Is man 'programmed' to seek a 'god'?

[holy king]

yeah, but at least i dont have to live in constant fear of upsetting some supernatural king.

 

[T-mun]

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Holy crap! The damn thing has happened

@Civ2: well, I keep trying, but he never does anything. I really would like him to exist, that would give me a hope in something. Or make me dispair a little more...

 

[Kyriakos]

I should point out that the topic of the thread hardly is god, but the idea of a god. So please do not turn this into a report-fest of spam

For those who don't see the distinction between the two:

-The idea of god is as similar to an actual god as the idea you have of a book from seeing it on a shelve is similar to the actual book being read. Namely the fact you know is that the book exists, so does the IDEA of a god. Now the actual god may well not exist at all, but i argued it might be innate as an idea in mankind.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Ziggy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotheism
According to the Torah, the very FIRST man knew G-d personally - why does it make you wonder that SOME nations "remembered" this, even though in a twisted way???
Henotheism and monolatrism ARE NOT the "true" monotheism!!!
In Judaism, it's not just "One G-d" - it's "there's nothing BUT G-d", everything is considered to be part of G-d, to the extent of questioning the very existence of anything BUT G-d.

http://factoidz.com/the-goddess-asherah-polytheism-in-the-texts-of-the-hebrew-bible/

 

[T-mun]

It was, indeed, a widely-shared answer to the feeling every civilized human has that mankind is here for a reason. Linked to the idea that the soul may survive after death (burial ceremonies attest it), and to the great natural forces that can take place, like volcanoes, hurricanes and such. Mix it and you get the idea that someone may be in charge for all this, same as mankind is in charge for war, mass murder, etc. If mankind has a great power but cannot create life, then a greatest power exists that created it. QED.

 

[katipunero]

theman
The lesson from here is obvious:
Even if people unite for WRONG reasons, but if they show each other true friendship and unity - they gain merit.
What's left then - is only to be able to utilize it.
So - RELIGION (as a way to unite people) is good, what is bad - is the wrong ways to use it.

i agree, religion brings people together, unites them under a common sense of purpose and faith and forges unity, cooperation and friendship. unlike other types of associative groups, religion is able to command utmost loyalty and obedience among its members. the problem is there are just too many versions of faith out there.

i am not saying your religion is bad, in fact in my honest opinion it is the best. i just think that the presence of more than a hundred other spurious religions in the world today poses a grave danger.

 

[civ2]

Ziggy
Fail source - the claims were already refuted by Jewish sources, one being Rashi on Genesis (that it simply doesn't tell the HOW, rather than WHAT and WHO).
Also, I seriously LAUGH at all attempts to "find" polytheistic notions in Torah - maybe tomorrow I'll spend some time to go into details.
Gonna go now, guess WHY.

 

[holy king]

your god told you to?

 

[onedreamer]

Split from Plotinus thread,

Generally the question is if we can talk of an inherent need, or even deeper an inherent ability, of man to seek the notion of a deity.
I fear that in our world of epidermic affairs and thinking of the surface, we mostly fail to take the time to examine just what the terms we freely use mean, to others, or even to ourselves.
Albert Camus in some letter argued that the polemic between thinkers had become faceless, and thus disoriented; one did not even know if the other was ever smiling before proceeding to attack him. Likewise i think that we do not take the time to try to examine what we are actually arguing about.

I think that we often fail to take into consideration the fact that if we even have the ability at all to think of something, then it must follow that that something already exists in our world of imagination, else it would not become intelligible. And although, by definition, i cannot think of anything which would be literally inconceivable, i can theorize as to such notions existing, maybe not meant for man to ponder.
But i maintain that if god was such a notion then in reality there would have been no constructed idea of a god, much less the complicated and multi-faceted phenomenon of religion.

Is man 'programmed' to seek a god? By which i mean is there anything inside one's psyche which demands such a consideration? Or is the idea of a god something attributable hazily to some past stage of human development, which will be negated in following aeons?
I lean towards the first claim, although i do not accept that it is in tautology with the claim that god does exist, much less an external god.

I want to write more, but it is an innate need to stand back and observe if there is interest on all this before dedicating more time to the question. After all we already have a prestigious theism and antitheism thread in ot

Men can be "programmed" only by other men. So they aren't born programmed but they can very well be (and they are) programmed to seek a god.
Also I disagree with your considerations. The idea of God and its existance and seeking it/him are quite different. I believe that men aren't programmed with the idea of God but that they do realize or have the impression of the existance of something superhuman since we're tiny insignificant midgets in the Universe... this fact is then exploited by some men to indoctrinate (program) others to "seek" God, but we could just accept our nature and the existance of a superhuman entity (God) without seeking it.

 

[-Perceval-]

I got a question: Why does Atheist become so active when there's a discussion about god? Is god interest them? Why so much militantism? Why so much affirmation like "there is no god" instead of "in my opinion blablabla?" when even great scientist says that they don't know if there's a god or not?

For me atheist militants and religious fanatics are same, by example i just don't undrestand why christian american are so implicated when we talk about pointless question like gay marriage or other unimportant things instead of trying to help people who just get horrible life. Seriously, there's so much important things in this world that need our attentiveness and instead or giving help, some "very religious" people talk about pointless things in muddy debate but do not paid any attention on people suffering all around them, do you really believe in Jesus guys?

Atheist militant are same, in my opinion, the only reason that pushed a lot of them to contradict religious guy is pride, pride...and pride. If you think god is a joke , good for you guys, let's live a wonderful life in waiting of dying and disapear in nil.

I met agnostic people who were just great and i even talked with some monks who where incredibly open minded (i never saw people who were so much open-minded in my entire life). They was not militant, not saying "you must trust in god or you musn't".


To come back to the subject who get absolutely no link with the question of god existence. I will try to get an anthropologic and neutral point of view: almost every "primitive"(don't like this word) tribes in the world believe in gods, spirits ect... But i just don't think that genetic is involved in it. Actually, nature is a so wonderful thing that i think that human was just not able to stay neutral in front of it. But it is not the only thing who is wonderful and incredibly complex. There's also human feelings, so deep, so complicated, they just rules our lives.
In a lot of tribes, religion give an enormous important to human feelings, they're supposed to be superior to material things, in fact it is very hard to imagine that all the feelings we have in an entire life, all hard things we got to pass trough, all wonderful moments, all memories we had could disappear cause of a so pointless and common thing called death. I think that the believe in god is connected to the believe in human beings...simple at that.

 

[onedreamer]

i agree, religion brings people together, unites them under a common sense of purpose and faith and forges unity, cooperation and friendship. unlike other types of associative groups, religion is able to command utmost loyalty and obedience among its members. the problem is there are just too many versions of faith out there.

i am not saying your religion is bad, in fact in my honest opinion it is the best. i just think that the presence of more than a hundred other spurious religions in the world today poses a grave danger.

The nature of men is to unite AGAINST or at least VERSUS something. That is why religion is bad. If you can demonstrate that people need to unite in order to believe to a superhuman entity or even to pray then you would give a sense to Religion, but as it stands now Religions are groups of people that believe in something UNLIKE others, so more than uniting humanity it seems to me that they divide it.

 

[holy king]

I got a question: Why does Atheist become so active when there's a discussion about god? Is god interest them? Why so much militantism? Why so much affirmation like "there is no god" instead of "in my opinion blablabla?" when even great scientist says that they don't know if there's a god or not?

For me atheist militants and religious fanatics are same, by example i just don't undrestand why christian american are so implicated when we talk about pointless question like gay marriage or other unimportant things instead of trying to help people who just get horrible life. Seriously, there's so much important things in this world that need our attentiveness and instead or giving help, some "very religious" people talk about pointless things in muddy debate but do not paid any attention on people suffering all around them, do you really believe in Jesus guys?

Atheist militant are same, in my opinion, the only reason that pushed a lot of them to contradict religious guy is pride, pride...and pride. If you think god is a joke , good for you guys, let's live a wonderful life in waiting of dying and disapear in nil.

I met agnostic people who were just great and i even talked with some monks who where incredibly open minded (i never saw people who were so much open-minded in my entire life). They was not militant, not saying "you must trust in god or you musn't".


To come back to the subject who get absolutely no link with the question of god existence. I will try to get an anthropologic and neutral point of view: almost every "primitive"(don't like this word) tribes in the world believe in gods, spirits ect... But i just don't think that genetic is involved in it. Actually, nature is a so wonderful thing that i think that human was just not able to stay neutral in front of it. But it is not the only thing who is wonderful and incredibly complex. There's also human feelings, so deep, so complicated, they just rules our lives.
In a lot of tribes, religion give an enormous important to human feelings, they're supposed to be superior to material things, in fact it is very hard to imagine that all the feelings we have in an entire life, all hard things we got to pass trough, all wonderful moments, all memories we had could disappear cause of a so pointless and common thing called death. I think that the believe in god is connected to the believe in human beings...simple at that.

i think you just broke the thread.

 

[katipunero]

The nature of men is to unite AGAINST or at least VERSUS something. That is why religion is bad. If you can demonstrate that people need to unite in order to believe to a superhuman entity or even to pray then you would give a sense to Religion, but as it stands now Religions are groups of people that believe in something UNLIKE others, so more than uniting humanity it seems to me that they divide it.

i knew i should have used more hyperboles

anyway, i concur with everything in your post.

 

[-Perceval-]

i think you just broke the thread.

Actually, yes! I think that ateist and believers will hates me after this post !

 

[warpus]

I got a question: Why does Atheist become so active when there's a discussion about god? Is god interest them? Why so much militantism? Why so much affirmation like "there is no god" instead of "in my opinion blablabla?" when even great scientist says that they don't know if there's a god or not?

When you post a topic about God or religion on a message board with a large atheist membership, of course you'll get a lot of atheist feedback.

A lot of atheists used to be religious and had religious ideas rammed down their throats. As such they tend to get passionate about the subject if the right questions are asked.

 

[Kyriakos]

I got a question: Why does Atheist become so active when there's a discussion about god? Is god interest them? Why so much militantism? Why so much affirmation like "there is no god" instead of "in my opinion blablabla?" when even great scientist says that they don't know if there's a god or not?

For me atheist militants and religious fanatics are same, by example i just don't undrestand why christian american are so implicated when we talk about pointless question like gay marriage or other unimportant things instead of trying to help people who just get horrible life. Seriously, there's so much important things in this world that need our attentiveness and instead or giving help, some "very religious" people talk about pointless things in muddy debate but do not paid any attention on people suffering all around them, do you really believe in Jesus guys?

Atheist militant are same, in my opinion, the only reason that pushed a lot of them to contradict religious guy is pride, pride...and pride. If you think god is a joke , good for you guys, let's live a wonderful life in waiting of dying and disapear in nil.

I met agnostic people who were just great and i even talked with some monks who where incredibly open minded (i never saw people who were so much open-minded in my entire life). They was not militant, not saying "you must trust in god or you musn't".


To come back to the subject who get absolutely no link with the question of god existence. I will try to get an anthropologic and neutral point of view: almost every "primitive"(don't like this word) tribes in the world believe in gods, spirits ect... But i just don't think that genetic is involved in it. Actually, nature is a so wonderful thing that i think that human was just not able to stay neutral in front of it. But it is not the only thing who is wonderful and incredibly complex. There's also human feelings, so deep, so complicated, they just rules our lives.
In a lot of tribes, religion give an enormous important to human feelings, they're supposed to be superior to material things, in fact it is very hard to imagine that all the feelings we have in an entire life, all hard things we got to pass trough, all wonderful moments, all memories we had could disappear cause of a so pointless and common thing called death. I think that the believe in god is connected to the believe in human beings...simple at that.

A god, though, could in theory exist without human immortality being secured by him, or anything else. Moreover he could also intervene all he wanted, and remain something incomprehensible.
For example (it is not a precise parallelism, but i think it serves some purpose) when i was a small child i was spending hours playing with ants, that is i was designing their nests, altering it, forming its outer shape, creating multiple levels and entrances, which the ants then used with their own means and powers. To the ant i might have been deemed as a kind of shadowy force that altered its environment, was it able to actually ponder any such thing. Definitely the ants did not realize what i was, they just could not, i am sure that if they could even conceive of the existence of a continuous being that was over 10.000 times the size of an ant, they would die out of fear, had they been able to feel fear.
Likewise humans could in many ways have been the toy or project of a god, which was indeed all-powerful next to them, but not able to grant them immortality. Moreover even if he was able, perhaps he did not wish to.

Personally i certainly hope that there is another life, a continuation of life, for it seems to me to be pretty much pointless to live here for a few years and then just perish. If there is no reason to strive to be something positive, to help, to create, then why do it? I suppose we have laws so that in some cases they act as a hindrance against nihilistic negative tendencies too, along with all other reasons they exist, but in my view if i was personally SURE that there is nothing after this life, then i would at least have been tempted to act upon many negative urges.
Or then again maybe i would not act on them, since i have my literature to act them out there, with paper sacrificial objects

 

[timtofly]

A god, though, could in theory exist without human immortality being secured by him, or anything else. Moreover he could also intervene all he wanted, and remain something incomprehensible.
For example (it is not a precise parallelism, but i think it serves some purpose) when i was a small child i was spending hours playing with ants, that is i was designing their nests, altering it, forming its outer shape, creating multiple levels and entrances, which the ants then used with their own means and powers. To the ant i might have been deemed as a kind of shadowy force that altered its environment, was it able to actually ponder any such thing. Definitely the ants did not realize what i was, they just could not, i am sure that if they could even conceive of the existence of a continuous being that was over 10.000 times the size of an ant, they would die out of fear, had they been able to feel fear.
Likewise humans could in many ways have been the toy or project of a god, which was indeed all-powerful next to them, but not able to grant them immortality. Moreover even if he was able, perhaps he did not wish to.

Personally i certainly hope that there is another life, a continuation of life, for it seems to me to be pretty much pointless to live here for a few years and then just perish. If there is no reason to strive to be something positive, to help, to create, then why do it? I suppose we have laws so that in some cases they act as a hindrance against nihilistic negative tendencies too, along with all other reasons they exist, but in my view if i was personally SURE that there is nothing after this life, then i would at least have been tempted to act upon many negative urges.
Or then again maybe i would not act on them, since i have my literature to act them out there, with paper sacrificial objects

In regards to the ants; did you ever communicate and understand things on their level? If there is a "personal" God, then it also assumes a closer relationship than just being "bigger" and outside the range of "understanding".

Humans invent God to fit their perspective of God. If there is an "internal" mechanism that "desires" a God, then there could also be a personal God that "placed" it there.

Most people do not want a personal God, because His interference would cramp their lifestyle or His lack of interaction would prove He is not personal. Free will is not being free, it is such because God allows it to exist.

 

[Kyriakos]

In regards to the ants; did you ever communicate and understand things on their level? If there is a "personal" God, then it also assumes a closer relationship than just being "bigger" and outside the range of "understanding".

Humans invent God to fit their perspective of God. If there is an "internal" mechanism that "desires" a God, then there could also be a personal God that "placed" it there.

Most people do not want a personal God, because His interference would cramp their lifestyle or His lack of interaction would prove He is not personal. Free will is not being free, it is such because God allows it to exist.

However there could in theory be an internal mechanism that seeks a god (the notion of a god) without it being placed by a god. It could be there for example as a result of cataclysmic mental phenomena that took place in prehistoric man, before he was a "social animal", and was more of a internally-based being.

"There is nothing more soothing than the belief in an internal god" wrote Franz Kafka in his diaries, meaning that for him it was true at the time. I do believe that it is possible to use the (albeit obviously with many unneeded connotations) term "personal god" to refer to the shadowy pan-mechanism that has to exist so as to control the human psyche and allow the Ego to exist in the state of immediate consciousness of any given moment, and also to expand towards other realms of the psyche. But this, like i stated before, is not anything else than saying "let A=B", with B being the term god, and a the periphrasis* i mentioned

*i did not know this term existed in english It just means "long-winded sentence or meaning"

 

[snarzberry]

Link to video.

 

[timtofly]

However there could in theory be an internal mechanism that seeks a god (the notion of a god) without it being placed by a god. It could be there for example as a result of cataclysmic mental phenomena that took place in prehistoric man, before he was a "social animal", and was more of a internally-based being.

"There is nothing more soothing than the belief in an internal god" wrote Franz Kafka in his diaries, meaning that for him it was true at the time. I do believe that it is possible to use the (albeit obviously with many unneeded connotations) term "personal god" to refer to the shadowy pan-mechanism that has to exist so as to control the human psyche and allow the Ego to exist in the state of immediate consciousness of any given moment, and also to expand towards other realms of the psyche. But this, like i stated before, is not anything else than saying "let A=B", with B being the term god, and a the periphrasis* i mentioned

*i did not know this term existed in english It just means "long-winded sentence or meaning"

Based on the history we do know though, your "evolution" is still a human construct of God. Humans have no historical records of such other than the evidence found in the remains of bones constructed in such a way to back a theory. This theory invented the postulate that evolution placed this "inner" need for a God.

This "personal" God did come down twice in history. Once to Moses and once to Palestine. Now if humans can convince themselves that there never was a Moses and never was a Jesus, then he can convince his psyche that there can be no God. Evolution conveniently does both. There is no need for either to have happened, since our evolution has no need for either to have happened.