God... What are your thoughts???

[Boerseun]

Good point about eternal life you made, REASON. It could very well be reasoned that the wellspring of all religions are the inherent, instinctive, animalistic, evolutionary and very Darwinian fear of death.

 

Whenever faced with a decision, animals will take the one that has the least chance of killing them. Thus they survive, thus they procreate. To avoid death is to live longer, to have more time to spread your genes.

 

When someone tells you that if you act in a certain way you'll receive eternal life, that's a mighty strong incentive to start believing them and to act the way they tell you to - like fasting every now and then, etc., 'praying', or pretending to have a radio link-up to the Big Man, using your steepled fingers as a transmitter.

 

So, yes - turning to religion has a strong Darwinian foundation. Ironic, won't you say?

[REASON]

So, yes - turning to religion has a strong Darwinian foundation. Ironic, won't you say?

 

ABSOLUTELY! It's only natural.

 

The need to survive is at the core. It is ancient. It is inherent. It is critical. It drives us. And we are becomming more and more conscious of the need to survive. Terms such as life, health, safety, security, and protection seem to be more prominent than ever - at least in my lifetime.

 

It would only follow that for a species that is capable of considering it's own mortality, that it would want to find a way to override that prospect with a notion of eternal survivability. That requires a God.

[Pyrotex]

Voltaire (who attacked the Church vehemently in 17th Century France) said:

 

"If there were no God, Man would find it necessary to invent one."

 

That statement is awesome, because it can be taken as simple statement, sarcasm, or a combination of the two!

[Boerseun]

Voltaire (who attacked the Church vehemently in 17th Century France) said:

 

"If there were no God, Man would find it necessary to invent one."

 

That statement is awesome, because it can be taken as simple statement, sarcasm, or a combination of the two!

...or a shrewd observation of the innate human need to pass the responsibility buck.

[REASON]

...or a shrewd observation of the innate human need to pass the responsibility buck.

 

God is only responsible when things go well. Misfortune is at the hand of someone or something else.

[Pyrotex]

God is only responsible when things go well. Misfortune is at the hand of someone or something else.

A bus carrying 99 newly christened nuns on their way to the Vatican suddenly burst into flames as the gas tank ruptured, spewing flaming gasoline throughout the vehicle. As the nuns were being incinerated, the bus flew off the road into a thicket of acacia trees with razor-sharp, nine-inch thorns. All the nuns died, except one, Sara, who will recover, despite 3rd degree burns over 80% of her body, and scores of thorn punctures in every muscle, joint, and through her eyes. The Pope responded with gratitude that Sister Sara was miraculously saved, by the grace of a loving God who spared her from death. A mass of thanksgiving has been scheduled in her honor.

 

I'm sorry, what's wrong with this picture?

Pyro

[REASON]

I'm sorry, what's wrong with this picture

Pyro

 

Thank you for illustrating my point.

 

Of course, there is the perpetual "Act Of God" that periodically comes sweeping through in the form of a tornado, hurricane, flood, or ever popular lightning strike, causing irreparable damage to some unsuspecting community. But then there's always someone who is thankfully spared or saved by him, from his own "act." I guess I am to believe that God performs these "acts" so that he has an opportunity to then save someone, and then be seen as heroic and worthy of praise.

 

and what's wrong with this picture?

[Boerseun]

What's wrong with the picture, is a misunderstanding of causality, which resulted in the invention of the God concept in the first place.

 

Luckily for us, civilization, and humanity in general, scientific progress have been pushing back the dark mysteries of nature ever since the first caveman clobbered his buddy over the head with a stone to see whether stone is harder than bone. That was a bona fide scientific experiment, much to his buddy's detriment. But ever since that day, our understanding of the world around us have been growing every day.

 

We need reasons for why things happen. We need a reason why a bus full of nuns would catch fire. We invent God to supply us with an instant, ready-to-eat reason: It was God's Will. And if you should question that, there's always the faithful backup: God moves in mysterious ways.

 

Luckily, now we start to understand how things work. We understand that fuel heats up, and evaporates, and will mix with oxygen which, when in the right mix and presented with a spark (which could be caused by a static discharge or a short - flowing electrons, not God or the Devil, however) will catch fire, setting a bus alight. Therefore, the necessity for the God concept becomes ever smaller and ever smaller. It's interesting to note, though, that when we compare the falling numbers of church attendance world-wide, it is inversely comparable to the rising of literacy rates?

 

Understand how the world works, and you will understand that there is no reason for the existence of God. God is redundant.

[Boerseun]

As a sidenote, however, can you really blame anybody for the invention of God? I mean, all primitive (and even not-so-primitive) people around the world have independently come up with some sort of supernatural explanation for the world around them.

 

After all, what would you do when you're a clever, inquisitive, brainy homo sapiens living, say, around 10,000BC and you're presented with lightning? That's something completely and utterly beyond your understanding, all you know is that whenever anybody's 'touched' by those angry and loud stripes of instant, thunderous light, they die in a manner that's completely foreign to what your experience of hunting and killing includes. And the worst is, the thing that killed your mate didn't even take a single bite out of the carcass. So the killing couldn't have been because the lighting was hungry. The killing could only have been because the lighting was angry and struck your friend down because of emotion, not hunger. So there must be something intelligent in the clouds, then. Something that can carry vendettas. Something who's will must be obeyed. But who knows what the 'something's' will is? So you go to the elders in your tribe. They, after all, know better. They've seen the world. And they have battled with the same problem when they were your age. And they still don't have the answer. But they can't let the young 'uns know that they don't know. So they see it as a golden opportunity to exploit the rest of the tribe's ignorance and fear, in consolidating their own power. They will tell you all kinds of bull, that they're in contact with the mysterious power in the clouds, and that you have to bring them stuff in order to appease the killer upstairs. And one day when you're old enough to join the ranks of the venerable elders, they let you in on their little secret. And you think to yourself "Golly, what a racket!" and you keep it going, and over ages develop more pomp and circumstance around the rituals so that even you and your fellow priests start believing it.

 

Can't blame them, really.

 

But Science is a burning torch in this dark world of ignorance, and all we can do is to spread the light.

 

Thus spake Boerseun.

[Lancaster]

It all goes back to the "tribe" situation. Who is more likely to win in battle? The tribe who is frightened of death or the tribe that has an all powerful God on their side? It's an assistance to self-preservation, and easily explained by evolution.