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Can man create a man? Yes. But, of course, not the way God did. The results are different. Man create in their minds.(The mind of Man being realities, the finite reality). God also created in his "mind" (The "mind" of God being Reality, the infinite Reality). Man create God in their minds.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shield&Sword
I think i got your idea now. Creation of God to man is a material thing, a touchable thing; while when man think of God then he create the idea of existence of God. But i think that man doesnt create the idea of existemce of God, you gave an example that man create text and text create man, but i think there is no similarity between the last phrase and idea of God existence. When we write text we invent something from nothing, we begin something from 0, like when a writer write a story all from his mind; but the idea of existence of God is not something we created from nothing, thinking of God is a conclusion came after we watched arrouned us, we know that we are going under rules that no one can go out of them and when we ask who decided these rules we say God or say "i dont know" but even when we say "i dont know" we admit that there is someone who created all and decided these rules; in other words the idea of exitence of God is not something we created but its a point that we must arrive when we watch arround us and our selves; in other words the idea of existence of God wasnt created by us but by the one who created all universe, (its like a math question: the prophesor ask a question and force you to arrive to the answer that he decided, you didnt invent the answer here, because believing that there is an answer came after you watched the formule, i mean that formule guide you to answer as watching universe and asking who did it will guide you to the answer and for sure will force you to have the idea that there is an answer). I hope you got the idea.
Thank you for your response, S&S.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shield&Sword
First, where does the idea of the existence of God exist? It is in our mind. Now what stays in our mind is our creation (that is, when it becomes a conscious understanding). And, that is why there are so many different ideas about the existence of God. (religions would explain that). What is not our creation is the being of God, the God who is there. How do I know this? Well, I am told by the Bible. Is the bible credible? To me, yes it is. Why? because I believe it.
Second, we do not invent something from nothing. We do not write a story from 0. I think that's an abvious fact. For example, we use a language which is already there beforehand. We use (consciously or unconsciously) our background knowledge and prejudices (which are formed by many influences from around us) about many things that later become the basic material for our story.
Third. Now I will talk metaphorically (or to be precise, metonymically). For us, the being of God is a text. Why? Because that's the way we know about the objectivity of this God: as a text. We created this text from other texts that have gotten into our minds previously. But the text of God that we created is our text, which means not the text itself. Now what I mean by "the text itself" is the Text (with the capital "T" there), which metaphorically (or metonymically) stands for the being of God, which is not created by us.
Ah, that's just what I think.
Now I might be asked "where does the Text come from?" which is the same as the question "What created God?"
Well, I would say the Text comes from/is created by man. How so? Because when the Text is being questioned by man and the question is supposed to be answered by man and the answer is supposed to be understood also by man, the Text becomes a function, that is, a text function. For, we understand only texts, not the Text.
And, beware: this one is also a text (my text
).
Here i will make my idea more clear.
The difference between the idea of God existence is relaited to something, we didnt create the idea of existence of God, a power who created this wrold, we are moving according rules that no one go out, we must and must and must ask the question: Who made all that?
The text matter is different, for example the story about superman, its a story that we invented it, we didnt see a man who fly for a second and then we based our idea on this moment, we immagined this charector that is not relaited to any thing in this world, we made this story from nothing, we didnt watch arround us and then concluded that this man exist. While when we talk about God we talk about all this that exist arround us, we didnt immagine Him, we concluded his existence because of our existence, because of rules we are going according them, we relaited the existence of God to the existence of this world, why we exist, who made us, who gave me mind....
If you ask, where did God come from; I ask you, where did the first atom come from to have the big bang.
Hello, pqb57, welcome to the forum. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by pqb57
I feel we could twist and turn this argument until we both lose our breath (or until our hands tire from typing :D). This simply seems a question of beliefs; no member of humankind witnessed the theory of the Big Bang, and, if Something/Someone did witness and/or create it, He/She/It has also provided no more proof other than allegedly inspiring multiple religious texts.
The theory states, however, that everything came to existence at once (hence the 'Big Bang'), including atoms and various molecules. Though even atoms have an age (some 10^30 years, give or take), how they came into existence, and when, I have no idea, but call it more a matter of individual beliefs.
...well, if you had just ONE more sense, what would it be? Can you even imagine it? And don't include that notorious "sixth sense" of intuition which is merely a compilation of multiple inputs via the other five senses.
Can you prove Love to exist?
I'm relatively sure there isn't proof for Love i.e. objective/empirical standards but I'd bet most people believe they have either felt it or desire to feel it.
But that sixth sense....you see, we are so limited that we cannot even imagine what that might be. But I'll accept any reasonable suggestion if anyone can come up with one.
My point is this: we are rudimentary beings. Very, very limited.
*Maslow's....well, the Quran goes into much detail not only about the developmental process of the embryo to fetus, but also the life span of the human, the cycle of religious evolution that we are caught in regardless of whether we choose to believe in a Creator or not (God will always be an issue you see! and we cannot 'uninvent' him which contradicts the logic of having 'invented' God according to a Wittgensteinian paradigm of negation needing to make sense in both directions).
I am an atheist, so I believe our freakishly large frontal lobes created God (unwittingly).
I find something by evolutionary psychologist / cognitive scientist Steven Pinker useful when discussing questions of this magnitude:
"Our minds evolved by natural selection to solve problems that were life-and-death matters to our ancestors, not to commune with correctness or to answer any question we are capable of asking', argues Steven Pinker. 'We cannot hold ten thousand words in our short-term memory. We cannot see ultra-violet light. We cannot mentally rotate an object in the fourth dimension. And perhaps we cannot solve conundrums like free will and sentience."
So I wonder too, if I've lived this particular life before...thanks to Deja Vu and a bad drug trip experience.
I do believe:
If there is a God, it's perfectly explainable that God existed FOREVER and will exist FOREVER. Infinity exists...thus true infinity has no beginning or end. God doesn't need to be created. God just is. It's explainable in its inexplicability...just broaden your mind.
Secondly:
I sometimes feel like time and space have no bounds. For each person, time is different. Think of the phrases "Time flies when you're having fun" or "This is taking forever." Really think about them. Time, supposedly is proceding at the same rate...but yet it varies from person to person.
Thirdly: (Just a thought...)
Our lives...could very possibly be part of a bigger picture, like a loop, or a sphere, where we are every aspect of that sphere. We can experience anything, feel anything, be anything, do anything. We are part of eachother, of the sky, of God. Thus infinity is explainable in an endless loop of sorts. There's a lot more to this theory that's in my mind, but I'm too tired to talk about it right now...lol.
In any case...Life is about Love.
The first atom? Are you telling me there was a void before the first atom? Amazing how nothing evolved into an atom.Quote:
Originally Posted by pqb57
0+0=0, 0*0=0, 0/0=0, 0-0=0
It all comes down to having faith in what you believe.
I belive that there something missing in our thoughts about god. its that we talking about god, not a creature a mong us. but we talking about who creat our laws and he the only one who has the ability to break our laws and live with his own laws.
well..i think i am jumping in the discussion rather late...(i have skimmed throuhg the thread..thoug)...it seems that the discussion has almost reached the point where such discussions usually reach......i mean where participants,more often than not, depart with "no conclusion" at all..except for that "i knew they wont unnerstan"
anyhow..i have long been a victim to the question of life and death..and have concluded that "this question cannot be solved"...the only possibilty is that, before their "extinction", men may reach a point where they decide that "no more of these troublesome thoughts...go do something more constructive"..after all we must admit that much greater minds have not been able to answer the fundamental question of "where it all came from??""..and yet despair for me!!!
P.S....just another thing, which does not have anything to do with the present discussion...someone wrote 0/0 = 0..above..and i cannot help correcting just because of some partiality towards maths..0/0 is not 0..it is defined to be "undefined")))
The five senses are a social construct. I can, off the top of my head, think of at least two more: proprioception (the feeling of your body in space) and balance. Or you could, if you wanted, limit it to one sense: the sense of information coming into your brain.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac Cotton
If you can define it, I can give it a shot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac Cotton
'Rudimentary' implies that there is a finished form that we are working towards.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac Cotton
God could not have been created or it would not be God - infinite, eternal, unchanging etc. The question becomes fairly irrelevant compared with the much harder task of deciding on our relationship with that God and our relationship with eachother. In our daily life we might feel very distant from God; we might wonder why we get no message; we might feel abandoned in a lonely place. Pretty normal for most believers. We might feel for longer or shorter periods of time close to God; we might get epiphanies of understanding; we might feel part of a greater whole. Fairly frequent for many believers. We have to be careful that what we are grasping at is not just the wishful thinking of our own insecurities. For whatever God is, though his kingdom might well be within us, we cannot bend him to our wills. Many awful things happen to us and our societies when we try to do that. The great poet William Cowper produced some of his best work from a state of spiritual crisis. Other great poets have struggled with this and resolved it too. Dugald Buchanan for one.
The object of First Cause is to find a power mover on the move.
Since everything that is in motion must be moved by something, let us suppose there is a thing in motion which was moved by something else in motion, and that by something else, and so on. but this series cannot go on to infinity, so there must be some first mover.
- Aristotle, Physics
interesting.
so, i've actually discussed this with my friends before, and i've reached the same conclusion: it all depends on what you're willing to accept. i mean, i believe in god, because of the things i see around me...more specifically, the stars. whenever i look up i just have this sense of...well, i dunno...not exactly insignificance, but it's just this feeling that there's something out there (and no, not aliens, though they are pretty cool, too :D ) i'm not trying to say that people should go out and join religion or anything (i've got some problems with organized religion myself), but perhaps if you just think about it...i dunno.
what i compare the existense of god to is writing. i write in my free time, and after reading the book Sophie's World (which is SPECTACULAR, i must say) and i got to thinking...
anyway, well, i compare God to this author, and we are his characters. i mean, when we finish a book, where do the characters go? well, they're still in our minds, yes? sort of the same deal with God. it's like, the reason there's no "physical" evidence of his exsistence doesn't mean he doesn't exist. i mean, what if WE were the ones who were just a figment of imagination? i've tried thinking it out, and it's just crazy. what if WE were the ones who didn't really exist? what if WE were the ones who were just an idea living in God's mind? i mean, how do you "physically" prove a thought or an idea?
just something to think about...
The god Zeus was (or is for that matter) the son of Zeus and Rhea (both gods themselves) and among his many offspring ere the gods Apollo and Aphrodite.
Many Roman emperors were deified after their deaths.
So you see there is a precedent of gods being created.
As far as the question of where did the first atom come from I think it is not a matter of belief at all; that would be to turn a purely scientific question into a religious one just because there isnt a theory to explain it yet or if there is it may be beyond our grasp (as non phycisists). In fact in my opinion it doesnt make sense to talk about belief in what regards scientific theories, you may agree with them or not but it doesnt mean anything not to believe in them. You may say "I dont agree with Maxwell's equations, i dont think they describe the nature of electromagnetism accurately" but to say "I dont believe in modern electromagnetic theory", in my opinion, and bear in mind im not trying to offend anyone, is absurd.
Besides maybe in ancient times someone said "if you ask where did Zeus come from? i ask you who wields the thunderbolt?"
Hopefully someday we´ll know where the first atom came from.
"Hopefully someday we´ll know where the first atom came from."
But, for now, God's keeping it a secret;)
Hormones.Quote:
Originally Posted by Lilac Cotton
As far as us being rudimentary beings, may i remind you that this rudimentary beings have created the system through which you are communicating with people half a world a way?
Other rudimentary beings:
J S Bach
W A Mozart
William Shakespeare
Augustin Cauchy
Claude Shannon
Max Planck
The list goes on....
'Many Roman emperors were deified after their deaths.
So you see there is a precedent of gods being created.'
Well
Cha bu ghaisgeach Alasdair mor
No Caesar thug an Roimh gu geill;
Oir ged a thug iad buaidh air cach,
Dh' fhan iad 'nan traill d'a miannaibh fein
Quote:
Originally Posted by BeingaBunny
don't even bother with those silly arguments about time and inside/outside... they have all the counter-arguments lined up waiting...the church fathers did a nice job, and aquinas too. I say stick to your first line of reasoning---I found it refreshing to read here.
A VERY silly and invalid question. My nerves are twitching no end and my blood is boiling. Never would want to comment on this. IT WILL NEVER END and I don't wanna make enemies.
(WHAT created GOD?)
Sheesh.
And to the one who created this thread, PLEASE use the first letter of the pronouns pertaining to God in CAPITAL LETTERS. It is most REVOLTING and insulting.
I find the word "god" revolting but i'm not moaning about it and imposing religiosity with your capital letters on the person who created this site. mind your business about how people want to address...him, him, him, him. actually i think god is a woman. :banana:Quote:
Originally Posted by Laindessiel
Yes it's very clear you've never read any religious text.Quote:
Originally Posted by BeingaBunny
On the whole, I do not believe God has a sex and the fact that God is referred to as Father is an expression of respect. When it says, We are created in the image of God, this is not implying a physical image (ie. eyes, ears, mouth) but a spiritual image.
As for the belief that the idea of God solves nothing and you question what created God, well I find it hard to understand, and hope you can enlighten me, on why it is harder to understand the existance of God having always been in comparison to a physical substance (such as our universe) always has been around.
Now in response to this, the most believed theory on the universe is that at some point in time, there was a big bang (some theories expand this to multiple big bangs). But regaurdless of a single or multiple explanation, it all comes down to the fact that at sometime, there was an occurance that caused the entirety of the universe to expand from a point of singularity.
Now how did this point come to be? Did this point always exist?
It comes down to one thing. Faith. Do you have more Faith in a creator who has existed for eternity or do you have more faith in the idea that the physical world has existed for eternity. Personally, I do not have enough Faith to believe in the second.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Turk
Did religious texts create god or do people create religious texts? Or is the only way for people to know god through religious texts? Or maybe reason allows us to think about god without the smelly dogma. It's very clear that you haven't thought through these issues very much...Turk.
Texts. Well most of us here are readers so we have some reverence for these. But we're mainly not idolatrous about it.
The Creation which like the texts we interpret in different ways.
Personal experience which though often similar is never identical but which often directs us to similar and identical conclusions.
Something else. Ah too vague I know but what's that word for it ....
I believe the following; Mankind created God when they needed a reason for civilization to behave. Seriously, were I an ignorant, uneducated beggar in that period and they'd walk up to me and say; if you live a sinful life, you'll go to a place where you'll burn for all eternity, I'd freak out. And then they'd say; Lead a good life and God, our Heavenly Father, will send you to Heaven - paradise. It's a great way to manipulate criminals into changing their wicked ways. And since people wanted proof, they wrote the Bible. Conveniently enough, no one knows for sure whether it documents the truth. But let's not get into that.
That and people are trying to understand things they'll never understand. Why is the universe infinite? When was it created? Where do we come from? Humans are curious. And since the beginning of time, they've had theories. Theories are fine, as long as you don't condemn those who disagree with your beliefs.
Trouble with that as a theory is that it clearly didn't, doesn't and will not work. Granted my future tense is based only on historical experience. Most 'criminals' won't become good through threat of Hell but of course this 'they' you refer to is really not the third person plural but the first person plural and the beggars and criminals are all of us or. if you prefer, people like me.
Ps being condemned by a theory is not exactly likely to induce shaking in the shoes for most of us.
2000 years ago, things were different. Mankind has evolved. I think they might've viewed those holy people as truthful or enlightened. Religion influences people. It just does. I know millions of people lead good lives because they fear hell. Even those who don't really believe in God are afraid to stop going to church, etc because if they're wrong, they'll go to hell. I've heard many people say so. Religion is all about power and fear.Quote:
Originally Posted by ennison
Just think about the middle ages when heretics were burned at the stake. If society doesn't allow atheism, you feel a lot less inclined to openly support their (lack of) religion.
The strange thing here is that the non believers are sure that God was created, i see most say that man created God with his own mind in order to find solution for his existence. Doesnt seem wiered a little bit? i mean why you applicate the concept of creation on God and agree that he was created while you refuse the idea that this universe was created, you are talking like you are sure that the idea of existence of God is created by man himself, in other terms you are talking in the same way that believers do but in the other side (contrary), in other way you believe in the existence of abslute thing and for you its the non existence of God.
As i said once if we relate the action CREATE to someone then we cant applicate it on him especially when when we relaite him the absolute meaning. The things that need something to be existed need someone to make it exist, and if we relaite the existence of every thing to God then we cant relaite the existence of God to any thing, in other words every thing need God to be existed but God doesnt need anything to exist, he was and will be always. The believers of creation believe that every thing was created by God, such claim doesnt leave any place for the question "who created God?", its obvious that the question contraddict with it self, the question in other words (without the nomination of the creator) is: "who created the creator of everything?" or "who created the only creator?" as you see its "stupid question", we give God the absolute meaning of a word and then we ask like we didnt give the absolute meaning of the same word. Again the claim is of us is God created every thing, he is the only creator, or you discuss the accuracy of this claim or not, or to agree or t refuse.
Another thing, God existence is not prooved only by texts, but by every thing you see arround even by your self, its not a discussion of accuracy of verses or texts, so refusing texts doesnt mean God doesnt exist, God didnt talk only but he founded everything.
Leading a good life is not quite the same as not being a criminal. Religion will save no one and it is false belief that tells people that. Leading a good life is not enough either for various reasons. One of which you have spotted. If it's done out of fear it's not genuine - it's hypocrisy. So Hell wins again.
To quote Cervantes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Shield&Sword
"Over conceits of this sort the poor gentleman lost his wits, and used to lie awake striving to understand them and worm the meaning out of them; what Aristotle himself could not have made out or extracted had he come to life again for that special purpose."
The original text is much more beautiful, it loses all of its charm with the translation to English, too bad...
So, there was a small group of Semitic geniuses who decided one day, 3,000 years ago, to write a large amount of literature purely with the intention of creating control and order, and who managed to not only overpower their entire civilization, but also the Roman empire.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
Mankind did not create God - that is an overly simplistic view of things. Much more likely than that is the idea that some really dumb Semites 3,000 years ago had some strange natural phenomena happen to them, some "miraculous" occurences, and they over time developed a cultural explanation - God.
Which religion says that?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
This is even more frighteningly crude and simplistic - ask any anthropologist or sociologist. Writing the Bible, and any "creation" of a God myth, was not a conscious, socially motivated action - it was a cultural phenomena, taking many, many years.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
Define "truth." It is an astonishingly accurate historical document, which to date hasn't had any of its factual assertions refuted. Admittedly, some areas where the Bible claims history haven't yet been proven, but still haven't been disproven.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
That's human nature, thankfully.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
Surely this isn't a bad thing?Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
Hey, what are the odds? I agree with this statement.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
What kind of churches? What religion says that you have to "lead a good life" or "go to church" in order to avoid a "hell?"Quote:
Originally Posted by Dorian Gray
That's the stuff. Keep shouting Grace.
Which is more probable?Quote:
Originally Posted by ShoutGrace
1 Moses went up mount Sinai (or whichever mount it was, i know little to nothing bout religion), the skies opened up or whatever and an omniscient omnipotent being showed up and dictated the law to him.
2 Moses went up there, thought a little about how to get his people organised, decided he needed to make some laws and thought up a few to make his people behave. To make them abide by this laws he had just created he made up the whole God appearing to him thing, so, by giving his new rules this sacred aura, noone would dare defy them.
In my opinion, number two is much more likely, plus it leaves Moses as a far more cunning guy than we would otherwise be led to believe. In fact I know pretty little about the Moses story, but if you look at all of it in this manner, leaving God out of it, it looks as if he was one hell of an intelligent and manipulative political leader. The parting of the waters trick would be a tough one to pull off though.
I think the theory I proffered earlier is most probable (given an atheistic viewpoint). That is why I took the time to post it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guzmán
How about: Moses went up to Mount Sinai - it's a long climb, so he was rather dehydrated and hungry - he had a hallucination, after which he created the stone tablets. Over the years the story changed, was embellished, and eventually his people ended up recording his story in it's present form.Quote:
Originally Posted by Guzmán
I don't believe any of this for one second, but if I did take an atheistic stance, it would seem clear that mankind has not "created" God purposefully, with the intention of controlling masses.
Most atheists I've talked to - including those in these Forums - have said that God was (and is) the missing link for people who couldn't understand their environment, or couldn't deal with it. Remember, the whole "People invented a God who threw lightning when he was angry because they didn't understand the process of lightning?"
Moses was a man and had the faults of a man. He also had the strengths of a great leader but the story is not about a man. Moses is an agent not a power. Moses could have stayed in Egypt had he not made a choice. He made several choices which seem not to be entirely driven by self-interest. Finally, he himself didn't reach the Promised Land so his cunning, intelligence and success were all undercut by weaknesses. The thousands of wandering former slaves may have needed laws to govern them. But the tablets of stone do a great deal more than that - these other minor laws can be found elsewhere. The laws in stone have their limits too and were intended like that. I can see the sceptic finding the idea of it all being a con an attractive idea but that's because the sceptic is a sceptic.