xunzian

As the participation mystique fades, the individual is left with the nagging sense of "this is not all I am", couple that with the anomie from individualized entities living together but not understanding each other, man's inherent fear of the unknown (and the need to overcome that unknown through pattern-recognition, even if the patterns aren't necessarily real) . . . and, really, who wouldn't invent a god?

It wasn't until people began to understand themselves that they could transcend the notion of god.

Baalazel

Nice puzzle. Let’s see how you solve it.

Wow, I didn’t see that coming! The puzzle of who thought up God is answered best by Christianity. ‘Never knew.

Explanations are everywhere. They litter the apologetic landscape like so many existential McDonalds wrappers. Explanations are theological trash. Is it proper to accept an explanation from a being that doesn’t exist? It is foolishness. First prove your God exists then offer up all the explanations you want.

Christianity is not rejected because it offers answers. It is rejected because it offers false answers. An example is that Christianity adequately answers the mystery of who first thought up God.

I’ll give you one reason to doubt the adequacy of Christianity in this regard. My life has been enriched by a study of the Sumerian Goddess Inanna. Hymns were being written to her a thousand years before the name of your God was uttered on this planet.

Do you mean atheists counter your apologetics with the argument that the God you defend doesn’t exist? Welcome to the real world grasshopper.

You asked the question, not us.

Well, as I see it they retreat to the rejection of the idea that they claim to have accepted for the sake of argument because they accepted the idea for the sake of argument. I’m sorry but that’s the way things work around here.

Baal

EternallyI

That is unfair. For if I had only asked the question someone would either accuse me of being deceptive, or tell me that it is helpful in an OP to state any thoughts I might personally have on the matter. So, I tried to ask a question that is one to which I am unclear in regards to all of the ideas concerning it. And the other statements were simply my immediate reflection concerning the matter as well as a few other ideas I thought to be in close association with them(original questions). But I earnestly ask you not to assume that I am trying to set something up, like some posters here do. As a matter of fact, isn't that probably the most common type of post? You know, a set up to test one's skill in arguing his position.

Gawen

Your question is a legitimate question regardless of any perceived answer you may have had before you posted it. This question comes up from time to time, form both theists and atheists. The replies you've received are pretty much the standard ones I've seen.

StarryNight

I'm not sure now if it was intended as a dichotomy, but I read it as one:

I don't think either is true. I belive that originally God, or better still the localised natural and then tribal spirits he as a conception "evolved" from, they were formed as the result of humans using their social skills or parts f brains to interpret natural phenomena.

I have a little supporting evidence here, in the fact that a small sample study shows that atheists and agnostics are, as a rule, closer to autism than believers.

StarryNight

Makes no sense to me. And the origin or the concept what? Don't tell me "is best explained be religion", for I asked why you think than, not whether you think that. Are you implying that because for instance christianity defines god, therefore christianity must be right explanation of the source and true nature of the god concept. Why not Islam, or what not? If I define god, does that allow me to claim reliable authoratative knowledge of it's nature and origin? Well, I might claim it, but who would trust me simply on the gruonds that I do the defining? Not you, for sure.

The OP was more like a long list of questions. I can, rereading, see no obvious reasons you might or might not be referring to.

I used the chimera metaphor because of my belief that the God concept is an agglomeration of various disparate myths, for instance Islam's Allah a refashioning of Judaism and Christianity, with a little new spice from Muhammad.


So it was simultaneity followed by concurrence then, or not?

RAFH

I did.

Wayne Delia

Bah. It's purely someone's assertion designed to acquire or increase social, political, or economic control over someone else. "Believe my agenda, because there's an undetectable, untestable, ass-kicking sky daddy who will hurt you for all time if you don't believe my agenda, but if you do believe it, you'll be rewarded in a way that's not demonstrable right now, so just take my word for it or you'll be punished."

And in order to have "created matter" (in combinations strange or otherwise), there must be a "matter creator," which we all agree on, and we all agree is the Christian God. Sheesh.

Others have already pointed out that this is a false dichotomy.

Hardly. Christianity doesn't explain it much at all; in fact, as you've described it, it only gives a name to that which isn't explained, and by a happy coincidence, that name is the central character in your preferred religion version. For example, with respect to the creation of the universe, the original creation process isn't explained, but rather it's brushed aside with a brief "Godddidit" answer.

Because it doesn't line up with what we can observe in the real world. For example, the Christian analysis of "human spirit" with respect to "demons" has been pretty much entirely harnessed by what we now understand as physical or psychological diseases such as epilepsy or schizophrenia, which require no supernatural elements of demons at all. In fact, it would be foolishness to accept the Christian explanation at face value, which is one of the reasons I'm not a Christian.

You've got the cart way before the horse on this one. It would be proper that God provide unequivocal evidence of His existence before we start worrying about whether He can or should give any kind of explanation at all.

Because the answers provided by Christianity are frequently unfalsifiable, untestable, dogmatic, contradictory, unsupported, and often just plain wrong.

Sure. That's a major difference between religious claims and scientific claims. A scientific claim can be tested and verified by anyone, with no prerequisite or presupposed belief necessary that the claim is true, and the investigation doesn't depend on the beliefs (or lack of beliefs) of the scientist doing the investigation. Religious claims, on the other hand, suffer greatly from those faults. For example, you've asked rhetorically "Isn't it proper that God should give an explanation of creation to the creatures that are, for some reason, aware that they have a consciousness?" without bothering to establish to the non-believer that God exists. Thus, we question God's existence, and it is entirely proper for us to do so. If it makes you feel any better, you're in the right forum for these topics.

But people can, and frequently do, arrive at understanding apart from basic belief. If that wasn't possible, then any common college-level course in comparative religious history wouldn't be possible. And any Christian, for example, wouldn't be able to understand anything at all about any other religion in which they don't participate; we trivially observe that this is certainly not the case.

Speaking from my own personal experience, I frequently assume that God exists for the sake of argument, then I analyze certain claims about God from the Bible, which make God look like a cosmic doofus. I am then free to conclude that either God doesn't exist as described in the Bible (which in itself is a huge Pandora's box for the Christian theist), or else God does exist as described in the Bible, and He is indeed a cosmic doofus.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Short answer: No.

Slightly longer answer: Not that anyone can demonstrate.

WMD

Wayne Delia

Basically, it means that someone who wishes to establish, maintain, or increase his social, political, military, or economic control over someone else, attempts to create the impression he is convinced that God has telepathically sent him a message which is pure, holy, and true, and that others should therefore believe it or be punished via an unfalsifiable, untestable threat.

The obvious problem, of course, is that evidently this social, political, military, and economic control is a very popular thing to have, and since so many different people with different agendas want to have it, there are almost as many different revealed messages to these people. Not all of the messages agree, which results in many different religions, denominations, sects, and cults.

WMD