God and existence

It's lucky Frank is not here. Or this idly gentle speculation and ratiocination would have been wiped out by Frank's stern and irrefutable logic by Page 2 of the thread..

No doubt about it. God does exist:--IF-- He can be described as a societies collective imaginations regarding the unknown.

To ascribe events to a God that are at least equally well explained by quantum theories, evolution, or the laws of random chance is adding considerable complexities to what is, or should be, a fairly straightforward series of observations.

Since divorce, and the loss of shared memories is so traumatic for most humans, then the loss of a socially sanctioned imaginary Deity I can well imagine would be equally traumatic for many people. As a consequence of this perfecty understandable human desire for simplicity the creation of a God seems to be inevitable.

God is the answer as to "why" the world is not as we would wish it to be.

God is also the answer as to "why" we would wish the world different.

God is also the means (through prayer[or self hypnosis]) that we can use to make it more satisfactory.

Imagination is a necessary component of intelligence. Therefore an imaginary God is probably a necessary component of a successfull society of semi literate humans from an evolutionary standpoint.

The Bible reflects this--"Thou shall have no other gods before Me".
In other words, to be successfull as a society we must all be reading from the same page.

"Honor thy Father and thy Mother" (Learn from their experience)

"Thou shall not commit adultery" (respect property rights)

"Thou shall not covet etc. (more property rights)

TO the thread's question; Does God exist? Certainly, as long as you accept my definition of God. Outside of human imaginations though I'm pretty sure He doesn't

Am I an Athiest

Interesting post, mechsmith.

You hit the high spots.

What you say can be distilled into a few points. An ethic can be created from what we need and want. This is pragmatism. The ten commandments are an example of ethical principles, and they can be written on the tablet as "revealed" or they can be seen as a product of our reason and intellect. Either way, they are guidelines for our journey through life.

Although we do not need a god as an authority figure to enforce this ethic, many people find the need for one. Who will enforce the rules? We might need an authority figure who backs up the rules by sanctions and penalties. Therefore, we need an afterlife and a hell. It is hard for most of us to believe that the injustices that pervade our everyday lives -- bad guys go free, saintly types die from random bullets -- could be part of a top-down ordered world where Good will prevail. So...there must be a life after this one, where injustices are put right. (See below.)

I think this is where god came from. We mistrust or distrust our own minds to devise the right way to live. Or we will not take the time to figure things out for ourselves. Or we are too busy. Or too involved in just keeping ourselves and our families alive. So religion was created to structure a system to ensure the survival of society. And most of all to give us hope.

I don't think there is an active god who intervenes in our lives. There may have been a prime mover (as Aristotle thought) or a Music of the Spheres, a resonance beyond the imagining of quantum theory. I think Shakespeare got it right: We are as flies to the Gods/ They kill us for their sport.

We live in a random world where hundreds of thousands die in a wave of water, where an equal number are killed in an earthquake. I am not pessimistic about where human thought can lead us, and I have great hope about imaginings and improvings, and I think humans, if we survive, will evolve into quite unimaginable beings thousands of years from now.

FIRST
why do we talk about god
when we dont know what we are?

"dont SEE" is a better phrase..

we are the ultimate observer when we alow it.

go there 1st.

see my other recent post here.

then ask about god.
.

www
There is only one ultimate observer here
in this world

your misery-self can die.

dont faint

Why is it, meL999, that although you're only on 30 posts, already 2 threads have been locked, apparently due to your links and/or comments?

Maybe you're cursed.

Maybe not.

aperson,

He is better at invoking the gods than are we.