Yes. Many Gods. Precreated Ones-Zeus, Odin, Siva, etc.
Yes. Many Gods. My Own Creations
Nope-Not yet, anyway…
Nope-Nobody else’s Gods seem True
0voters
Now-I have seen a lot of questions on these boards that have inspired in me the question-“are the bases for these questions valid”
For instance-If we have a choice between good and evil-is it really a choice?
We are told that we can choose for God or against Him. One choice is Truth and Life, and the other death and damnation. Is this really free will? Is this really a choice? If there are only two options, and we are told which one is correct…I don’t know. I hope you are able to see my query. No matter how many different ways I say it, I don’t see what I’m saying.
Another-Is God really what he says he is? Same with Jesus-I’ll even allow that both exist (present tense) and that both are supernatural beings. Does that mean that they know everything? Even though they say they’re omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent, does that mean they are? Even if they truly believe this to be so…that doesn’t mean it is. I truly believe that I have existed in previous lives. I have been reincarnated. I can demonstrate this to a reasonable extent. Does that mean it’s true? Just because I believe it, and am telling you it is true, will you believe me? Some will. I’ll betcha I could get one or two to worship me (not necessarily you guys, but humans in general) Does that mean I’m who I say I am? You may throw passages of any given Holy Book at me. They may even prove me wrong. But, can you prove that they are true. I know that ‘when looking at translations and past manuscripts of the Bible, there is only a .1 per cent difference’ I know these things. Just because they were accurately reported and were truly believed to be true at the time, does that imply universal truth? Is there ONE TRUTH? Will I GET SLEEP TONIGHT? PROBABLY NOT…
you make some great points. For years i have asked people (mainly christians of several differing groups) about their religious choices and tried to make some sense of this issue, but to no avail. During high school (i’ll let you know that i went to a small town high school, in rural Australia-not a great place to question ANY authority, but anyways) we had travelling Christians who would come to school to show us how ‘cool’ God, Jesus and Christianity are. These young christians would come into the school, do skateboarding demonstrations, play rock music and try to brainwash through seminars. Im sure they hated me by the time i left high school. Its not like im anti-christian, its just that no one can answer any of my questions coherrently. In year 11, i asked “what of the other religions which existed before christianity?” I was answered so rudely, that they forced the guy who responded to me to apologise after the seminar. I was told that there IS no other religion, Christianty HAS been around forever- it out dates all other religions. I was even told the bhuddist doctrine mentions jesus meeting bhudda (Religious-leader annonymous i guess)
In year twelve they same group returned, i think a little better prepared for our questions. This year i asked “if Adam and Eve were the first people, whats with all these races, languages and differences in humans today?” This year, i was graciously answered, but still it was dissapointingly inadequate. Their response this year was that Adam and Eve came first, but others that were not important enough to be mentioned in the bible were also around (this is how their sons had wives apparently), so people started living their lives, and worshiping God. However, after some time, man started worshiping his own successes, and decided to build the tower of babylion, which angred God. He then separated man, gave him different colours and different tounges, and that was that. They gave me a gospel book to answer my other questions and skateboarded off in to the sunset.
So i had these answers given to me, and that expalined some of the things that those INDIVIDUALS believed and i left it at that. Then earlier this year (i am now in my third year of university) I met some other christians who confused me even more. This time, in a discussion about freedom of religion in consitutions (political science tutorial) about what ‘normal’ religion is and means, we again got into chritianitys origins. This time a girl told me that there were NO christians beofre Jesus, before then everyone was jewish. Appart from the fact that i think she has been somewhat mis-informed (there were chritian cults in Rome during Ceasars rule) what am i supposed to get out of this? Either christianty is the ONE religion and has been since the dawn of time, or chrisitanity is a relgion created only after jesus was born as the son of god.
The travelling crisitans were very passionate about their religion being the ONLY truth, a truth which had existed forever, yet this girl was telling me that, no, christianity has only been since Jesus. Who am i to believe? both are christians, so should be credible, but they have given me contradicting ideas about their religion. Who gave them the their beliefs, which they see as TRUTH? How can i believe it is true when it is contradicting?
I thought that this particlar story was pretty fitting to your post, Afterall, if we do not question something that has been handed to us as truth how can we justify its truthfulness?
Silver,
I grant that I may not understand you fully, but there were no Christians around before Jesus. Yeshua ben Miriam, that is Joshua, the Son of Mary, was a Judean spiritual/political leader whose followers created A breakaway jewish cult that grew in importance after Saul/Paul of Tarsus begin to preach about the importance of this fellow, Jesus. There were no Christians before Paul. There were only Greek Mystery Cults and Jews. These religious groups are The only things similar to Christianity before Jesus.
Who are these Christians in the time of Caesar you speak of?
To Clarify Jesus, a latin name, Yeshua, a hebrew name, Joshua the anglicanized name.
Also Jesus wasn’t a carpenter exactly. He was a tekton, a greek word meaning builder, also carpenter, But widely “contractor”
None of the options fit what I believe. I believe that there is a higher power then us, whatever that might be is what I would label ‘God(s)’. What this power might be or why I believe in it is highly unknown to me. All I can say is that I have a feeling that there is something more sophisticated and more powerful than us.
Heres the thing. Givin that god only wants what is best for you if we define him as infinite, without needs, ominpresent and consequently benevolent. Then to go against god is to go against yourself. That being your only choice. Only in this sense can absolute truths be established where in now you have freewill and choice; to sin (make mistakes by going against god or as I point out self, for one must acknowledge that whenever one goes against ones best inetrests he has mistaken) or to follow gods law which we pressume based on the definition of god is always in our best interest.
Ajax, I can’t answer your question. But I hear you on the sleep thing. These are important questions. The other day, I asked one of the guys who holds bible study at my university the question (from previous thread), can God create a rock so heavy he can’t pick it up? I thought, of all people, he would have pored over this question a lot, and I hoped he would have some sort of answer or at least fresh perspective. He quoted me a passage basically saying, “don’t involve yourself with foolish arguments,” or something like that. This set off much thinking for me. What I’ve come to (for now) is the same thing I’ve been thinking for the last few years, and it may sound arrogant or whatever. Most people are not that bright, intellectually speaking. Simple as that, it is a proven fact. There was no reason for me to believe that this guy had thought about anything complex, ever! I found better, more logical answers in the ILP thread that adressed the question, and ironically, I think most of the people answering were atheists/agnostics. I say ironically because they showed logically that the question didn’t make sense; while I’m sure they weren’t arguing that there necessarily exists an all-powerful being, they had enough common sense and respectability to argue the falsehood of a claim that is consistent with their own beliefs! So, I have to say that finding smart, thinking people is the first step in answering your questions, and more importantly getting some sleep.
The one thing I keep thinking is that religion may be a true feeling, which to me seems to be a contradiction, as feeling is the opposite of reason and should not deal in truths and falsehoods. This idea scares me a lot. If religion is really above logic, then we are all screwed (all of us who are thinking, at least) and it doesn’t matter if the religious man can answer our questions, at least he is on the right path.
Lastly, I want to run one idea bye you guys. I have a hypothesis, unprovable, but none the less a real idea. I think if one starts with any true statement, and then someone asks “why,” and then the first person answers, and then the “why” is repeated, etc., the final outcome will always be “I don’t know.” I really believe this to be true, with any true starting statement. This is just implying that nobody knows everything, however I think that “God” is just as logical a final assumption as “Not God” or anything else. What do you think?
PSquared.
I liked your last comment. I have my own philosophy about it that I wish to share, actually more than one. Firstly, I believe that really constructive truth lies atleast seven levels of “why?” down into any statement. I do agree that sooner or later it must come down to “I don’t know”. I truly love those three words, I think a great deal of my great admiration for Plato comes from the fact that he admits he doesn’t know. In my life I have found people avoiding those three words like they avoid a plague. This disgusts me. Especially the God answer, allow me to explain. The reason “God” isn’t as good an answer as “I don’t know” to something we don’t know about is the following: God leaves us no inspiration to look further. In fact, there is a sort of wall that is put up implying that even if we wanted to investigate or inquire further we never will be able to. On the other hand, when we answer “I don’t know” it leaves our curiosity hanging, it even inspires us to look further to have something we can know. It doesn’t assume anything about whether this thing can or can’t be known. This is a mark against Plato, after everything he said he would always say “I could be wrong, for only the Gods really know”. It’s a mark of honor that he is always aware of his ignorance and the possibility that he may be wrong, but it is a mark against him that he fills this ignorance with God.
I also don’t think that “God” is as good a logical answer to an unknown for the reason that I propose that no one really knows what they are talking about when they use the word. A Christian will say s/he is referring to the Christian god, but what exactly is the christian god? All religions admit, and have to, that everything of God can be known; ofcourse they have to focus on some things so each one makes some grandiose assumptions about their deity. The idea of God doesn’t come from logic. Put another way, it isn’t logical. This is partly why I have never met any two people from any one religion that had the exact same views on the deity of their religious doctrine. This becomes especially profound regarding the Qu’ran.
This is not true. In fact Judaism admits the complete opposite that god can never be fully known.
How can a finite being ever comprehend an infinite being.
I can’t and don’t think ever will understand how Parallel lines can ever meet out in space, yet understand this is part of the universe. Not understanding such simple matters how do we ever hope to understand something as grandious as god.
Gadfly,
Great post. I agree with your point that answering “God” instead of “I don’t know” to these questions could possibly cause some sort of a loss of motivation, but let me quickly get back to one of the points I made earlier. I think your conclusion only holds for the small minds of the world (which are undoubtedly and unfortunately in multitude and control). To expound, the less-thinking man will have no problem settling for the “God” answer, without even thinking about what he is really saying. I suspect that if nobody would have told him there was a God, he would be just as happy not thinking about or trying to answer these questions anyways. Seems to me that most people never think about questions more complicated than “what should I have for breakfast” or maybe, if they get really deep, they ask “am I in love,” or something like that. So just saying “God” makes people think that they are deeper than they are, and the best part is, THEY DON’T EVEN HAVE TO THINK!!! Imagine that.
However, for the more-thinking person, like you said, “I don’t know” leaves the curiosity hanging. I think in effect when an intelligent person answers “God” to a question, he is really just saying “I don’t know.” I believe that this was all Plato meant when he said that the gods had the answers, and it does not at all imply that just because they do that we cannot. I’m sure that if there is an all-powerful being, it knows about natural selection and quantum mechanics, but just because it has the answers doesn’t mean we can’t. The idea of a God (which has been at least fairly prevalant throughout the ages) has not been able to slow the likes of Galileo, Darwin, Einstein, etc., whose theories all were contradictory to the existing idea of God.
Lastly, I just want to reply to your statement that you “also don’t think that “God” is as good a logical answer to an unknown for the reason that (you) propose that no one really knows what they are talking about when they use the word.” Very true. This is exactly what I’m trying to say; since nobody really knows what God is or what his specific properties/characteristics are, they are really just saying that they don’t know (although I’d be willing to bet they’d argue tooth and nail with this idea). I should say for the record that I believe in God, however I don’t know why.
“I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.” -E
“It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it.” -E
“It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously…” -E
“God does not play dice with the universe” -E
this is obviously a QM reference.
etc, etc.
As for relativity theory,
“Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. THAT’s relativity.” -E
To me, it isn’t really going “to further the argument for God,” but I can’t say I fully understand the theory. Give me a couple of decades to study it first!! In my classes a lot of people say that they understand it, including teachers, but the the point of view of the mathematical physicists/relativity scientists I’ve talked to is that hardly anybody actually does.
Hermes, let me explain. I am by no means christian- i can not vouch for any of the things that i wrote personally, they are all things that different people that are christians have said to me. Which was my point- every time i ask questions (out of genuine interest- all religions are interesting to me) i get these responses that contradict each other and only muddle me up further…
for example- the first example i used in my story, was the guy from the “cool” christians that came to my school. He told me that (these are the terms he used) “Christianty IS the first religion” he told me that it out dated everything else. From what you have told me, this is false- as he is a follower of the son of god, he is believing a mis-truth about his religion. Another thing he said to me was that if you look in to Bhuddist scriptures that you would find that bhuddah met jesus. Now, this could only have happened in the past 2000 years, and we know that bhuddah has been worshiped for longer tham that. Doesnt this mean that bhuddism has been around longer than christianity…!!!
see, this is what i mean- the more i ask people about christianity in particular i get confusing answers… i think its doing my head in…
Id like to take a minute though to explain what i believe… I guess you can say that i believe in a ‘higher power’, but my thoughts go beyond ‘higher power’ to ‘higher powers’. My thought is that all through out nature and the word you have two forces- everything has an opposition- male female, positive negative, dark and light- even good and evil. Everything seems to be polarised- and i think that it is a balance between two energies (thats the best word i can think of for it) is quite obviously got alot to do with whats going on… in this way you could say that i believe in a goddess, as well as god- but i dont really think of these as personifed beings.
I think that all religions are only validated by the good that can come from them. For example, when i hear a gospel chior sing praises to the Lord, i can believe that yes, that god exists, because he is the inspiration for that joyous music. When i look at art work created for a number of gods, i see that that creative force which inspired that piece IS god.
What i dont believe is that there is any divinve plan. I dont believe that we should live this life in preparation for the afterlife when you cant validate that there even is an after life. I think we have been given oppertunity to be wonderous creatures, but thats it. I think that what we make of it now is whats important. Why would any higher being create such a marvellous and buetiful place if we were not to live in harmony with it NOW?
Well, i hope that cleared some things up… i sure feel better for expressing my ideas…
I was reffering to time, being different and relative to where you are. This helps demonstrate how if the world was created in 6 24 hour days from our perspective it is a very different time period from the perspective of the narrator in the torah. This is just one example.
This is an attribute of the personal god that I ‘think’ I believe in. But as to relativity it is definitly not at odds with religion.
Okay, I’ll agree that relativity is not necessarily at odds with religion. However, time is relative to changes in position, not position. I guess if the universe were expanding at close to the speed of light in the beginning, then in our reference frame (which is moving much slower), we would measure a very large amount of time while in the fast-moving frame only a small amount of time would be measured. The acceleration (from faster to slower) would fall into general relativity theory though, which is a lot more complicated than special relativity, i.e. bending of spacetime, and ugggghhh…tensor analysis…
PSquared,
I have two points contention: 1) You said: “I suspect that if nobody would have told him there was a God, he would be just as happy not thinking about or trying to answer these questions anyways”, I disagree with this entirely. Human beings have a natural inclination to know, which only stops when we are convinced we have a good enough answer. Some are more easily convinced then others. Those who concern themselves merely with what they will eat for breakfast simply believe their questions have been answer and that the minute information they do have is somehow explanatory of all things they are curious about. 2) No intelligent person will say “God” when they mean “I don’t know”. Intelligence assumes clarity. Why say apples when you mean oranges? Any intelligent person who doesn’t know an answer to a question will say “I don’t know”, and not “God”! Furthermore, I don’t agree that this is what Plato meant. In fact, if you look back at all intellectuals who were also religious you will find that their views are scientific upto a point and then they say God when they get stuck and everything stops. Hence, as far as Plato got with his philosophy, I think if he wasn’t indoctrinated with Greek mythology he could have taken his philosophy even further. It has to do with the way the mind thinks, notice that every time Plato says “only the Gods know for sure” the idea being dealt with at the time stops and he moves onto another one. Well if he didn’t say that he would be more open minded to think that maybe it is worth going deeper, taking another level of “why?” to the topic at hand. Don’t get me wrong, I have only the highest admiration for Plato, but even with admiration I am still open minded enough to admit where I think they went wrong.
You say you believe in God but don’t know why, just to clarify, which religion’s God do you believe in? Or do you believe in some kind of a personal God? If it is neither of these then I would like to suggest that it isn’t God you believe in but instead it is a higher power in a general context. A power of something more than you are living and experiencing now. A power that could be within you, another, or out in the universe or on some distant star/planet/asteroid. This power could be an event, idea, color, material thing, or living thing, or none of the above. All you know is that there is something more to life the you know of now. I too feel this same feeling and have attributed this ‘power’ definition to it.
Gadfly,
In answer to your question about what God I believe in, I’ll have to just say “I don’t know” for now. There are some things that I do know, though. I believe in the greater good, ethics and the “good life,” similar to Plato’s idea. I also believe in divinity; in art, music and writing I see small (sometimes large) divine revelations, and these are all human endeavors. Thus I suspect that in some small or large way, we are connected personally to that divinity. I hope that we are, anyways. So I guess I really do believe in a personal God; it is a belief based on hope.
In answer to your point no. 2, I really don’t think anyone understands God, so what I mean is that no matter the context, if someone says God, it is understood that they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Kind of like infinity, everyone talks about it like they understand. But I think we have an underlying understanding that nobody really knows much or anything about it.
Man, these conversations are really good for me, I think… I don’t know many people who have any real insight or thought-provoking ideas in this area (thus my perspective on your point no. 1). I’m really glad you guys are here to talk to, listen to, and bounce ideas off of. It seems like my own thoughts get a lot more clear (to me, at least) when I write them down. Thanks!
PSquared,
hi and thank you for your post. It is always good when our ideas become clear. I always assume that other posters care about understanding what I mean with the words I use and that they care to make me understand them. More often than not I am disappointed and find out that people care more about talking AT me instead of with me and would much rather take me agreeing with their point of view than they would take my constructive criticism and logical leading to incongruencies in what they say so that they can clarify and learn to adapt new views or strengthen old ones. Its the fast, capitalistic, “don’t actually have to be smart when you can simply appear smart” kind of mentality that really pisses me off in this day and age. Luckily, I bump into people like you and some of the other posters on ILP that make me realize that even the few who really care about knowledge, truth, and people are worth the effort for all.
Having said that, I know you will allow me to further clarify for myself, and maybe for you aswell, the things you have said. You said that there are some things you do know, and then you went on to say that you believe in a greater good. So here is my confusion, to say that ‘you know’ and then to speak of ‘belief’ is a contradiction. Belief assumes you don’t know, you merely believe. On that topic, you said that you believe in ethics. I was curious to find out in what way you believe in ethics. For instance, in my opinion there is no such things as right and wrong, objectively speaking. Hence, ethics doesn’t really exist. Right and wrong are social constructions made to help order our lives so that we don’t kill each other and don’t get in each others way so that we can be efficient economic producing human beings - the way the government likes us. Plato’s idea, on the other hand, is objective. He believes that there is an actual ‘good’ that human beings can sort of tap into. I don’t think Plato would agree with out present day idea of ‘good’, especially since our idea of ‘good’ changes from day to day, generation to generation. A hundred years back is common knowledge that women were the property of men and they had a duty to service their husband, this was heavily based on religious understandings of doctrines. Nowadays, you can tell a women all you want about Adam and Eve, the majority of women look for a man who will treat them with equality, and they should. Who knows, maybe 100 years from now men will be the property of women and have a duty to service their wives. Now, you said your idea was similar to Plato’s, I would be interested to hear in which way your views are like his and in which ways their are unlike his.
PSquared stated:
I’m not sure what you mean by divinity, hopefully you will define and clarify it for me, but for now I will concentrate on these divine revelations as being all human endeavors. I think it important to remember that not all humans have an inclination towards art, or music, or writing, or all of the above. Furthermore, I don’t see why these should be divine revelations…maybe you could clarify that. Animals participate in music, or atleast in what sounds like music to our ears but to the animals it is a primitive language, or atleast a way of communicating. And aren’t those revelations simply ways of communicating? Art is meant to convey an idea, music to express a melody or an emotion, and writing to seduce the reader into understanding and even experiencing to some degree that which the author speaks of. I see no divinity in that.
About your God correlation to ‘I don’t know’, I will attempt to keep this correlation in mind whenever I speak with you from now on. But I must warn, that religious people will not agree with you. Atleast not the ones I have met, for they will argue to the deatht that they “Know God”, in fact they will argue that they know God better than the know others or even themselves. When you used the word ‘we’ within the following:
Do you mean myself and you, or do you mean human kind in general? For I would disagree with you entirely if you mean humankind in general, for people (99.9999%) are so convinced of things that they KNOW, that they would give themselves up for it. I have posted this quote a number of times, but it keeps fitting with the context so I present it again:
“You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.” - Morpheus [Matrix 1]
Foucault also speaks of society being a web of power structures designed to control us, by putting ideas into our mind. A form of control much more powerful than any physical restraints, for control from the inside allows the controller to make you believe you want to do what you are being controlled to do.
"I was curious to find out in what way you believe in ethics. For instance, in my opinion there is no such thing as right and wrong, objectively speaking. Hence, ethics doesn’t really existâ€
I think you are right when you said that nothing is good or bad. I also think that nothing in itself is good or bad only your intention behind it makes it good or bad (I also believe that a point comes, only after strictly following ethics and self criticism, that you stop being worried about your intentions, and start accepting things as they are and start doing things on instincts, you kind of start trusting GOD, but that is a whole new debate.)
But I think one should not take this strict view (i.e. nothing is good or bad), because the popular ethics or ethics which are more or less common to all religions must be followed, and people should not at least reverse the ethical values set forth by religions.
Example:
Pick an ethical value; lying is unethical according to religious ethics. Although religion has put lying as unethical because majority of the ordinary people will cheat the system through lying. I think that if a person start speaking truth, he will ultimately learn to cheat (may be cheat is a strong word), manipulate the system WITHOUT lying!!, at this point, according to your Idea (nothing is good or bad) he should start lying and start harming himself so that he doesn’t take advantage of the system … now this lying now would become ethical according to your Idea…BUT it would be unethical according to the
definition of religious ethics…and I still think that a person in such a situation should still keep on speaking truth, on the other hand what he should do not to manipulate the system (and to be even more ethical in religious sense) is to start taking only what he needs,
not what he wants, i.e. that person should start living with just the basic necessities of life. Because now the person has the power that he can manipulate the system without speaking lie, is notion that his new test has begun, a more difficult test, where a person has to live with only just the basic necessities of life and might start living without the pleasures which are available even to the majority of people).
There is a REASON behind my advocating Ethics Common to All Religious over your Idea of Ethics.
First we have to understand why we have ethics and why we follow ethics and why religions have given us ethics.
I think that all religions want to bring humanity to observe common ethical values, that why we need to follow the Religious Ethics not your idea of ethics (in which ever person has his own idea of ethics).
Why religions want to bring humanity to common ethical values because when that point reaches i.e. the majority of the humanity start observing common religious ethics then the next STEP for humanity will be to enter into spiritualism, towards recognizing GOD.
oops!
