DefSkeptic
Registered Senior Member
Thats an absolutely horrible theory.
Knowledge vs Faith
- Thread starter Eric F. Magnuson
- Start date
Thats an absolutely horrible theory.
One must then ask, how did the idea of a divine creator come to be? How can one come up with the concept in the first place? You might say it is purely imagination, but even the imagination roots it's creativity in reality. What Abdiel says has some truth to it. Something made the idea of God come to be and it wasn't as detached from reality as you may think.
One can never know for sure, but it is easy to theorize. You have to put yourself in the mind of a caveman.... then fast forward time for a very long time.. a singular deity is the natural progression of ideas that starts with the answer "I don't know" which translates to "must have been magic" or "must have been god" more and more the farther back in time you look. It's about context.
No, I'd say it's the creative evolution of an idea over a long time. Actually, the idea was likely around for a long time before people accepted it. Can you imagine why?
Except for the stuff about god, maybe.
You're right about that for SURE. It was exactly reality that made the idea mainstream... obviously. It was necessity that gods were created. Your tribe is hungry, you have no food, your children are sick, your friend died, you're in a cave with no light with no clue as to what the hell is happening around you really besides the need for food, water... comfort.... survival. How could that be? Surely someone must will badness upon you? That person must be very powerful too.. consdiering that they took away all my food and make the sun go away every day. No wait.. maybe there is another guy who makes the sun go away? You are the natural leader in the crowd.. you think. Your comprehension about your evironment is superior to those around you due to the luck of gifted intellect.. as such.. your people look to you for answers..
what do you tell them? you tell them what you know. apparently a guy.. let's call him fundaddy. He takes the sun everyday. He was mad at soldana, the guy who took our food from us (the one who made the animals you hunt leave the area). They conspired to make it cold and made my daughters sick. Why? We must have angered them. What can we do to appease such powerful beings?
Do you see how it's psychology? Do you see how it's personified? It's in how you relate to a problem. Do you see my meaning?
There's this thing I call cultural lag. It's basically that ideas are passed from parents to kids.. ideas about how life works. Obviously this is how most religions are propagated over time. Until recently... there hasn't been sufficient context to answer most of the fundamental questions people were faced with.. (though they've surely changed over time.. but the fundamentals are always the same I'd guess).
Where am I?
Why am I here?
What is my purpose?
Who created me?
Blah blah blah.
Until recently... sensible answers to those questions could only be imagined. Now howver.. it basically stands as:
You're on a planet, the planet is.... blah blah.. so you get the first one all the way there.
You are here to live your life in the pursuit of happiness. But that one's really too deep for people to accept.. they want simplicity. "god" still works well especially considering that people are predisposed to it through cultural lag.
Your purpose is whatever you make it. But again.. it's a little lame so people look to someone else for answers and grasp onto whatever 'fits' for their particular set of experiences. (which is obvious tripe considering that there is only one correct answer to a question of objectivity such as 'is there a god or god(s)')
You were created by your parents who apparently are because of their parents and so on and so forth. We think there is just something that makes stuff want to be alive.. but we're not sure why. Lame answer, so people look to ... well.. I guess I don't know. I mean.. someone must have done it.. blah blah blah?
Do you see how it's personified because that is how we relate to the problem of our existence?
Abdiel - this is exactly where the idea of God comes from, and it is a philosophical idea that many people simply cannot accept. If something has all the organization of careful thought, then it must have been created by someone. We comprehend that our enviornment functions in a collective system, and life around us works interdependently.
This would have taken too much time. It took only 3-4 million years for life to show up. It would take around 12 million years to get the correct sequences. Life on Earth simply did not have enough time to occur at random. Indeed, some scientists have begun to speculate that life might be a natural and normal process which will always occur given the right conditions - essentially that their is no randomness to it.
In either event, wether you believe in God or not, at the very least I feel that their is no way that a system like this is created entirely by chance.
This is an opinion, and as such is subjective. If this is the entire crux of what you believe, then your arguments have far more to do with how you interprit what you see rather than what is "true" or "untrue".
This would have taken too much time. It took only 3-4 million years for life to show up. It would take around 12 million years to get the correct sequences. Life on Earth simply did not have enough time to occur at random. Indeed, some scientists have begun to speculate that life might be a natural and normal process which will always occur given the right conditions - essentially that their is no randomness to it.
In either event, wether you believe in God or not, at the very least I feel that their is no way that a system like this is created entirely by chance.
This is an opinion, and as such is subjective. If this is the entire crux of what you believe, then your arguments have far more to do with how you interprit what you see rather than what is "true" or "untrue".
Another thought that some has raised is that since most people deal with the world and try to imagine a world without a God what about imagining a world with a God. Is it any different from this world? Does the sun shine less does it rain more, are the skies darker at night or the sea less warm in the summer? Would the world come together as it does now, interconnected?
Was my first statement as ridiculous as some have stated? Is the natural yearning for man to find a God not proof enough that there is one?
Again imagine a world without a God, what then would be the use of virtue or of vice? The rituals and stereotypical symbols of virtue, such as temperance, would remain but any meaning that it once held would have vanished. The virtuous of this world would just be going out of their way to accomplish a feat just for it's own sake, without reward. The point that I am trying to achieve is that nothing would be worth doing, nothing worth achieving. In the end we would die off, nothing upon nothing and nothing would be of meaning at any time.
That to which I have just mentioned is a sad state of the world. The Christian ideal allows for both monk and warrior to repent and to hold meaning in this world, I think that if I had the choice of knowing if there was or wasn't a God I would choose not to know. For if I found that there was indeed nothing but sky above what could possibly motivate anything anymore? What meaning would the world hold to anyone then?
Was my first statement as ridiculous as some have stated? Is the natural yearning for man to find a God not proof enough that there is one?
Again imagine a world without a God, what then would be the use of virtue or of vice? The rituals and stereotypical symbols of virtue, such as temperance, would remain but any meaning that it once held would have vanished. The virtuous of this world would just be going out of their way to accomplish a feat just for it's own sake, without reward. The point that I am trying to achieve is that nothing would be worth doing, nothing worth achieving. In the end we would die off, nothing upon nothing and nothing would be of meaning at any time.
That to which I have just mentioned is a sad state of the world. The Christian ideal allows for both monk and warrior to repent and to hold meaning in this world, I think that if I had the choice of knowing if there was or wasn't a God I would choose not to know. For if I found that there was indeed nothing but sky above what could possibly motivate anything anymore? What meaning would the world hold to anyone then?
shutupandshave
Registered Member
I think that is the reason that man created god (if that is indeed the case).
Not all of us feel the way you do, we find other "truths" some in science, some in music, some in poetry.
If you realise that people can be content with knowing they are part of a whole, or are too preoccupied with their own lives to care about whether or not they have a purpose, or perhaps even understand the purpose of the human race to a level that it seems you dont (self-sufficient, whether that's true or not is not the issue), then you'll realise why people are rejecting religion.
I have no faith in God. In fact I don't think if he does exist that he created us or knows we exist.
I do have faith that the speed of light travels at 186,000 km/s or whatever apeed it is. I have never tested it myself, yet I profusley believe it to be so. Because I have alot of faith in the people that have spent lifetimes testing it and using it to find out other things. I also have unwavering faith that these people actually exist, although I've never met them.
The only things a person can say they "know" is what they test and prove to themselves. But you've gotta start from somewhere and you've gotta have faith in something.
I do have faith that the speed of light travels at 186,000 km/s or whatever apeed it is. I have never tested it myself, yet I profusley believe it to be so. Because I have alot of faith in the people that have spent lifetimes testing it and using it to find out other things. I also have unwavering faith that these people actually exist, although I've never met them.
The only things a person can say they "know" is what they test and prove to themselves. But you've gotta start from somewhere and you've gotta have faith in something.
Bro.. I was merely giving examples of the best of "common knowledge" of today... and the fact that questions like "What is my purpose?" only have SUBJECTIVE answers.. but for some SAD REASON, people tend to look outside themselves for answers only they can provide.
Looking outside ourselves is very nessasary, Wesmoris. We humans are capable of deciving ourselves to an incredible degree. We also, on our own, will act entirely in our own interests. These are the two universal definitions of "evil". While most socieites and religions have differnt fine points, the essential belief carried by societies for thousands of years is that self interest taken to it's furthest extreme is what creates evil.
Religion is designed to create a context in which one is able to have empathy for his fellow humans and act outside of his own self-interests, particularly when one's own self-interests harm others. These are the qualities our societies have always called "good"... the ability to care for someone else purely because they are human, and to give up extra resources, essentially power, to help those who are not as fortunet as yourself.
Putting aside the issue of wether or not God exists, I believe that this is the undelying conflict between Science's view of the world and that of religious people. The ideas of Charles Darwin essentially champion the idea that self-interest and lack of empathy for others is exactly what gets you to the top. While this is a true construct, when you apply it to civilization you create oppressive systems and instability since civilization is based on the principal of sharing and division of labor to augment each others survivability. Adolph Hitler in fact, did much of what he did in the name of Charles Darwin.
The human race is struggling to grow up. We are caught between the philosophy which allowed our civilizations to grow and prosper, and the philosophy of nature itself including primal human nature and we realize truly just how difficult this is.
Religion is designed to create a context in which one is able to have empathy for his fellow humans and act outside of his own self-interests, particularly when one's own self-interests harm others. These are the qualities our societies have always called "good"... the ability to care for someone else purely because they are human, and to give up extra resources, essentially power, to help those who are not as fortunet as yourself.
Putting aside the issue of wether or not God exists, I believe that this is the undelying conflict between Science's view of the world and that of religious people. The ideas of Charles Darwin essentially champion the idea that self-interest and lack of empathy for others is exactly what gets you to the top. While this is a true construct, when you apply it to civilization you create oppressive systems and instability since civilization is based on the principal of sharing and division of labor to augment each others survivability. Adolph Hitler in fact, did much of what he did in the name of Charles Darwin.
The human race is struggling to grow up. We are caught between the philosophy which allowed our civilizations to grow and prosper, and the philosophy of nature itself including primal human nature and we realize truly just how difficult this is.
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But why do you take my statement out of context? You refuse to accept it? You deny it? Ultimately.. regardless of what either of us thinks, your "purpose" comes from within you. You have to look outside yourself to find clues and to what you should do, but you have to look INSIDE to find your purpose.
You call this evil? This is simply nature. It's natural, not evil. If you want to discuss the "evil" regarding this, I'd say it's EVIL never to question how you justify your bullshit to yourself. I'd say it's EVIL never stop asking yourself the hard questions.. I'd say it's EVIL to LIE to yourself and let you get away with it. I'd say it's GOOD to expose your thoughts to others such that you might find feedback regarding the validity of your crap, but ultimately you have to learn to trust yourself not to lie to you.
You call this evil? I call you short sighted. I'm happy that you've considered the issue, but unhappy with your conclusion. If you cannot envision a perspective from which being very very selfish is a good thing for other people.. then you haven't thought about it enough.
You think so do you? Seems to me it was "designed" (which already implies that it's not divine in nature) to make people paranoid enough not to perform actions outside of those condoned by that religion. It's as close to perfect as you can get for a security policy. Make the offenders police themselves. Beautiful.
Shutupandshave; You have said that others find "truth" in science, music and some in poetry. I will not deny that this is the case yet when one only immerses themselves into these things they shall find themselves not whole in the end. I say that for the reason that science has proved to be very fickle. With each passing year something is proven anew or disproven altogether, whatever truth there is in science seems fleeting.
Furthermore, why immerse yourself in music or poetry when that to is fleeting, fleeting to the point that when we die, and die we shall friend, there will be no more music or poetry, these things prove themselves not to be eternal.
However, the promise and the religious praising God have the notion that God is enternal, the master of music, the creator of science, and the speaker of true poetry so to praise these topics and to devote one's sould to them is, at least to me anyway, pointless, I do not say that devoting time and energy is a waste, not at all but what I do mean is that if one wishes to praise anything praise the creator of all things. For every discussion, every discussion that has ever been made always seems to come back, in some way towards the discussion of God, for He is not just lord of the earth but everything with mass and every ideal held by His people and that indeed is my point.
Furthermore, why immerse yourself in music or poetry when that to is fleeting, fleeting to the point that when we die, and die we shall friend, there will be no more music or poetry, these things prove themselves not to be eternal.
However, the promise and the religious praising God have the notion that God is enternal, the master of music, the creator of science, and the speaker of true poetry so to praise these topics and to devote one's sould to them is, at least to me anyway, pointless, I do not say that devoting time and energy is a waste, not at all but what I do mean is that if one wishes to praise anything praise the creator of all things. For every discussion, every discussion that has ever been made always seems to come back, in some way towards the discussion of God, for He is not just lord of the earth but everything with mass and every ideal held by His people and that indeed is my point.
H
Halcyon
Guest
Off to the side: I know you're not discussing this, but, according to newtonian physics, since time can have no beginning or end, it could not have been created, and cannot be destroyed. One step of many on the path to the conclusion that something had to exist before god. If one considers that there had to be an environment, or some "state of existance" for god to exist in, how did this state come into being? It is believed that the idea of god was created to explain the creation of all existance, but this belief in a creator is flawed, because this creator had to in turn be created. Paradox.
something can only be considered to exist due it's relation to it's environment, right or wrong?
It also might be considered, that because time has no beginning or end, time could the creating force behind existance. Or time could be god. (I'm winging this) But, there had to be other forces for time to act upon to create the universe, so one could assume that if god were likened to time, then there would also exist other "gods" or forces that combined to create the universe. I'm jumping from point to point here through assumptions that are probably due a little more explanation than I'm giving them. I'm just spouting conjecture, writing down these ideas as soon as my mind creates them. For the sole purpose of discussion.
something can only be considered to exist due it's relation to it's environment, right or wrong?
It also might be considered, that because time has no beginning or end, time could the creating force behind existance. Or time could be god. (I'm winging this) But, there had to be other forces for time to act upon to create the universe, so one could assume that if god were likened to time, then there would also exist other "gods" or forces that combined to create the universe. I'm jumping from point to point here through assumptions that are probably due a little more explanation than I'm giving them. I'm just spouting conjecture, writing down these ideas as soon as my mind creates them. For the sole purpose of discussion.
5th Element
Registered Member
Excuse me Mr. Xevious but you have yet to answer my previous simple question. "where or what was that claim you accused me of making?"
<p>
If you can't give me an answer I will assume I've caught you with your pants half way down. Just like how science always catch religion in the same awkward manner.
Eugenics and "Social Darwinism" are responsible for much strife in modern times. The term Eugenics in fact was coined by a cousin of Charles Darwin, one Francis Galton, who defined it as "perfecting the human race" by getting rid of its "undesirables" while multiplying its "desirables" It was Darwin's ideas of Natural Selection improving a species which made Galton wonder, "Could not the race of men be similarly improved?"
It was these idea which lead first to eugenics laws in the early 1900's in the US, which legally allowed sterilization of the "unfit", and by the 1940's, had cultimated into the founding ideologies of the Nazi movements in Germany. Germany thought of itself as the master race of the planet. While Hitler and his regime used Christianity in some of it's propaganda, the writings of Hitler in his autobiography as well as the actions and other documents surviving the regime paint a far differnt picture. One need not be reminded of how many millions of the Jews, Pols, and other ethnicities which died during Hitler's attempts at racial purificaiton. Nor does one need to be reminded of Hitler's attempts to breed the "master race" by cross-breeding teenagers from across Germany who had the traits he considered the most pallatable human traits.
Millions dead in combat... youths abducted from their homes to be used in genetic cross-breeding experiments, human races herded into camps to be executed based on their genetic make-up... and all in the name of Charles Darwin.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/darwin/nameof/index.html
http://www.hitler.org
Well, let's see, was it this response to BrainwithaGun which did it? I think so... their was the post by LucidDreamer:
Your posted response to BrainWithaGun reveals your beliefs. You basically called a theologic believer an idiot because he believed in religion. THUS, you stated religion was false, and THUS God did not exist. You implied the claim that God does not exist.
So you want me to prove to you in a empirical nature God exists... this depends only upon what kind of evidence you will be willing to look at. The proof is out their, but when one is unwilling to look, one will never see. This was a problem I for a long time had with Darwinism. I was so unwilling to even LOOK at the evidence for it that I never understood... until I cleared my head and thought about it. Even today I don't entirely embrace Evolution, but at least look at it and say as Abraham Lincoln did, "I can see how one can look at the ground and say that all was the work of nature. But, I cannot see how one can look at the sky and say their is no God."
The reason I cannot come to any more meaningful debate with those here is many of those present are so zealous against religion that their is simply no reasoning to be found.