Dimi95
Прaвославие!
You explained nothingHumans intelligence
Humans complex mind
No it started when little fish, started to grow legs
Evidence is above
Where does the idea of God come from?
What led them to think that God exist?
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Is it important to know, when humans started believing in God?
- Thread starter Madsaac
- Start date
Where does the idea of God come from?
What led them to think that God exist?
Madsaac
Active Member
When humans were trying to understand the world, their surroundings. Humans enlarged minds led to critical in depth thinking, imagination. Human evolution.
So it would have been natural to think that something else (whatever in may be) made the world and so on. Therefore human intelligence created God
And you know what, its the power of the human mind which also made up Jesus etc because people wanted to make sense of the world back then. It's a natural for humans to make sense of the world in creative ways, we are so smart
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Not really sure what you mean by "some outside thing."
What is "outside" versus "inside" is very much a matter of perspective. One can always draw a line on a piece of paper and declare "this is outside, and this is inside." Then someone else can take the same piece of paper and draw that line in a somewhat different place. Others might draw many lines on that piece of paper, declaring "this is type A, this is type B, this is type C." Yet another might draw no lines on the paper whatsoever, and not even acknowledge that the paper has edges to it.
Joseph Campbell has been a long term inspiration for me. His insight into the nature of human cultures and religion is deep. He did not state he thought the spiritual beliefs of ancient religions and beliefs were true or false, It was simply their story. I was intrigued by his description of God as a metaphor and began my journey to a Universalist not UU. I believe in a universal God and I am a Baha'i, but because I am human everything is in pencil. I am a philosophical agnostic, and yes God may not exist, and it may be best considered a metaphor for the nature of human spirituality found in ALL cultures in history of humanity, but I believe life and humanity both physically and spiritually evolved from some point when homo sapiens became spiritual humans the hypothetical Adam over 100,000 years ago, out of Africa. From the Universalist perspective IF there is a 'Source' some call Gods then the only option is a universal God beyond the belief of any one culture or religion. The physical and spiritual evolution of humanity would reflect the evolved attributes of this 'Source.' If not there is an unresolvable contradiction in what would be a universal omnipotent, omnipresent all-knowing God. No one of the many conflicting religions or divisions can claim God as their and only true God.
Yes, the 'Source' some call Gods may be Nature. We as fallible humans do not 'know.'
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IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
No, it is not important to know that. The religious nature of humans has slowly evolved. You don't see fish having religions. In the same way, our consciousness of the spiritual has altered over the last 200,000 years of humanities existence. The original religious view was animism. That evolved into polytheism, and that evolved into monotheism.
Madsaac
Active Member
Sorry, I meant something else apart from humans invented God/Spirituality
Madsaac
Active Member
Yeah, so I'm asking if all these 'isms' have been created by humans in line with our evolving intelligence or did a 'God/Spirituality' of any sort give it to humans?
What do you think?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I dont' really make a distinction between those two things. If God determined the laws of the universe, which led to the evolution of sentient life, then yes, we would say God is responsible for the religions that humans create.
Madsaac
Active Member
Did God know there would be sentient life? If so, why did it have to evolve then?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
since I am not God, I really can't say what God knew and didn't know. I don't think it is relevant whether God knew or not. It makes absolutely no difference.
Does belief in God come first or does the concept of God come first?
This is pr-empted by the doctrine that God is beyond our understanding. That implies that belief in God comes without any concept of God because the concept is beyond our understanding. By that virtue it is as if belief comes before concept. Therefore in Christian doctrine it probably doesn't matter when people start believing in God, as it does not bear upon the existence of God.
Is God relevant without language? Does God consist of arguments?
If we assert that we believe God exists that is something we can do with language, however we can also do so without language. In doctrine the study of nature is a study of God, and anyone can do that. Anyone can admire nature without understanding or articulating from it.
I think your question about 50,000 years is relevant, whatever the actual year is. If it is 100,000 years or 50,000 or only 1 year the question remains; but it is more applicable to specific religions than to God. More importantly it makes a statement about people that we can spend our lives dedicated to ideas which turn out to be empty: such as utopias or like love for a king who impresses us or believe that aliens will come and help us all to grow out of our human foibles.
Did humans make up God ourselves?
I think we discovered God rather than made God up. This is evidenced by the multiple different cultures who have independently talked about God and who have no social connection. It is a different question from whether God is real. You asked if we made God up. No we didn't.
I have no good reason to believe these claims, because there is nothing good supporting them, which is why I call them baseless claims:
"Isn't it a coincidence that humans only started to believe in 'God' when we our brains reached a certain size for intelligence and consciousness, something like 50,000 years a go".
"Humans had been around for a long, long time before that".
I don't think humans made up the idea of God/spirits. I think for example that the idea of Bible God we have, because God has announced Himself, and has intervened as told in the Bible. If that would not have happened, I don't think humans would have developed the idea.
Maninthemiddle
Active Member
Does it serve you in anyway to know when others began believing.
I'd still consider this a matter of perspective.
Religion is an inherently relational endeavor. That is, it is a response that arises from the human condition and the human experience. These experiences necessarily involve countless others, gods and otherwise, human and otherwise. Religion would not have come to be without the greater-than-human world, and as such, it can very much be considered a co-creator of all human religions. Humanity did not create religion out of nothingness. Frankly, this same logic applies of all human makings - they did not come out of solely themselves, but only in relationship with or with reliance upon non-human others.
Madsaac
Active Member
No, not really just a topic for discussion, I think our human brain made us start believing in something else.
And I don't think it's any coincidence that humans started to believe in other things at the same time as when out brain developed. What do you think?
And by the way, does it serve you to know if it serves me in anyway, when others began believing?
It serves me to know if it serves @Maninthemiddle to know if it serves you in any way.
I'm curious like that.
Madsaac
Active Member
PearlSeeker
Well-Known Member
I partly agree. The idea of hypothetical existence of a supreme being or ultimate reality is a natural aspect of human mind. The question raises in itself. Reason naturally seeks explanation, reason, ground...
Even if humans and the idea evolved naturally (without the help of any divine revelation and intervention) there is still a possibility that things were meant to be this way. Just like computer programmers can run a simulation.
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It's curious and weird you'd rate my last post as "optimistic" @Madsaac.
Are you the sort that believes that a home builder can make a house solely with materials derived from themselves? Perhaps this is the case if the house is built only in their imaginations, but if they want to build a house that non-imaginary humans live in? Doesn't the home builder have to use materials derived not from themselves, but from the greater-than-human world around them? It is "optimistic" to recognize this dependency of human endeavors on non-human others for all of its affairs?
Seriously, though, this is a grossly overlooked aspect of how religions (and the present state of the human condition just in general) came to be. It didn't come out of nothing. Because nothing we do does. It all comes from life experiences - which inherently involve other-than-human aspects of reality unless you believe all reality is some simulation of the human brain (silly, but it is a thing some folks believe). In some cultures, experiences with those things led to deeply valuing them and deification which is why there is routine deification of nature and its aspects. But no matter the interpretation, the dependency upon and relations with non-human others is inherent and everywhere and unavoidable.
That said, not gonna pretend I'm not biased as someone studied in ecology, environmental science, and Druidry. Recognizing interdependence is just part and parcel of those studies. I'm gonna have trouble understanding the "lone wolf" (which are not actually a thing in nature, ironically) mentality of "I did this 100% on my own with no help or inspiration from anything outside of myself whatsoever." I don't believe that ever happens.
Are you the sort that believes that a home builder can make a house solely with materials derived from themselves? Perhaps this is the case if the house is built only in their imaginations, but if they want to build a house that non-imaginary humans live in? Doesn't the home builder have to use materials derived not from themselves, but from the greater-than-human world around them? It is "optimistic" to recognize this dependency of human endeavors on non-human others for all of its affairs?
Seriously, though, this is a grossly overlooked aspect of how religions (and the present state of the human condition just in general) came to be. It didn't come out of nothing. Because nothing we do does. It all comes from life experiences - which inherently involve other-than-human aspects of reality unless you believe all reality is some simulation of the human brain (silly, but it is a thing some folks believe). In some cultures, experiences with those things led to deeply valuing them and deification which is why there is routine deification of nature and its aspects. But no matter the interpretation, the dependency upon and relations with non-human others is inherent and everywhere and unavoidable.
That said, not gonna pretend I'm not biased as someone studied in ecology, environmental science, and Druidry. Recognizing interdependence is just part and parcel of those studies. I'm gonna have trouble understanding the "lone wolf" (which are not actually a thing in nature, ironically) mentality of "I did this 100% on my own with no help or inspiration from anything outside of myself whatsoever." I don't believe that ever happens.