Oh Free-Will. Where art Thou???

[Brian2]

That they're part of human psychology is very hard to doubt.

And the hypothesis that we humans produce gods because of our evolved tendencies as gregarious primates seems equally hard to doubt.

If gods had objective existence, if the supernatural were an actual place, a realm existing independently of any human thought of it, then when the people of South America, North America, Asia, the Pacific and Australia, the people of India and Africa would all see pretty much the same thing, like the men with good eyesight looking at the elephant. Their descriptions might vary, but they'd agree on the essentials ─ large, quadruped, tusked, relatively hairless, and so on. But when humans around the world have looked at the supernatural, they reach nothing even vaguely like a concordance of what that means.

People do make up their own gods and come to different conclusion on what God is and what He wants, and sometimes these gods are in the plural even.
There is a vague concordance of what God wants from humans however it seems. I guess that could be from humanity's commonality as people.

No, that's not correct. They're been studied quite thoroughly, certainly for the past 70 years or so, and the biochemicals that produce them have also been studied. While the more subtle parts of that are a work in progress, some big ones are undoubted ─ the effects of adrenaline, the effects of testosterone, the effects of estrogen, the effects of oxytocin ... and so on.

Science studies our bodies and chemistry and can find chemicals that have certain effects, but I don't think it is science which tells us that these chemicals produce love and hate etc.
That sounds something like the old fashioned witchcraft and alchemy where love potions were brewed.

I don't think that withstands the close-up look. For a start, we don't know of anything that God has said, only what humans have said [he] or they said. And what [he]'s said to have said varies enormously from place to place and religion to religion, which takes us back to what I said above about the inconsistency of reports about the supernatural.

True there are inconsistencies but also consistencies. But all this does not rule out a true God for the seeking of those who have faith,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or for the rejecting of those who say they cannot believe and have turned to other things to explain the universe.

 

[blü 2]

Science studies our bodies and chemistry and can find chemicals that have certain effects, but I don't think it is science which tells us that these chemicals produce love and hate etc.
That sounds something like the old fashioned witchcraft and alchemy where love potions were brewed.

The hormones &c are released largely at the command of the brain, generating the appropriate feeling ─ rage, pity, love &c ─ and the body's response in action, whether the expression of the face, or by body language, or fight or flight, as the case may require.

True there are inconsistencies but also consistencies. But all this does not rule out a true God for the seeking of those who have faith,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, or for the rejecting of those who say they cannot believe and have turned to other things to explain the universe.

At the least it casts doubt on gods ─ and a "true God" is a matter of culture and personal taste, not a judgment based on knowledge of reality, let alone observation.

 

[Brian2]

At the least it casts doubt on gods ─ and a "true God" is a matter of culture and personal taste, not a judgment based on knowledge of reality, let alone observation.

It seems that many things, that for some people cast doubt on the existence of God, for others can strengthen their faith in the existence of God.

 

[blü 2]

It seems that many things, that for some people cast doubt on the existence of God, for others can strengthen their faith in the existence of God.

Yes, it's strange, isn't it.