spiritual concepts rather than reason and observation, as the gold standard of religious virtue. Christians, for example, often refer to, “Their leap of faith”.
But here is a problem.
If you elevate faith above rationality, how do you know you are worshipping the true god? Indeed Satan, that mischievous fellow, could merely be posing as the true god.
Again, to use Christians as an example, they believe that Satan speaks to us mortals. If one day the clouds parted and a booming voice addressed me…Well, I’d be on my knees before you could say “Beelzebub”. Having never had as much as a “Howdy do” from the true god himself, I’d naturally assume that such a supernatural power was god. How could I, a simple man, know that it is only Satan fooling me? How could Christians be certain that they’ve not already been worshipping an evil imposter for some 2000 years?
Christians might object that Satan would do evil whereas god is benevolent. But God (if it is the true god) is perpetually killing classrooms of schoolchildren in earthquakes and such. Wouldn’t such common but horrific behavior more logically originate from a devil rather than a god?
Science is based upon reason and experiment. Philosophy is based upon reason. However, religion is based upon neither reason or experiment; religion is based on faith. People can be of good or bad faith, but faith alone is insufficent to critically investigate the validity of a belief.
A.F.C. Wallace in his 1966 book titled, Religion, An Anthropological View, estimates that roughly 100,000 distinct religions have been practiced in the course of human history. Just look at the many diverse religions practiced around the world today. Curiously, the specific religion practiced appears to be based more upon geography rather than upon conscious decision. For example, the Saudis are primarily Muslim, the Irish are Catholic, while a good many Indians are Hindu. If you had been born in Yemen rather than in England, what are the chances that you would be a practicing Christian? Every religion seems to speak of the “true” God, yet what possible assurance does a believer have that he is not following the wrong deity, or even worse…a Satan?
Michael
“Religion is a magic device for turning unanswerable questions into unquestionable answers.” Art Gecko
How could Christians be following Satan when in the Bible it clearly says, if you believe in me(GOD) you will be saved?
Are you saying Satan could be GOD? two faced. Even though The Devil is mentioned in the Bible as being Evil not good. I didnt know the devil could transform. possibly
Are you saying Satan may not be evil??? implying the Bible is immensely flawed?
Do Christians believe Satan speaks to them?? I dont know. I always interpreted that by substituting urges and impulses rather than Satan speaking to Christians.
I see it as two sides to the story. There cant be just a Satan. The world wouldnt exist without a god of creation and life. Why would the Devil create life when he is the grand adversary of mankind???seems contridicting.
So basically, Your saying the Bible is flawed if Satan was to be the true God. Since a lot of religions are based on “good/bad” Are you saying that they would all be wrong? I wouldnt buy that reasoning.
Thats a leap in the dark if ive ever seen one.
Personally, I like to have the “calculated risk” over a “leap in the dark” any day. Thats what I believe.
We all die, so why not take the risk. Even if there is nothing else after our brief interlude of life. Why not believe in something? An unseen god is very hard grasp and hold, but so is the fact that we are nothing after life. We just come and go?
I guess Im to young to make these judgements so ill leave you with some quotes
“Truth sits on the lips of dying men” Most dying men are praying and asking for forgiveness… For example, my grandmother hasnt been the same since her husband died, and times have changed. She is old as well and not in the best conditions. She is a devout Christian now, whereas before I hardly noticed any signs of faith.
Time is the greatest teacher, and time close to death is usually a time of praying and worship.
“Young men want to be faithful and are not; Old men want to be faithless and cannot”-oscar wilde …same idea
and this one sums my thoughts best:
LISA: Dad, why are you dedicating you life to blasphemy? HOMER: Don’t worry, sweetheart. If I’m wrong, I’ll recant on my deathbed.
The Simpsons
Take Care
But 2000 years ago they weren’t even christians. So then they weren’t even praying to right god before they died. Say in another 2000 years do you think that religion will even be on the minds of the old?
Hi Youngman,
How do you know that Satan isn’t the author of the Bible? Do you think that only God could write clearly in the Bible, while Satan’s words would be muddled? Gosh, that is a scary thought! The Bible is thoroughly muddled and vague in its meaning. If it’s words were clear, you would have only one sect of followers instead of hundreds of sects, each claiming to have the correct interpretation. My point is that if you rely on faith instead of reason as the ultimate arbiter, you’ve simply no working tool at your disposal to uncover deliberate mischief.
A devil might have created this world to enjoy watching us suffer and quarrel, much as men breed cocks to fight to-the-death for their own amusement.
Why would God create suffering and death when he is the champion of life? This seems every bit as contradicting.
Not at all Youngman, I’m saying that faith alone is insufficient to answer the question of who wrote the Bible, and to answer the question if the Bible represents the eternal truth or just wild-eyed fiction. The author could have been a god, a devil, or a group of drunken clerics. IMHO the Bible is a hugely flawed and confusing document; an issue of Mad Magazine, or those quasi-English-quasi-Japanese instruction manuals that accompany VCR’s make as much sense to me. However, if you number among the faithful, you must accept it on faith that flawed or not, it was written by your God. Even if your God is only the Devil in disguise, your most sincere and heartfelt faith alone is hopelessly inadequate to allow you to uncover this ruse.
The September 11th terrorists had a faith so strong that they were willing to both die and kill for it. Christian Crusader terrorists of the Middle Ages likewise massacred entire cities of Islam; men, women, and children as a result of an equally strong faith in their God. Doubtless, the Hijackers and the Crusaders alike were men of devout faithfulness. Was their intense faith, alone, sufficient to discover the evil of their actions?
I’m in total agreement with you here, Youngman. I have taken the risk of placing my faith in my reason, rather than placing my faith in my faith. For better or for worse, I live my life in exact accordance with my beliefs. I think long and hard about how I should best behave in this world. Doubtless, I haven’t figured everything out to my satisfaction, but there is a deep satisfaction to be had simply from the process of trying to understand this life. Finally, I tend to agree with the idea purportedly bequeathed to us by Socrates:
“The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance.”
Kind regards,
Michael
Judging by the many definitions we have for God and the many religions that speak of God in different ways, I’d say, for most of us, we create God. But this is just a facade. Our attempts to know God through religion and intellect has really seperated us from the ‘true’ God.
God, is more than something that can be labeled. He (or it) is the source of everything - including evil. He is the energy which created and sustains the universe. From this perspective, God created us. I don’t think you need to be a scholar or understand the bible to realize this.
As far as Satan speaking to people, he speaks to me quite often - through my ego. God also speaks to me! - through my conscience. Whenever I rationalize an act of selfishness to placate my ego, I hear the voice of Satan. Whenever my conscience realizes the selfishness of the act and persuades me to do otherwise, I hear God. No intellect. No calculations or logic. Just listening to my inner-self. Listening to my intuition and recognizing the faults of the ego.
Hello Guest,
Suppose that as the first Western man to visit a remote tribe of pygmies, I let them listen to a CD music player. Now suppose I asked them to explain how the music emulates from the CD player. I suspect their casual answer would be that the CD player is inhabited by a spirit or a god. If pressed further, they might explain that this god inside the CD player “is the energy that creates and sustains” the music. If I explained that the battery inside the CD player is actually the source of the energy, they’d probably smile at my simple-mindedness and say that if this were the case, than the battery has the energy dispensing god within it.
Of course we know that they’re simply defining away the problem, rather than trying to understand it. If they choose to call a carbon - zinc electrochemical cell a “god,” then I can’t argue the point. They are free to call the battery whatever they wish.
Guest, with all due respect, I say that your answer is just such a definition. For me to argue against it would be to insist that you don’t have the right to name things as you see fit. You do have such a right, but at the same time I’d like to point out that your definition explains nothing. In your above quote I could replace your word “God” with my words “quantum fluctuation,” without changing the meaning, and likewise, without producing an explanation.
If, as you say above, that God is the source of everything, then it follows that he is the source of himself. You’re saying in effect:
god (gawd) n. 1. That which is uniquely responsible for its own being.
Philosophers ideally define their terms so that everyone agrees upon what they’re talking about. But it’s a poor and shallow system of philosophy that depends upon the definitions for the explanations.
Michael
We created GOD. For a deeper understanding of how this happened, one can turn to Miracle Mongers and their Methods by Harry Houdini.
I am not naming things merely “as I see fit”. And God is not strictly a philosophical term. I’d be interested in a philosophical definition if you have one. But I would imagine even a philosophical definition would imply some hint of “eternalism” or “infinitude” and maybe even mention “creator of universe” or something similar.
I never said that God came from nothingness. Nothingness is an attribute of God. I don’t know why God had to be the source of himself any more than he had to come from somewhere else. Eternal means always existed. God is eternal. Why is this a “poor and shallow system of philosophy”?
Magius:
I don’t have a chance to read the book right now (maybe later). So can you can just tell me - How can we create God when we were not around when he created the universe?
Answering your question to Magius, Guest, I think that when he states in no unclear terms that ‘we created God’, he is saying that the idea of God did not exist until humans developed to the point where they needed and were able to create such an idea. In the same way humans became aware of how genetic variation had led to the development of organisms to our current species only in the last 150 years. Yet, translation, transcription and mutation of genes had occured for over 1 billion years.
Your question is phrased in such a way, that implies the assumption that Magius also believes that God created the universe. Your assumptions differ, and those differences are worth respecting.
My own stance on this issue, is one of ‘partisan-neutrality’. A quote Polemarchus used elsewhere seems quite fitting: [/i]A common defect of the mind is that it craves either complete certainty, or complete disbelief R.A. Lyttleton.
I believe God was created by man, however, I’m not quite so willing to undermine the view that it was the other way round. I understand the importance of a religious object for all people, but this will soon be discussed in another topic.
Hi again Guest,
Thanks for your reply.
You explained in your earlier post that God is the source of everything. However, unless this God is contained within the everything of which you are speaking, you are still left with something that was not created by your God, namely; your God. In this case, you would have to call on yet another higher God as the creator of the first God, ad infinitum.
So, an apparent way to avoid an infinite hierarchy of gods is to let your first god be the creator of himself. Of course, a simpler explanation would be to imagine that the universe just made itself. You achive the same result with one less assumption.
I wrote before, “But it’s a poor and shallow system of philosophy that depends upon the definitions for the explanations.” Suppose you gave me a definition of a Troll as a little person that lives under a bridge and casts spells. That is fine. We can define anything we like, real or imagined. Definitions are democratically agreed upon for the purpose of communication. However, any statements about these definitions must be based upon logic, not democracy. The point of my earlier post is that a system of beliefs needs more than definitions. We need to actually say something about the concepts we define.
Well, I have to rush off at the moment.
See ya,
Michael
Guest, whoever you are.
In response to your question…
…I have made the important words show as italics for your conveniance, but I besiege you to read everything.
From the book Miracle Mongers and their Methods, by Harry Houdini. 1980. Toronto, Canada. Coles Publishing Company Ltd.
That fire could be produced through friction finally came into the knowledge of man, but the early methods entailed much labor. Consequently our ease-loving forebears cast about for a method to"keep the home fires burning" and hit upon the plan of appointing a person in each community who should at all times carry a burning brand. This arrangement had many faults, however, and after a while it was superceded by the expedient of a fire kept continually burning in a building erected for the purpose.
The Greeks worshiped at an altar of this kind which they called the Altar of Hestia and which the Romans called the Altar of Vesta. The sacred fire itself was known as Vesta, and its burning was considered a proof of the presence of the goddess. The Persians had a such building in each town and village; and the Egyptians, such a fire in every temple; while the Mexicans, Natches, Peruvians and Mayas kept their “national fires” burning upon great pyramids. Eventually the keeping of such fires became a sacred rite, and the “Eternal Lamps” kept burning in synagogues and in Byzantine and Catholic churches may be a survival of these customs.
There is a theory that all architecture, public and private, sacred and profane, began with the erection of sheds to protect the sacred fire. This naturally led men to build for their own protection as well, and thus the family hearth had its genesis.
Another theory holds that the keepers of the sacred fires were the first public servants, and that from this small beginning sprang the intricate public service of the present.
The worship of the fire itself had been a legacy from the earliest tribes; but it remained for the Rosicrucians and the fire philosophers of the Sixteenth Century under the lead of Paracelsus to establish a concrete religious belief on that basis, finding in the Scriptures what seemed ample proof that fire was the symbol of the actual presence of God, as in all cases where HE is said to have visited this earth. He came either in a flame of fire, or surrounded with glory, which they conceived to mean the same thing.
For example: when God appeared on Mount Sinai (Exos. xix, 18] “The Lord descended upon it in fire.” Moses, repeated this history, said: “The Lord spake unto you out of the midst of fire” (Deut. iv, 12). Again, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses out of the flaming bush, “the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed” (Exod. iii, 3]. Fire from the Lord consumed the burnt offering of Aaron (Lev. ix, 24), the sacrifice of Gideon (Judg. vi, 21), the burnt offering of David (1 Chron. xxxi, 26), and that at the dedication of King Solomon’s temple (Chron. vii, 1). And when Elijah made his sacrifice to prove that Baal was not God, “the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and the dust and the water that was in the trench.” (1 Kings, xvii, 38]
Since sacrifice had from the earliest days been considered as food offered to the gods, it was quite logical to argue that when fire from Heaven fell upon the offering, God himself was present and consumed His own. Thus the Paracelsists and other fire believers sought, and as they believed found, high authority for continuing a part of the fire worship of the early tribes.
The Theosophists, according to Hargrave Jennings in “The Rosicruicians” called the soul a fire taken from the eternal ocean of light, and in common with other Fire-Philosophers believed that all knowable things, both of the soul and the body, were evolved out of fire and finally resolvable into it; and that fire was the last and only-to-be-known God.
What’s your take?
Pangloss,
With all due respect, I don’t see any difference. The universe was created. Right? An affirmative response automatically validates God. Now, whether you consider God as an “energy” or a big tall guy with magical powers is another matter. The important thing is that something or someone (somehow) created the universe.
Polemarchus,
That is almost what I’m saying! But that would still imply that the “everything” supersedes God. To be more precise, I would phrase it that God IS the everything. Likewise, God is also the absence of everything. This is what I was trying to relay when I said God is eternal.
Magius,
The excerpt was interesting, I couldn’t find an answer to the question I asked previously: “How can we create God when we were not around when he created the universe?”
Our fire-worshipping history seems only to reinforce the theory that we see God in creation. And I’m sure the cavemen and Egyptians were smart enough to realize that fire (hence God) existed before they did.
The moment an association between fire and God was made - did not, dictate the creation of God. At the most, it dictates our recognition of the existence of God.
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Anima,
I understand your opinion on the matter, as I am sure you understood mine and the reason for posting the excerpt. I will change strategies and attempt to make you realize; what I claim to be the truth. In doing this I want to ask you what you think is the reason for differing religions if there is only one God. Moreover, which one of these religions has it right? Furthermore, why do religions also claim that it is their God who is right and no other, and if you believe in another than you are doomed for hell? (Specifically Christianity who comes right out and says it, other religions are a little more ambiguous about it)
One more, why does each religion claim God came from their land? Christianity was thought up in the area of Jerusalem and hence that is where Jesus travelled. China had beliefs in religions (usually scrutinized - communism) that took place only in China (especially since they have been barricaded from the world for hundreds of years).
I will continue after you have answered.
What’s your take?
Magius,
I am not a big fan of organized religion. Religion is a product of man and man is imperfect, yet religion regards itself so selfrightously.
I have a few favorite quotes that sum up my view. I look forward to yours.
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
God has no religion.
Men never do evil so cheerfully and so completely as when they do so from religious conviction.
Religions are founded on the fear of the many and the cleverness of the few.
I’m not trying to paint all religions in the same light. Some religions, like Buddhism, are very open. Unlike Christianity, Buddhism is more of a religion of self-discovery - experiencing the God within you. (At least thats what I hear).