Man created God? [edited]

[nancy_dalrymple]

I talked to an atheist once and he said he studied all the religions of the world and that he did not believe in God and that man needed a God and created Him. Quote" God didn’t create man, Man created God" But there is more to the story, which i will tell you later. Love of Christ Nancy

 

[RobbyS]

I talked to an atheist once and he said he studied all the religions of the world and that he did not believe in God and that man needed a God and created Him. Quote" God didn’t create man, Man created God" But there is more to the story, which i will tell you later. Love of Christ Nancy

If he has studied all the religions of the world, he is likely to be merely confused. he is likely to have read his cultural biases into his studies of non-Christian faiths.

IAC, his contention is simply an article of faith from the 18th Century rationalists, who following Descartes concluded that all knowedge, real knowledge was geometric in character. The best rebutals can be found in Pascal’s Pensees, which points out the human mind is intutive as well as rational. Actually, it starts with the notion that the fanaticism of the religious wars could be avoided by reducing religion to its lowest terms, and establishing a ground for discussion that would avoid endless argument. Ironically, the French found themselves in a war in which ideology replaced religions as a casus bellum. So, in an ironic sense, yes. man does create his own gods. But that does not mean that someone didn’t create Man. Irreligion in the 19th Century came up with
Evolution as a demiurge to replace the Creator. But, again, is evolution an objective process, something like chemistry, or is it simply another god made in man’s image?

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Hi Roby,I want to say that i thought that at first listen to this: I had put an add in the paper for a job to sit with elderly people because i couldn’t lift anymore after back surgery,Well one day i came in and the phone had a mesage and a ladys name, so i figured WOW a job? I called the number i saw and a man answered,I asked if That woman was there and he said “My mother has been dead since June of this year,so i said i’m sorry i got this number on my phone and i called it back because i thought it might be a job for i work with the elderly and he said That cannot be no one from here could have called I live here alone since my mother died in June. Well i said i’m sorry and i give you my condolences Dont worry she’s in good hands for she is absent from the body and present with the Lord ( Wrong ) Then he said My mother didn’t believe in God and when you die that is it you go in the ground period! I believe it and she did to. Then I said well may be she found out differnt and was coming back to let you know There is life after death! Sounds like the Lasurous thing dosent it? Any ways he called me back a few hours later and said “I just wanted to let you know” You have made my life a living Hell” there is no God! Well I prayed for him and he kept calling me back every other day just to say he had the wrong number But i had his number and his mothers name was on it every time he called. finally he stoped calling and i miss him, and i still pray for him. He had an impact on my life as well as i think i had on his. I think when we stray from where we are planted we do get confused and we dont know what to believe, You are right there. Love of Christ Nancy

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Anyone who tells you he has studied all the religions of the world and concluded that they were all made up by men has not learned the most obvious question to ask from studying all the religions of the world. That question is: Why would mankind the world over be searching for Something that doesn’t exist?

 

[nancy_dalrymple]

Exactly my thoughts, he is searching still and our search is over. I realy at the time wondered Why i got that phone call? I still pray for him,and sometimes wish he would call me again,to ask me why i believe. I do think it’s either to lazy to learn or to much confusion from coherting with false religions. Love of Christ Nancy

 

[AnAtheist]

Well, people do believe in a Creator-God. Now - if he didn’t exist, why and how came the idea “God” into this world? The simplest answer to that question is, Man created this idea.

 

[rotlex]

Anyone who tells you he has studied all the religions of the world and concluded that they were all made up by men has not learned the most obvious question to ask from studying all the religions of the world. That question is: Why would mankind the world over be searching for Something that doesn’t exist?

Because we all, no matter where we were born, have the inherent need to believe that there is something more to this life than simply being born, dying, and rotting for all eternity? Don’t get me wrong, I am a believer, but on that note, I can see how very, very easy it could be to believe that religion, all of it, is nothing more than a man made method for control of the people, as well as comfort zone.

Everyone wants to believe that we never truly die.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

*Everyone wants to believe that we never truly die. *

Maybe that’s because we never do truly die.

 

[grannymh]

Hi Roby,I want to say that i thought that at first listen to this: I had put an add in the paper for a job to sit with elderly people because i couldn’t lift anymore after back surgery,Well one day i came in and the phone had a mesage and a ladys name, so i figured WOW a job? I called the number i saw and a man answered,I asked if That woman was there and he said “My mother has been dead since June of this year,so i said i’m sorry i got this number on my phone and i called it back because i thought it might be a job for i work with the elderly and he said That cannot be no one from here could have called I live here alone since my mother died in June. Well i said i’m sorry and i give you my condolences Dont worry she’s in good hands for she is absent from the body and present with the Lord ( Wrong ) Then he said My mother didn’t believe in God and when you die that is it you go in the ground period! I believe it and she did to. Then I said well may be she found out differnt and was coming back to let you know There is life after death! Sounds like the Lasurous thing dosent it? Any ways he called me back a few hours later and said “I just wanted to let you know” You have made my life a living Hell” there is no God! Well I prayed for him and he kept calling me back every other day just to say he had the wrong number But i had his number and his mothers name was on it every time he called. finally he stoped calling and i miss him, and i still pray for him. He had an impact on my life as well as i think i had on his. I think when we stray from where we are planted we do get confused and we dont know what to believe, You are right there. Love of Christ Nancy

First. I want to tell you that it is marvelous to want to sit with elderly people. They need people like you.

Second: We are all in God’s hands even when we try to ignore Him. God keeps giving us a chance right up to the final second of our lives. I tell people “Don’t underestimate the power of God to touch a soul.” Of course we will never know a person’s last decision about accepting God. We can always hope for the best.

Third: It was when my Mother died that I became absolutely sure there was life after death. There was this true feeling in me when I looked at her for the last time. I felt with all that is in me that I would see my Mother again with Jesus. My guess is that the gentleman who lost his mother was having a very hard time. My guess is that deep inside him, he would like to believe that God exists and is loving. Please continue your prayers for this gentleman that he will soon make the right decision about God.

Blessings,
granny

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

Well, people do believe in a Creator-God. Now - if he didn’t exist, why and how came the idea “God” into this world? The simplest answer to that question is, Man created this idea.

And even simpler answer is: God exists and humanity has been able to understand that intuitively, even before God revealed himself to the Jews and later in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[Touchstone]

*Everyone wants to believe that we never truly die. *

Maybe that’s because we never do truly die.

There’s the explanation, right there in one sentence. Why does man create God? Because the idea is appealing, compelling, anodyne.

-TS

 

[grannymh]

There’s the explanation, right there in one sentence. Why does man create God? Because the idea is appealing, compelling, anodyne.

-TS

Now that I have looked up anodyne in the dictionary, I can reply with a question.

Do you think that it is possible for man to design or create appealing and compelling ideas about God without ever really knowing about God?

I know this sounds like a trick question. But I have gotten the idea from other threads that people attribute to God the things they personally want like freedom from pain but they don’t seem to think about an anodyne supernatural being.

Blessings & Good Thoughts,
grannny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect.

 

[Touchstone]

Now that I have looked up anodyne in the dictionary, I can reply with a question.

Do you think that it is possible for man to design or create appealing and compelling ideas about God without ever really knowing about God?

Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer. (If God did not exist, we would have to invent him).

-Voltaire

Yes, I believe one of the ramifications of the development of abstract reasoning capabilities by humans was the emergence of a whole slew of questions that were (and are) psychologically difficult. When a man can take a step back and contemplate the results of his observations, that he will one day die, too, and be no more, it’s a crisis. One of the most undeniable truths about reality is one of the most frequently and strenuously denied, that we will die, and that will be the end of the self, so far as we can tell.

Combine that with another aspect of our physiology – our stance of intentionality – and you have the hydrogen and oxygen needed to make the water of religious imaginations. Man has survived by seeing the world through the lens of intentionality; he hears a rustle in the bushes, and is alarmed, alert, given to bias his reaction toward a possible agent, predator or prey, rather than just a rustling of the wind. The penalties of a ‘false negative’ – thinking there’s no intentional threat there when there is – are severe; that’s an easy way to die. The penalties for a ‘false positive’ – thinking there’s a threat in the bushes when there is not – are relatively small, and so man is inclined to be “better safe than sorry” in detecting intentionality and design in the world around him.

That teleocentric disposition, combined with an ability to step back and imagine, to conjecture in the abstract, makes God and gods, demons and fairies, inevitable, even if there is a God (or gods).

I know this sounds like a trick question. But I have gotten the idea from other threads that people attribute to God the things they personally want like freedom from pain but they don’t seem to think about an anodyne supernatural being.

Blessings & Good Thoughts,
grannny

All human beings are worthy of profound respect.

I understand your point, and grant that of course, if God exists and creates man with a “God shaped hole in his heart” (I think that’s the phrase) that that would be a predicate for thinking about God, or at least being ready to hear about God or receive revelation from him. But many Christians I know, including myself in younger days, just could not fathom the idea that this huge facet of our collective psychology would be fundamentally illusory. Not just mistaken about particulars, but false from square one as a matter of existential reality. But the more evidence and analysis comes in on this, the more compelling the explanation that yes, the imagination of God is an emergent phenomenon from the develop of abstract reasoning and imagination itself.

-TS

 

[grannymh]

Si Dieu n’existait pas, il faudrait l’inventer. (If God did not exist, we would have to invent him).

-Voltaire

Yes, I believe one of the ramifications of the development of abstract reasoning capabilities by humans was the emergence of a whole slew of questions that were (and are) psychologically difficult. When a man can take a step back and contemplate the results of his observations, that he will one day die, too, and be no more, it’s a crisis. One of the most undeniable truths about reality is one of the most frequently and strenuously denied, that we will die, and that will be the end of the self, so far as we can tell.

Combine that with another aspect of our physiology – our stance of intentionality – and you have the hydrogen and oxygen needed to make the water of religious imaginations. Man has survived by seeing the world through the lens of intentionality; he hears a rustle in the bushes, and is alarmed, alert, given to bias his reaction toward a possible agent, predator or prey, rather than just a rustling of the wind. The penalties of a ‘false negative’ – thinking there’s no intentional threat there when there is – are severe; that’s an easy way to die. The penalties for a ‘false positive’ – thinking there’s a threat in the bushes when there is not – are relatively small, and so man is inclined to be “better safe than sorry” in detecting intentionality and design in the world around him.

That teleocentric disposition, combined with an ability to step back and imagine, to conjecture in the abstract, makes God and gods, demons and fairies, inevitable, even if there is a God (or gods).

I understand your point, and grant that of course, if God exists and creates man with a “God shaped hole in his heart” (I think that’s the phrase) that that would be a predicate for thinking about God, or at least being ready to hear about God or receive revelation from him. But many Christians I know, including myself in younger days, just could not fathom the idea that this huge facet of our collective psychology would be fundamentally illusory. Not just mistaken about particulars, but false from square one as a matter of existential reality. But the more evidence and analysis comes in on this, the more compelling the explanation that yes, the imagination of God is an emergent phenomenon from the develop of abstract reasoning and imagination itself.

-TS

Are you telling me that man could not know God because God was fundamentally illusory; yet, through abstract reasoning, man could imagine God? Isn’t abstract reasoning an ability that depends on something that exists? Furthermore, that slew of questions involves more than psychological difficulty. Regarding your phrase “end of self” – are you referring to who you are rather than what you are? Does one see his “self” as being unique?

My apology to you because I will not be able to continue this conversation because of some commitments. You present some very interesting ideas and I do intend to get back to you in the near future.

In the meantime, I am very glad that in my younger days, high school to be exact, I decided that God did indeed exist. Ever since, I have never found myself “waiting for Godot.”

Blessings and good thoughts
granny

Human life is meant for eternal life.

 

[severntofall]

Anyone who tells you he has studied all the religions of the world and concluded that they were all made up by men has not learned the most obvious question to ask from studying all the religions of the world. That question is: Why would mankind the world over be searching for Something that doesn’t exist?

Oh yes, the lemming argument for the existence of god “If god does not exist then why does everyone believe in him” or from the perspective of the lemming “If leaping off that cliff is dangerous then why is everyone else doing it” or “if the world is round then why does everyone think that it’s flat” or “If the earth orbits the sun then why does everyone think the sun orbits the earth”?

Belief =/= reality. Sadly, this argument for the existence of a god appears to be the best argument theists have left.

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

Oh yes, the lemming argument for the existence of god “If god does not exist then why does everyone believe in him” or from the perspective of the lemming “If leaping off that cliff is dangerous then why is everyone else doing it” or “if the world is round then why does everyone think that it’s flat” or “If the earth orbits the sun then why does everyone think the sun orbits the earth”?

Belief =/= reality. Sadly, this argument for the existence of a god appears to be the best argument theists have left.

You speak a little overconfidently about something you cannot “prove” yourself.

Faith is logical; it is induction. Observing specific factual phenomena and then making an inductive leap (leap of faith) to a conclusion. I may be one of the few Christians that will admit that the existence of God really cannot be proven in lab settings, especially to materialists which many atheists tend to be. But materialism isn’t the only reality.

The “lemming argument” as you call it cannot be dismissed so easily, especially when you follow it up with a string of non-sequiturs. And there are many other arguments for and against the existence of God which are posted in these forums daily. Proving God exists isn’t such an issue for me anymore, when daily God proves to *me *that he exists.

This last statment of yours is condescending to say the least. Frankly, condescension bores me.

 

[Nom_the_Wise]

Are you telling me that man could not know God because God was fundamentally illusory; yet, through abstract reasoning, man could imagine God? Isn’t abstract reasoning an ability that depends on something that exists?

This is one of the best metaphysical proofs of God. And really, it is irrefutable.

Someone once said that whether or not God exists, everyone has had to grapple with this question, which ironically proves that God exists.

For the Christian, God *is *abstract, made concrete through the person of Jesus in the miracle of the Incarnation.

 

[tonyrey]

There are various reasons why atheists believe man created God but they all overlook one simple fact. To explain a belief does not necessarily explain away what is believed. To explain a belief does not demonstrate that it is false. People often believe what is true for the wrong reasons. To believe in God because you are afraid of death has no bearing on whether God exists. Similarly to disbelieve in God because you are (unwittingly) afraid of life after death is uninformative.

Belief in God was obviously created by man. Disbelief in God also comes from man. So both belief and disbelief are in the same boat. By themselves they tell us nothing about the existence of God. What counts is not the motive but the evidence.

Yet, ironically, part of the evidence is the universal phenomenon of religion. Belief in spirits has existed since the origin of humanity. Atheists regard this as primitive superstition but they still cannot explain how truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love have emerged from purposeless particles. Sometimes intuition is more illuminating than science…

 

[Dameedna]

Yet, ironically, part of the evidence is the universal phenomenon of religion. Belief in spirits has existed since the origin of humanity. Atheists regard this as primitive superstition but they still cannot explain how truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love have emerged from purposeless particles. Sometimes intuition is more illuminating than science…

Actually these questions are not only being answered by non-believers, they are being studied in a laboratory.

Science just takes all the magic out of life doesn’t it?

 

[JDaniel]

ironically, part of the evidence is the universal phenomenon of religion. Belief in spirits has existed since the origin of humanity. Atheists regard this as primitive superstition but they still cannot explain how truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love have emerged from purposeless particles. Sometimes intuition is more illuminating than science…

Wow! I can hardly wait to get the explanations of how “truth, goodness, freedom, justice and love have emerged from purposeless particles,” from a science laboratory. These should be good. We should be able to watch how it happens from their scientific depiction on the History Channel, right?

jd