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Man created the gods, why do we believe God created man?

 
 
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 12:09 pm
Man created gods through a desperate need to explain how the natural world worked, a morbid fear of forces over which he had no control, and a hope that appeasement of the gods would ensure his good fortune and survival.

Explanation. Fear. Appeasement. Those are the foundation stones of religion.

Man created gods...the rain god sun god, god of love, war etc etc.

Is it such a leap of imagination to postulate man also created God?
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Type: Discussion • Score: 11 • Views: 8,766 • Replies: 114
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Chesterton
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 01:12 pm
@Steve 41oo,
Anything is possible. Consider though that God had to create man in order for man to create the ever so called gods of the Universe; therefore, God was first. Without God there would be no life forms on Earth and without the life forms which we as humans have, there'd be no chance of the gods being created.
Foxfyre
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 02:14 pm
@Steve 41oo,
The hypothesis reads much differently if one approaches it from a non anti-religious perspective, however.

There are no known cultures ever identified that did not include some awareness of a higher power which provides some plausibility in the possibility that such higher power exists. Such awareness has not come with a fully translated handbook or an unclouded picture of the nature and/or powers of such higher power, however, and different cultures chose different name or names for such being or beings and developed different myths to explain the being's relationship and involvement with humankind. Some of these included elements of fear and appeasement, yes, but at least as often there is an element of hope that man was not a hopeless pawn or prisoner of his environment and/or circumstances.

So, you could as easily write:

Explanation: Awareness. Hope. Mystery. Faith. The foundation stones of religion.

Man shaped gods: into the image that man imagined them to be.

Is it such a leap of credibility to postulate that, given the overwhelming prevalence of man's consideration of a god or gods, that such being or beings exist?

JTT
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 02:27 pm
@Foxfyre,
Quote:
Explanation: Awareness. Hope. Mystery. Faith. The foundation stones of religion.

Man shaped gods: into the image that man imagined them to be.

Is it such a leap of credibility to postulate that, given the overwhelming prevalence of man's consideration of a god or gods, that such being or beings exist?


In a word, yes. And when it comes to religion, "awareness" has no place beside hope, mystery and faith.
0 Replies
 
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 04:53 pm
@Foxfyre,
Foxfyre wrote:
...Man shaped gods: into the image that man imagined them to be.
and man uncreated them. What happened to Osiris? or Thor? Is there a retirement home in the sky for redundant gods?

You agree with me that man created gods. Isnt it quite obvious that man created God too? There was a plethora of gods/goddesses in the ancient world. One or another for every occasion. Then amalgamation...one god doing for several purposes. Finally one god doing the lot. It really is very simple. But of course we are brainwashed from childhood into believing god created man. Children believe, but some adults use their brain.
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 08:12 pm
@Steve 41oo,
Quote:
Is it such a leap of imagination to postulate man also created God?

Of course not. It's the obvious conclusion.
0 Replies
 
Intrepid
 
  1  
Reply Thu 16 Oct, 2008 08:19 pm
@Steve 41oo,
Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
...Man shaped gods: into the image that man imagined them to be.
and man uncreated them. What happened to Osiris? or Thor? Is there a retirement home in the sky for redundant gods?

You agree with me that man created gods. Isnt it quite obvious that man created God too? There was a plethora of gods/goddesses in the ancient world. One or another for every occasion. Then amalgamation...one god doing for several purposes. Finally one god doing the lot. It really is very simple. But of course we are brainwashed from childhood into believing god created man. Children believe, but some adults use their brain.



Can you name some?
Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Oct, 2008 08:16 am
@Intrepid,
is that a challenge?
0 Replies
 
Brandon9000
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Oct, 2008 08:18 am
@Steve 41oo,
The point is that there's not a shred of evidence of the existence of a God, and it's dumb to believe specific assertions for which there is no evidence.
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Sat 18 Oct, 2008 08:43 am
@Steve 41oo,
Better question....

The name associations between pantheon gods and our planets are primordial.

Nonetheless if you were to walk up to a bunch of primitive people in our present world and offer them a hundred dollars apiece to devise an astral religion entirely from scratch, the two most major things they would end up worshiping would be the sun and the moon; Venus would be a very distant third.

But the two chieftain gods of every one of those ancient astral religions were Jupiter and Saturn, and not the sun or moon.

Why would that be?


Steve 41oo
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 05:42 am
@gungasnake,
Have you never heard of Ra, the Sun God?
Walter Hinteler
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 05:51 am
@gungasnake,
gungasnake wrote:

But the two chieftain gods of every one of those ancient astral religions were Jupiter and Saturn, and not the sun or moon.


Jupiter is the Roman equivalent of Zeus in the Greek pantheon, while Saturn is the Greek deity Cronus.

And these two gods got their names from ... there's a lot to find on the internet, gunga!


0 Replies
 
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 05:52 am
@Steve 41oo,

The mystery of religion to me is why so many evidently intelligent and well-meaning people believe in a branch of it.

I don't, personally.
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 06:15 am
@McTag,
Atheism and evoloserism are religions whether you want to call them that or not.

There are a fixed number of miracles in the bible, both testaments, and that number is probably less than 50. Evolution requires infinite sequences of probabilistic miracles, i.e. endless violations of real mathematical and probabilistic laws. The odds against evolution are certainly infinite and probably uncountably infinite, i.e. the cardinality of those odds is likely that of the real numbers and not integers.

spendius
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 06:49 am
If God didn't create everything then women are meaningless and descended from apes which is to say that they are not divine and they are thus unworthy of attention.

The next layer of meaning, as Marx explained, is then economic and sheep-shagging comes into its own as the best choice for the wise and parsimonious gentleman. Dogs have a tendency to bark at inappropriate moments and monkeys are too much of a nuisance in the numbers required.

And sheep can be easily fed on upland grass and are easy to turn into mutton when one feels like a change.

Personally I feel that ladies are divine and thus I'm a firm believer in the Almighty's most intelligently designed creature even if it is an inscrutable and often trying puzzle.

As Dr Hfuhruhurr said in The Man With Two Brains--"I can't **** a monkey."

McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 07:02 am
@gungasnake,

How is atheism a religion, you daft twonk?
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 07:11 am
@McTag,
As I noted, it amounts to belief in probabilistic miracles.
McTag
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 07:14 am
@gungasnake,

I'm not buying that, Gunga. No-one is claiming "miracle" for evolution except God-botherers.
nimh
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 07:15 am
@Steve 41oo,
Steve 41oo wrote:

What happened to Osiris? or Thor? Is there a retirement home in the sky for redundant gods?

There is, actually. It's a very nice place. Tad boring though. They play table tennis a lot.
0 Replies
 
gungasnake
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Oct, 2008 07:19 am
@McTag,
Quote:
I'm not buying that...



Irrelevant.
 

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