I do not believe in an almighty god, nor the bible. But i have my own beliefs and interpretations of 'what is out there'. No one being is right to the truth, everything is open to interpretation for everything is socially constructed.
Inspired by Tom Allens Thread -
- Thread starter Adamantium
- Start date
First off, religion as it stands now, has little to do with God in my opinion because all religion is a construct of men purporting to be God's word.
There is no religion I have read or heard of that can persuade me it truly is God's word .. I'm afraid it all smacks of men trying to write something that they think God may write .....
Anyway, to answer your question re who made god and this then somehow undermining my assertion of there being a god is an argument Richard Dawkins used in his recent book, The God Delusion ... in fact, he is not the creator of this line of argument, it is one that has been mooted by many a philosopher beforehand.
Now, far be it from to question Mr Dawkins being as he's got more degrees than a thermometer but I just cannot follow his logic here ....
Just because we cannot come up with a credible creator for God in NO way undermines the fact God created our universe.
I believe that as soon as we acknowledge that God created our universe, then at that point, there is absolutely no reason why we should be able to even ask the question as to who or what created God.
Everything relating to that situation is beyond us ... we get fooled into believing that just because we can ask a particular question, we would then possess the mental faculties to understand the answer ... this is an emergent property of man's natural arrogance and we cannot possibly shed this arrogance ... it's beyond us ... as is the ability to appreciate any progenitor of God.
God's creation is illusory because it is self-evident he is independent of time seeing as he created this 4 dimensional universe of space-time we all live in [we have 3 dimensions within space and one dimension of time] .
And so to try and think of a creator of God must surely place God within the confines of time seeing as the question asks who created him which means the idea of a 'before' rears its head and there can be no before where God resides .... wherever that may be.
A timeless environment can have no 'befores' .....
Whether we like it or not, God has been around for infinity and will be around for infinity .... don't let time or your arrogance undermine the notion of our creator [God] but unleash whatever you want upon the religions of our world .. after all, Richard Dawkins does get one thing right when he says, [not verbatim] 'if it wasn't for Religion, good things would be done by good people and bad things will be done by bad people; it's only religion that allows for good people to do evil things' ....
Jesus certainly wouldn't have looked like the pictures we see. He'd be more little brown jew than "The Dude". I would imagine that this idea would have come about at the time of the crusades, so as to make people believe that Jesus didn't look quite so much like the Muslims that the Christians were hell bent on killing.
Robbo,
Just though I'd say that that was one hell of an argument and is incredibly persuasive.
I'm gonna sound like such as kiss-ass now but I just thought I'd also say that it's a pleasure to read posts that you write like that as they are so... Intriguing.
[/kissing robbo's behind]
Just though I'd say that that was one hell of an argument and is incredibly persuasive.
I'm gonna sound like such as kiss-ass now but I just thought I'd also say that it's a pleasure to read posts that you write like that as they are so... Intriguing.
[/kissing robbo's behind]
One thing though... That same arrogance and our inability to understand "bigger than creation" matters, causes people to think of whatever created the Universe as a "person", a sentient being that one day just decided "You know what? I think I'll create a universe and watch what happens for a couple billion years."
Why would (a) God have to be a sentient being? Why can't it be some unthinking force that just creates with no real motive?
It's that same human arrogance that makes us think that if anything can lord it over us, the pinnacle of creation, it must be some omnipotent, super intelligent being. Guess what, mother nature lords it over us big time and she's as unthinking (and uncaring) as they come...
I was typing something similar; however you did a better job.
Personally I'd take more comfort in knowing it was a reaction of physical forces that created the universe. Not some conscious and moralistic being with an agenda.
Sorry but we, as a life form are not important, special, significant or 'chosen' in any way. I find it quite arrogant to think otherwise.
I'll answer this in terms of 'unthinking' as in ignorant and then in terms of unsympathetic coz I'm not sure which one you are meaning here but I suspect it's the latter, anyways ...
I'm not sure the reason I believe God to be a sentient being is borne out of arrogance Jay; I appreciate what you say in that we tend to model things in our own likeness here but think about this point please - the world in which live is like a multi-layered onion, one that reveals complexity beneath complexity, beauty beside beauty and is a world whose architect hardly comes across as unthinking.
I realise beauty is a subjective notion but any philosopher will tell you that although beauty could mean different things to different people; in itself, it still exists and possesses a positive meaning.
This universe contains so much 'thinking' that it just defies logic to consider it to be the product of an 'unthinking' mind mate.
This conclusion springs to mind from the same rationale of believing the lesser cannot give rise to the greater; this being one of the mainstays of scientific and philosophic thought.
I realise once again this is once again the product of a human mind but that's all we have to work with mate and we [the human race] ain't done bad with it in terms of unravelling the universe thus far ....
As for God being unsympathetic?
Ahhh..... this is merely agnosticism Jay, the belief that there is a god but he doesn't concern himself with the affairs of man and as such, I have no answer for that other than to hope he isn't uncaring .... but I'm afraid the evidence thus far is pretty incriminating.
As for mother nature's behaviour?
She is merely the theatre in which we are placed to play our lives out and as such will no more 'react' than the Old Vic will when hosting its next production.
The truth generally is ......
Thanks for the comments anyway, it's appreciated!!!
Would you not consider that the complexities we see today only give the illusion of design because of the millions of years of success and failure of evolution... this extends past organic progress too. We only see the successes today, since by failing - you forfeit existence.
There are an almost equal amount of ugly and poorly 'designed' aspects of existence. If there were a sentient being, why was he/she/it slacking when it came to these? Another example; the organisms that have come to a non-human influenced extinction, were they chosen not worthy of existence? Or in fact could they be the inevitable victims of the ‘survival of the fittest’ nature of existence?
There are an almost equal amount of ugly and poorly 'designed' aspects of existence. If there were a sentient being, why was he/she/it slacking when it came to these? Another example; the organisms that have come to a non-human influenced extinction, were they chosen not worthy of existence? Or in fact could they be the inevitable victims of the ‘survival of the fittest’ nature of existence?
I think in this sentence lies the crux of the debate. Tomtimus already mentions it, but where some see thinking behind what's happening, or an intelligent design, others see mostly things that have gone horribly wrong.
For every thing that one could dub existence, there are thousands that could be dubbed failures. The only thinking I can see is similar to a kid dropping random chemicals in a boiling vat. Cool things can and will happen, but sooner or later the house will blow up.
I don't believe in a single, sentient being running things. The greater power I believe in and see, is the cumulative; the overwhelming power of the Universe itself, but there is no thought behind that, it just is.