SecularFuture

Excerpt from my report
During our less sophisticated beginnings, before computers and technology were in common use, many of our explanations involved supernatural -- magical-- concepts. Many of us thought that the rain was from a deity as a gift and not from condensing clouds, and Earthquakes were sent as punishment for a wrongdoing. Many of us thought the Sun moved around a flat Earth because, from our vantage point, that is how everything appeared. "How could something come from nothing," we asked. "There must be a creator, a God, something beyond our human comprehension living outside of our physical world."

We did not have weather balloons and meteorologists to accurately interpret the weather then. We did not have a Richter scale and geophysicists to accurately interpret earthquakes. In addition, we did not understand quantum mechanics, the physics that gives explanation to how something could -- in fact -- come from what we consider "nothing." Without science and technology, we only had our imaginations.

Questions:
Did God create man, or Did man create God?

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: SecularFuture ]</p>

Answerer

I had asked myself this question before, in fact it is similar to my first post here. I choose the latter anyway.

Origian

I think that all here have asked themselves this question, theists choosing the former answer and atheists the latter. Although it is true that at first God was used as an explanatory tool ('God did it!'), as society in general and science in particular have progressed this role has been dramatically reduced. God (correct me if I'm wrong here) seems to act in more of a comforting and support role to Theists nowadays, although those Creation 'Scientists' would have you believe otherwise. I choose the latter idea, that Man created God, originally for the explanation of observed phenomena. Other uses for a Deity only came later as the value of an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient deity became apparent...

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: Origian ]</p>

diana

Origian,

While it's very kind of your to extend the benefit of the doubt to "all here," even, I think this is a question that many theists have not asked themselves, and many who have ask it only in a cursory manner.

(I know I'm generalizing here; I speak from my experience.) I think most theists are born into the One True Religion--whichever one that is--and are indoctrinated into its precepts well before they are even capable of critical thinking.

This would mean that the "facts" they were given are accepted as mental schemas upon which the things they learn from that point out are built. Most people are not even aware that things they accept as basic axioms are not considered "fact" by all.

Moreover, the more fundamentalist of them tend to be sheltered from any information that would provoke uncomfortable questions--such as basic science, evolution, philosophy, logic--until adulthood.

I suspect most people who are born into a faith don't ever honestly question whether God created man or man created God. Those who do often do not have the tools or the guts to do it as objectively as possible.

d

emotional

Not so easy as I once thought it to be. I've read a refutation here:

<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tj_v14n1_designer_science.asp" target="_blank">http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/magazines/tj/docs/tj_v14n1_designer_science.asp</a>

Still, I contend for an Argument from Nonsystematic Fate to show how such secondary intelligent causation does not exist. q.v. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/nonsystematic.htm" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/whynaturalist.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.

[ December 18, 2002: Message edited by: devnet ]</p>

nXile

hi diana,
I agree, but on an even wider scale. Western culture in general wants one answer to one problem. The Big Bang Theory and Darwin have been made into unquestioned icons IN our (american) schools. I am aware of the conversation that still continues in science concerning big bang and darwin. However, looking in an 8th or even 12th grade science book (in America, can't speak for other countries' education books which, most likely, are better) one would think we have proved, without a doubt, that we came from an explosion and monkeys that left the trees. However, a theory is not "fact," but a theory.

It seems to be "the way," to educate our general public, to educate through pure, cold hard facts that are not to be questioned. We (as a culture) present theories as accepted fact. You said it best, Diana: "Most people are not even aware that things they accept as basic axioms are not considered "fact" by all."

So, I agree that people who come from faith schemas often do not question why they have faith. However, I also agree that people who do not come from faith schemas, do not question why they are faithless.

It's expected of us to do as we're told, to listen and be respectful of our elders (which often means, don't disagree with your elders).
We are not given the freedoms to question our teachers, our books and later on, our bosses at our jobs, and that unquestioning shows up in other places, like discussions (or lack of them) of faith.

However, there are counter-examples and counter-cultures to the main culture. This is one of those places. A place that does not give us one answer to one question, but a place that let's people voice, question, struggle and maybe decide.

My apologies if this is off-topic. But diana, your statement hit home.

nXi|e

diana

Good morning, nXi|e!

I don't think your post was off-topic. Quite the contrary: I think the crux of the matter--answering the "which came first--man or God?" conundrum--is about what we think to question and what we don't, and why this is.

Everybody is open-minded. (Just ask them and they'll tell you.) Everybody is fair, too. (I offer you the same proof.) By contrast, everybody who disagrees with them (or me, as the case may be), is of course not open-minded or fair. Of course. (I'll add a personal observation as a corollary: everybody is perfectly willing to admit fault and change their minds, but for some reason are utterly convinced they're right this time; that is, about whatever we are talking about at present.)

Human nature--the desire to see oneself as fair but right every time, combined with the propensity to laziness (we want information dumped into our heads; the average person isn't willing to do his own research--is the greatest obstacle to any completely fair assessment of philosophical questions. At the same time, these combined factors encourage rationalization concerning one's position.

I thought it was human nature in general, but that's probably just my one, closed-minded and right answer to the problem.

Interesting. I haven't looked through any children's textbooks for a while, but when I was in school, people were very careful to give as little time as possible to these theories, emphasize that they were theories, and if possible, to sneer a bit through the one or two paragraphs devoted to them.

But I'm a bible-belt baby and that was a long time ago.

As an aside, I've been reading Lies My Teacher Told Me about what's taught as fact in American high school history--which is one lie (usually by omission, but often outright) after another--so your point is well-taken.

Interesting. I don't know many people who come from faithless schemas, but that sounds fair.

Yes, there is counter-culture, but another problem is that the mainstream, while being coached on what is true/false, right/wrong, good/bad, are also given a sense that while there are people who question these givens, those people are nutjobs, not to be taken seriously, a form of "hippie."

This makes it even more difficult for us doubters to make a dent.

*sigh*

d

nXile

diana,
A favorite book of mine is "Lies My Teacher Told Me." Along similiar lines, a history book told from the minority point of view (you probably know of it already) is "The People's History of the United States of America" by Howard Zinn.

I posted:
"Western culture in general wants one answer to one problem."

diana responded:
"I thought it was human nature in general, but that's probably just my one, closed-minded and right answer to the problem."

I know of older cultures that could live in the tension of "both/and" states of being. In fact, that's one of the arguments given as to why the bible contradicts itself, because those who arranged and copied the bible allowed for that contradiction because it was accepted practice of their culture. Why put four books in the Bible that follow the same man (Jesus) but differ from each other in some places but not in other places? Wouldn't it be better to have just one book instead of four? I think it would. If I were arranging the bible, I would use books that did not contradict one another, but I was born 1500 years to late.

oh well

diana

Bummer. Think of all the biblical difficulties you could have saved us. We could be arguing about more important things than "How many angels were found in Jesus' tomb?"

Seems reasonable, at least from a scientific, philosophic and historical perspective, to not teach things as facts when they are only one of many viewpoints. The problem with teaching creation in public schools, however, versus evolution--as you mentioned--is clearly that one is a scientific theory while the other is a religious belief. I still don't think schools should say "evolution happened like this," as we clearly don't know for sure.

That explanation sounds weak to me. While it may be an accepted practice of someone's culture to allow contradiction in historical accounts (say), the only reason for this I can imagine would be because they admit they don't know which is the most valid, so to be fair, they offer all accounts and let the reader decide.

In contrast, the bible purports to be inspired--God breathed, as it were--which means the writers presumably knew exactly what happened. As such, there should be no inspired-and-conflicting accounts.

Which is why us heathens bother pointing them out at all. At best, one of them is inspired and the rest are someone's mistaken account.

Back to writing my paper, now...

d

Fiach

I don't think that man and woman one day sat down on a rock, and said, what did all of this shite? Then they said it must be a God, said the Woman. What the feck is a god?, said the man. It is something very big who said a magic word and created everything.

God evolved in stages from imagined wee spirits who ran waterfalls, spirits who made trees grow, rain fall, hands grip, and mental thoughts. Man slowly, almost unconsciously merged spirits into gods, and gods into a big one god. It took millenia. When man finally decided there was one conscious creator god, he had to given a personality.

Note the personality that he attributed to God or Joe Hovah. He was powerful (or wanted to be), he knew everything (or wanted to). He had a bad temper with occasional killing rages. He was a king and demanded total obedience or you die. He was jealous. He loved us but occassionally got pissed off and would kill us for eating a fruit.

In other words, man made a god who was just like a man. Volatile, unstable, violent, capricious, jealous, insecure, loving, and hateful just like us.

God was created by man in many separate stages but in his final form he is us.

Fiach