RestlessSoul
Well-Known Member
Yes, I see your point; you have a very narrow view of what religion and spirituality are, based on your own narrow experience and consciously limited perspective.
Last edited:
-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
Why won't God go away?
- Thread starter siti
- Start date
Yes, I see your point; you have a very narrow view of what religion and spirituality are, based on your own narrow experience and consciously limited perspective.
Weird response.
My experience and perspective is informed by talking with many, many religious people.
siti
Well-Known Member
The one that hasn't gone away...
[I thought my OP was fairly clear that I am talking about the idea of God...the kind of thing that was invented (at least for most of them in the minds of most believers, and all of them in the minds of avowed atheists) to do the things I mentioned (to wit, explain mysteries, enforce morality...etc.) and that was rendered redundant (as an explanation of the mystery of human origins) by Darwin and declared "dead" (as a source of rational explanations, moral rectitude...etc.) by Nietzsche...]
IOW - as I mentioned...God is a costly burden...so why is he still there?
siti
Well-Known Member
Right! So if that's the case, then it IS appropriate to ask "which God?" but also to ask "why don't the others go away?"
Being facetious like that does not endear you.
Really, it is rather clear why. Not a matter of pride for anyone, but not much of a mystery either.
I guess I'm not as smart as you (perhaps because I hold certainty in contempt).
siti
Well-Known Member
He was obviously speaking prophetically too...when Nietzsche wrote "God is dead" in 1883, God only had a mild temperature and a slight cough...but he foresaw a time when human rationality would kill God off completely...as I recall, he wrote something along the lines of people not believing the declaration of God's death because they could not smell his rotting corpse...well perhaps we can smell it now...but I'm not so sure...
...as you say, God still seems to be in the pink in the US. But why?
Of course, everyone doesn't agree with these assertions. Thus why they believe in God.
You're assuming the conclusion here a bit, right?
siti
Well-Known Member
Right! So on a social/cultural cost/benefit analysis, does God come out economical or profligate overall?
This is why people believe in God. Not with this little nuance.
siti
Well-Known Member
Perhaps. But these are all costly...it would be less burdensome for our cultures and for individuals to weed out beliefs based on fear and awe and simply say "we don't know and we don't care"...i.e. surely, if these are the reasons, by now our cultures should be saying atheism or agnosticism are "cheaper" options...shouldn't they?
I have noticed that in the many decades since Nietzsche that wherever God is pushed out, some other god often appears. Sometimes its a politician if one happens to live in a fascist country, and there is no higher authority than the leader of that country. The image of a leader goes up everywhere to be admired and imitated. Leaders everywhere and throughout History often attempt to deify themselves. When they don't they are considered unusually humble. Its predictable, actually, if you watch those drawn to power; and the more power they want the easier it is for them to become self deceived and to desire others to believe that they are a deity. Worse, they draw other people into their fiction, and it seems obvious that people regularly enjoy being so drawn to deities and will even enforce the illusion of deity and impress it upon leaders.
It seems to me that this is what Nietzsche probably is afraid of. He's afraid of something. I'm not sure what, but he's afraid something bad will happen if God is removed. I feel like we've seen what happens due to the availability of History as well as the intense recording of events over the last several centuries.
Are you sure? There are places where God has been pushed out, and you could probably move to one of them. I'm not saying you have to.
Why? You clearly failed to do so in the OP. I suspect it was because you neither knew nor cared that he was speaking about the Christian God, rendering the post as parochial as it was pretentious.
Of course! I think I'm still a bit lost, though, unfortunately. There are so many more gods that haven't "gone away" beyond the type described in the opening post. To say nothing of the odd assumption that "naturalistic" explanations somehow negate other perspectives, which is also just losing me a bit (Them - "you can like either art museums or science exhibitions, not both" Me - "wait.. what?").
siti
Well-Known Member
I had no idea I had so much influence!
siti
Well-Known Member
Endearment wasn't the response I was after so no problem there! And if the answer is clear, maybe you could clearly expound it?
IndigoChild5559
Loving God and my neighbor as myself.
I suspect that belief in God is largely due to human ability to sense agency. It is not a full proof instinct--we sometimes sense agency when none is there. But basically, if we hear rustling in the bushes, we get scared and run away thinking it is a wild animal or predatory person, when in fact it may simply be a broken branch finally succumbing to gravity. It is this instinct to agency that has kept us alive, since no harm is done if its only a broken branch, but NOT running away could get one eaten. So natural selection has chosen to pass on and proliferate the trait.
Now, how we INTERPRET that sense of agency can vary. The oldest form of religion was animism, the idea that everything has a soul or manna. From there, polytheism developed. And from there, monotheism. I tend to think of this instinct as sort of analogous to a primitive eye that can only see light and dark -- our ability to perceive the Divine is not very evolved yet, which is why it is interpreted differently by different people. But still you have religion in every known society.
There are of course a few individuals who so NOT sense agency in the universe. We call them atheists.
It is also true that religion plays a big part in our personal well being. People involved in religious communities are healthier, happier, longer lived, and have a buffer against anxiety and depression. Evolutionary biologist Dr David Sloan Wilson postulates that religion is an adaptation because it helps to form cooperative groups, and as we all know, a cooperative group will out compete an non-cooperative group any day.
siti
Well-Known Member
Then perhaps you could balance the scales by providing an unpretentious explanation as to why God is alive and well in your parish!