Most of you do not agree. I often wonder how man can carve out a figure that he has never seen.
The Bible or the rest of theologies are man's projections and how can man project things he has never seen.
Most of you do not agree. I often wonder how man can carve out a figure that he has never seen.
The Bible or the rest of theologies are man's projections and how can man project things he has never seen.
“Those who seek to satisfy the mind of man by hampering it with ceremonies and music and affecting charity and devotion have lost their original nature””
“If water derives lucidity from stillness, how much more the faculties of the mind! The mind of the sage, being in repose, becomes the mirror of the universe, the speculum of all creation.
By means of synthetic thought perhaps. You have never seen a unicorn, but you have images of both a horse and a horn.
But the idea of god doesnt have to come from that. Descartes argued that this was what the ancient greek gods were like, essentially humans with a divine quality. He claimed that the christian god was something different (and, indeed, no human could possibly be so malignant as the christian god).
But the thoughts one has are the tip of the iceberg. Below them are oceans of mental calculations which normally are not at all conscious (and they shouldnt be conscious since if one gets mixed into them he is de-humanised).
"Is God a projection of our thoughts?" How disappointing if he were! I want a God who is greater than my imagination can conjure. (After all, I know I don't have all the answers.)
Certainly he is. Man's curious nature probably instantly led to questions of whether or not an almighty figure existed beyond our realm of dimension. Through human bias and degrees of fear, we catered Him to seem as though he's a benevolent Creator with human health as His top priority. The emergence of prophets and the "Son of Christ" theory made this notion seem more and more believable.
Now's it's just a matter of whether God is a theory. I'd sure hate to be wrong, but I like taking my chances.
You do not sound "certain" to me.Originally Posted by IceM
Elanor, I basically just said I was atheist. I'm not sure how else I could be more certain.
Thoughts alone? Hmm, I think that theists would disagree with that idea. What about altruism, random acts of kindness, people who have turned their lives around because of the acceptance of a higher power?
IceM you sound more agnostic than atheist, but you know yourself better than I.
I'd rather have questions that I can't answer than answers that I can't question.
Sorry, IceM that my remark was unclear. I did understand that you do not believe in an absolute, creator God. I was commenting on your choice of words. What I was pointing out was the fact that you started your statement with an emphatic "certainly" and ended with the word "theory." Now a theory is something that you think is true but cannot prove. Therefore you can never be "certain" about a "theory." You must accept a theory by faith, a fact you obviously understand since you concluded that you would hate to be wrong but that you would be "taking your chances." Again, you are not "taking chances" if you are "certain." That is why I commented that you did not sound "certain."
An agnostic, by the way, does "not know" whether or not there is a God and may believe there is no way to prove it either way. But an honest agnostic is open to evidence.
Last edited by ElanorGamgee; 07-26-2010 at 12:26 AM.
The last in your list would still be open to the question posed in the title of this thread. The first two (altruism, random acts of kindness) certainly would not require belief in a God, actual or imagined.
Because our imagination can design things it hasn't even encountered.
Dragons are a classic example. Nobody has ever seen a dragon, yet I can picture one right now.
I agree 100% with your premise that all gods are a projection only. The shared religious stories and human frailties of their gods shows that adequately.
Certainly curiosity and the "why?" questions lead to the possibility of a creator. I'd dispute that he's seen as benevolent, however.
The concept of a benevolent god is a very recent phenomenon. Even though the Jesus character preached benevolence and peace, it isn't as though the religions themselves have preached benevolence, or acted benevolently, and up until last century, the picture of god painted by christian theologians was still entirely vengeful and spiteful.
The son of god stuff, like most of christianity, is just stolen.
That's why Pascal was a believer instead of a bookie!
I take Pascal's wager any day - heck, if I'm somehow wrong about everything in the universe, I can at least look forward to having a serious argument with the sky-daddy when I explain how allowing suffering is not very godly.
I'll just break in here, because we can not disprove that any god/s exist. It's why the British Humanists chose the slogan "There's probably no god..." Saying "There is no god!" is not a position which can be defended.
I just stick to 99.99999recurring% positive.
The "acceptance of a higher power" argument is rubbish, I'm sorry. A classic example is Alcoholics Anonymous, which has no greater success rate than some secular, non-chemical methods of abstinence.
And no matter how many anecdotal cases of people who turned their lives around through some god or other doesn't matter either. We know for certain that self-delusion is a powerful motivator for humans thank to the placebo effect, the continued usage of homeopathy and many other ways where humans react to no stimulus at all.
Altruism exists in nature as well as the secular world.
Plus, if there were some power involved from outside the human brain, we'd see a whole lot fewer christians in jail.
This is completely false.
The "proof" is only a philosophical position. The "Theory" of Pythagoras works every single time - it proven beyond any doubt whatsoever, but because science is honest and we cannot get the odds lower than infinity to one against, we don't call it "proof".
100% certainty is for people who gets their facts from religious books.
Atheists are also open to evidence. Agnosticism is just fence-sitting.
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
The above is what sparked my comment about IceM sounding agnostic rather than atheistic.
Define christian; because my definition would probably show that are far fewer 'christians' in jail than you presume.
I'd rather have questions that I can't answer than answers that I can't question.
No, it's not innate. It's hard to prove the idea of God is 'innate' because creation myths vary. What is hard to disprove though is that the human mind is searching for something of higher intelligence or meaning in creation.
What's interesting is the Church has condemned the idea of innateness and foreknowledge of God in the human mind.
The human mind has an idea of the infinite; but this idea may be and in fact is, obtained from the notion of the finite, by the successive processes of abstraction, elimination, and transcendence. The notion of the finite is the notion of being having a certain perfection in a limited degree. By eliminating the element of limitation and conceiving the positive perfection as realized in its highest possible degree, we arrive at the notion of the infinite. We form in this way, a negativo-positive concept, as the Schoolmen say, of the infinite. It is true also that our ideas have the characteristics of necessity, universality, and eternity; but these are essentially different from the attributes of God. God exists necessarily. He is absolutely, and cannot not exist; our ideas are necessary in the sense that, when an object is conceived in its essence, independently of the concrete beings in which it is realized, it is a subject of necessary relations: man, if he exists, is necessarily a rational being. God is absolutely universal in the sense that He eminently possesses the actual fullness of all perfections; our ideas are universal in the sense that they are applicable to an indefinite number of concrete beings. God is eternal in the sense that He exists by Himself and always identical with Himself; our ideas are eternal in the sense that in their state of abstraction they are not determined by any special place in space or moment in time.
Well, damn. I suppose I got this topic and the topic "Is the idea of God innate" confused. :P They're related so I'll keep this here.
Last edited by Manalive; 07-27-2010 at 01:25 AM.
"Do I dare disturb the universe? Do I dare to eat a peach?"-- T.S. Eliot
"After this many of his disciples returned to their former lives; and walked no more with him. Then Jesus said to the twelve: Will you also go away? And Simon Peter answered him: Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words that give eternal life."-- The Gospel of the Lord
I'm not trying to prove the OP's question either way, but am simply offering thoughts and comments as a part of the discussion.
I'd rather have questions that I can't answer than answers that I can't question.
What about altruism, random acts of kindness, people who have turned their lives around because of the acceptance of their humanity?
What about altruism, random acts of kindness, people who have turned their lives around because of their devotion to Barry Manilow?
What about altruism, random acts of kindness, people who haven't turned their lives around at all but have always been prone to altruism and random acts of kindness?
There is only one qualifier to be christian - belief in the christian god, which we can tell by asking the person. The overwhelming majority of prison inmates state that they are christian.
Please don't start any "True christian" fallacies here.
Is becoming an axe-murderer "turning your life around"?
Go to work, get married, have some kids, pay your taxes, pay your bills, watch your tv, follow fashion, act normal, obey the law and repeat after me: "I am free."
Anon
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