Sorry if this has been posted before, but I have some questions I have always thought about and wanted to get some other ideas. Yes I did a search, but with all the hits I don't have the time (or too lazy ) to look through them all. So I was wondering... 1) Who/what gives power to god/gods/goddesses (whatever you believe)? What I mean here is where did the power of (use the umbrella term) god come from to create, destroy etc.? 2) Did god (again umbrella term) create all the universes we now know about? Or did he just create ours? 3) Why is it that nearly every major religion makes no comment on the creation of life before man (i.e. dinosaurs, mammals etc.) 4) What created god (umbrella term)? Again, sorry if some of these are repost, if that is the case can anyone direct me to the thread that may have these? Thanks all for the input
I believe you've answered your own questions with your questions. I think you already have your answers and are looking for a validation. But to put in my nickle, the authority (power if you will) comes from the masses in the belief of said "fill in the blank". To put it another way. How does your boss have power (authority) over you? You give it to him every time you do as he says. If you told him "No" what would happen? Can he truely make you do anything you truely wish to no do? Think about that a bit.
No not really, I don't have my own answers, though I am interested to hear everyone elses ideas. Thanks for that tidbit to think about.
Ok...I'll give you the Catholic way of thinking as presented to me in school, and then what I think. 1. God just magically has these powers to create and destroy. (Catholic school). Me personally, I'm not sure a God exists. 2. Catholic religion classes state that God created the universe and everything in and around it. Me, Science proves something different. 3. Religion wants to deny science because it goes beyond what they think. 4. Man created God. This are my opinions. Don't persecute me for them
Well god would ‘exist’ outside the universe (i.e. space time), yet creating time is an oxymoron since creation requires time. We only know of ours. Because religions hold that humans and the rest of the animal kingdom were created at the same time, at the beginning of time. Of course, many religious people don't hold this opinion. Man created god to a) explain the world around him and b) to grant desires one doesn’t have good reasons for.
Finding this answer to the cosmological argument was such an epithany! My variation is: "The universe is either finite or infinite depending on whether time had a beginning. If it is infinite then clearly nothing came 'before' the universe. If time does have a beginning then still nothing came 'before' as 'before' is a relation between times (X happened before Y) and if time trully began then there can be nothing that is 'before' that point, otherwise that point would not be the beginning." Bear in mind that not all conceptions of God are supernatural in this sense. Incidently, Open Theists have claimed that the God of the Bible doesn't have to be supernatural and it was influence from Plato's philosophy of divine that influenced this part of Christian theology, which in turn they reject to posit a natural God. Although I guess that those who posit a natural God have different problems, like how a God within spacetime with its metaphysical constraints and laws of physics manages to have such Godly powers, which brings us back to Taoquan's original questions.
I would also switch this around to saying" Science wants to deny religion because it goes beyond what they think. Cause it is really a two way street there Some Taoism also maintains that time has no beginning or end, but rather it is also all happening right now. So the universe is being created/destroyed all things living/dying, past/present/future are all right now. So we are already dead, but at the same time being born. There is no before or after. Could god have created time? I am curious here though, where do you think man got the idea to create god? I mean honestly even this day and age, we have a hard time thinking of something greater than us (for the most part) or science. So do you think with knowledge we lost the imagination for a God? Or was it simply lack of knowledge 1,000s of years ago that we were "forced" to make up god/gods? Even if we created god and one were to think of the "big bang theory" Where did the big bang come from?
I don't think that's a belief maintained as the words here have been abstracted out of making any sense whatsoever. If you think about what time is and what creation is, creation is an act that happens within time. So creating 'time' in an impossibility as creation is an action that can only happen within time.
Except its not. "science" is not a collection of people with one specific aim or desire, it is a method with which people are able to better understand the universe we live in. If someone could scientifically prove the existance of God (or any other supernatural power) that proof would be absorbed into and accepted by the scientific community. Science doesn't want anything, least of all to deny religion, what scientists as a group generally value above anything else though is critical thinking and an understanding of the world we live in, which is the direct opposite of Religions the world over who value blind faith and evidenceless acceptence of what you are told.
When has Taoism ever made sense? Good points PJ, I agree with you there, though I do wonder what kind of conflict a scientist may have whom is religious. I would like to know how they separate science and religion.
The First Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, so some hold that matter and energy always existed in the singularity. So in a sense, matter and energy were infinite, as a singularity. So when we speak of the big bang we refer to the expansion of the singularity into the universe we have today, but not the creation of the matter or energy. Well the only options for believers is that a) god ‘exists’ outside of the universe, thus this god would be impotent to ‘do’ anything! Or b) this god exists within the universe, ergo he could not have created it, he would also be in the purview of science. The only reason I can even to being to think why anyone would summon a god is for an explanation for the universe, and this necessarily places such as person in option (a). That said, either option kills most religions. This would be option (b) from above, which Christianity doesn’t fall into. Well a ‘natural god’ wouldn’t have ‘godly powers’ as per theism. Besides, I think a ‘natural god’ is somewhat of an oxymoron since the term ‘god’ implies far more than nature. Anything in spacetime is necessarily constrained to the laws of physics, thus the powers of any god within the universe would necessarily be natural. This also denies more religions. It’s in our nature… we always seek explanations, so its no surprise that we seek answers as to where the universe and ‘we’ (humans) came from. It’s also partly also due to how we are raised by our parents… we know that we came from our parents and was cared for by them, we know that the same happened for our parents and their parents and so on. It’s not surprising that would assume from this some kind of ultimate care-giver in that of god. So this god is simply a projection of humans. I don’t think we were forced. I think it was a natural consequence of who we are. We seek explanations. Religions however, as in ‘dogma’ and ‘institutions’ was merely a way of gaining authority and control. Religion/god simply a projection of human desires… when we don’t have good reasons for our desires, we project them as gods. No one knows what happened before the big bang, we can only theorize, yet it is an error to suppose god as an explanation be default (god also doesn’t explain anything).
"we have a hard time thinking of something greater than us" I'd agree there. Even our gods are pretty mundane. One thing that strikes me is that gods through the ages have been incredibly human in nature. Angry, jealous, vengeful, petty, petulent etc etc etc. They also bear the marks of being created by the people that live in the regions where they are worshipped. Viking gods were a bit like vikings, Roman and Greek gods a bit like Romans and Greeks, Ganesh has the head of an elephant and was created in a region where elephants live...coincidence?...if Ganesh had the head of a polar bear then perhaps Hinduism might be on to something? Religions are so clearly rooted in the environment they originally arose in. That for me casts doubt on the whole religion concept. I also think that it is no coincidence that the religions that have survived best into the modern world are ones that adapt easiest and bear the least telltale signs of regionality (by and large).
Exactly. Religions (at least those that are still around and widely practiced) are extremely successful memes that survive and propagate themselves in the human "thought pool" by adapting to new environments and out-competing rival memes for survival down the generations. That religion still exists as such a prevalent force is a testament to its adaptative ability.
I'm not sure about that... I mean, who are you to prescribe what is and what isn't Christianity? Open theists believe in the truth of the Bible, just that early Christian Theology was erroneously influenced by Plato. Ofcourse, such a claim has historical implications, after all it was these Plato-influenced theologians that put together the Bible that these Open Theists adhere to. You also gave some good objections to a natural god as follows: It's been a while, but how about the 'God of the Sims'? Outside of spacetime, but still within a kind of spacetime so still natural. Such a God would lose some attributes. (e.g. early theologians relied on his unintelligibility in order to apply abstract concepts like absolute perfection) but he could still be the God of the Bible... I think that these ideas I'm putting forward are seriously 'ad hoc' and can't see there being a way out of making a coherent theory out of them, but I think it makes a good philosophical exercise to consider them. I've personally got an interest in radical theology. (English Protestant theologians trying to revamp religion) It's not supernaturalistic, but not quite naturalistic... The first look baffles me, but they seem to range from taking an Eastern "God is the depth of our experience" approach to theology, from redefining it to those who take an in-depth interest in life, including atheists!
Due to gods being a projection of humans, and thus human behaviour. Do you agree with Richard Dawkins who states that religion is simply the genes or ‘rule of thumbs’ from previous evolutionary behaviours ‘misfiring’ into modern worship/religions? He also states (and I agree) that ‘worldwide altruism’ is a ‘misfiring’ of local kinship altruism.
I don’t prescribe anything. The Bible does it for me. By definition, in order to create something you must exist independently from it. Any being responsible for creating the universe must exist independently from it, therefore outside of it. Christianity posits a creator god, therefore ruling out a natural god, or god within the universe. Then their belief in a natural god is in contradiction with the Bible. From the Open Theism wiki page: - The concepts of omnipresence and immutability do not stem from the Bible, but from the subsequent fusion of Judeo-Christian thought with the Greek philosophy of Platonism and Stoicism, which posited an infinite God and a deterministic view of history. - The God described in the Bible is the most powerful, most knowing, most loving, and most unchanging in his nature, but not omni-everything. In scripture, he changed his mind and plans [2], voluntarily limited Himself in power, was surprised by events on Earth [3], was hurt [4], and paid attention to the pleas of men and angels [5]. The Bible clearly states god is an omni-max god. The authors simply go on to contradict this by projection human characteristics onto 'him' http://www.rationalresponders.com/t...of_the_christian_gods_omnipotence_omniscience I’m not getting back into this again. Todangst more than dealt with it. Something is either inside spacetime, or outside it. The Christian god is outside of it for the reasons I gave above. Any argument you make about separate a ‘spacetime’ / ‘nature’ would be special pleading, ad hoc etc. Maybe Socrastein would like to take a look. Absolutely, and we already have! This makes no sense. It’s either one or the other. There is nothing natural about the supernatural, and nothing supernatural about the natural, if there were, they would be the same ‘place’.
If you believe HJS' presentation of Christian doctrine, than I've got a bridge to sell you. He never ever ever states a position correctly. Double " "
God is a tool for the week and scared so they don't have to except that their actions are there own to deal with ! God is also a tool for social control that is hinged on the idea that someone knows about things you do not and thus should be believed out of fear of a bad afterlife or being shunned by folk! Stop praying to the ether, be your own god, after all in the unlikely event god is out there you were made in that image by a perfect being and thus are the closest thing you'll ever find to god ! Be good because it makes you well liked by all us other gods out there, and will make you feel well! P.S. I don't like religion of any kind and want it to die, die, die worms eating its eyes :bang: :bang: .
