God exists but only as an idea.

[Coleman Smith]

Many theists will tell you that the God they believe in is far beyond us humans in regard to morality, knowledge, and power. So although He may be personal in that He is concerned about us and seeks to commune with us as a person might, He is nevertheless infinitely greater than we are in His goodness, knowledge, and ability. It seems reasonable to me that any persons who follow such a God would be able to show us that that God of theirs is superhuman, but I've never seen it! The God religions preach as far as I can tell has no more goodness, knowledge, or power than people do. What God supposedly says is what any person can say, and we never see His power or goodness as anything more than what people can do.

So what I'm getting at is that the Gods of religion are nothing more than ideas in some people's heads. Yes, they may exist as such ideas but have no objective existence. Any crafty man can create a God and can sometimes get some people to believe that that God is real. That's why no God has ever said anything a man cannot say, has ever done what people cannot do, or has ever been more moral than we are.

.....and the religious myths evolve over time often incorporating beliefs from prior beliefs.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

That's why no God has ever said anything a man cannot say, has ever done what people cannot do, or has ever been more moral than we are.

Sounds like we have gods of the people, by the people and for the people. At least for some of the people. Essentially these gods really are nothing more than people making themselves into gods, as others have opined. Crafty bastards.

 

[ideologyhunter]

<edit>

 

[Jarhyn]

Money might seem real, but is it really?

Yes. Yes it is.

it's only real because we humans have decided it's real and it has value.

Yes. Like numbers. Or colours. Or musical notes.

All intangible; All artificial; All nevertheless real.

All real myths.

Yes. Unlike fake myths, such as Jane Eyre, Thor, Hercules, Sherlock Holmes, or Jehova.

If all human knowledge were somehow destroyed, and we had to start from scratch living a paeleolithic existence, we would eventually re-invent money, numbers, colours and music. But not one of the fictional characters I listed above would return.

We would probably have gods, and certainly have storybook characters. But they wouldn't be much like the ones we have now.

I'll actually disagree with you on this.

I would expect that a few things would end up rather similar, in fact.

We would end up with:

• At least one deity that is represented by three parts arranged likely but not necessarily as "A1, B, A2" or roughly analogous to "parent; idea; child", so a "trinity god".

• At least one deity that is representative of greed, related intimately with some rare material with "trade potential", so a "Mammon" by some name or another.

• Several pantheons headed by storm gods, as storms.

• A number of religions headed by people discussing concepts of rebirth that worship some story of someone who "figured something out, and who will return".

• At least one of the trinity god religions will claim at least one of the "rebirthers".

• A large number of religions will contain a "Prometheus story" of a figure who reveals something that was secret and experiences something WORSE than death repeatedly for doing it.

My reason for thinking these things is the reality of the concept of memetic reproduction which happens via the form "originator; record; RE-originator" when the originated idea reaches people not merely happy with adoption but whose personality requires, for lack of a better way of describing it, *a pilgrimage through the original thought process*.

Then there's the Mammon thing which organized around the emergent behavior of people with respect to money...

The storm gods should be apparent to anyone familiar with the primacy of storms in maritime cultures.

The rebirth religions will happen for the same reasons as the "originator; record; re-originator" deity pattern where some deity (really an idea) is "reborn" again and again in a human "host", for the same reason as the "Trinity religion" will have a similar concept; they're both common and easy misinterpretations of certain emergent memetic cycles.

Inevitably a person who says all of this in terms that are are approachable by lay-persons will be elevated as a deity.

And of course the Prometheus story because of what conservative people do to disruptive inventors.

I wouldn't say things would look radically different. I think it would be more like Nethack where all the same options and items and functions still exist just behind different names, and possibly with slightly different distributions.

 

[Unknown Soldier]

Many theists will tell you that the God they believe in is far beyond us humans in regard to morality, knowledge, and power. So although He may be personal in that He is concerned about us and seeks to commune with us as a person might, He is nevertheless infinitely greater than we are in His goodness, knowledge, and ability. It seems reasonable to me that any persons who follow such a God would be able to show us that that God of theirs is superhuman, but I've never seen it! The God religions preach as far as I can tell has no more goodness, knowledge, or power than people do. What God supposedly says is what any person can say, and we never see His power or goodness as anything more than what people can do.

So what I'm getting at is that the Gods of religion are nothing more than ideas in some people's heads. Yes, they may exist as such ideas but have no objective existence. Any crafty man can create a God and can sometimes get some people to believe that that God is real. That's why no God has ever said anything a man cannot say, has ever done what people cannot do, or has ever been more moral than we are.

.....and the religious myths evolve over time often incorporating beliefs from prior beliefs.

"New" religions are like new cars. Most of them are based on what has worked in the past with just enough difference to outsell what is currently being sold over what sold in the past. It's awfully darned hard to come up with something completely new and expect to achieve a profit with it.

 

[Shadowy Man]

It's awfully darned hard to come up with something completely new and expect to achieve a profit with it.

Scientology?

 

[Coleman Smith]

Christianity has adopted some religious beliefs from prior religions.

 

[Tigers!]

It is hard to be original about anything these days.

Sergio Leone said that back in 1987.

Far earlier than Sergio Leone was

Ecclesiastes 1:9​

9 What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun.

 

[steve_bank]

'When you come to a fork in the road, take it', Yogi Berra.

 

[SIB]

Many theists will tell you that the God they believe in is far beyond us humans in regard to morality, knowledge, and power. So although He may be personal in that He is concerned about us and seeks to commune with us as a person might, He is nevertheless infinitely greater than we are in His goodness, knowledge, and ability. It seems reasonable to me that any persons who follow such a God would be able to show us that that God of theirs is superhuman, but I've never seen it! The God religions preach as far as I can tell has no more goodness, knowledge, or power than people do. What God supposedly says is what any person can say, and we never see His power or goodness as anything more than what people can do.

So what I'm getting at is that the Gods of religion are nothing more than ideas in some people's heads. Yes, they may exist as such ideas but have no objective existence. Any crafty man can create a God and can sometimes get some people to believe that that God is real. That's why no God has ever said anything a man cannot say, has ever done what people cannot do, or has ever been more moral than we are.

I think people intentionally try to sway people to believing that its religous god or no belief. That just is not the case.

Its really the traits/events of a god that define the god. The belief in "Something more" matches observation better. Appealing to "practical" and "Personal" lines of logic to argue against any and all gods is not my area. I only deal with matching ideas in our heads to the events around us. There is no thing that would harm one for not believing. That's just silliness.

More atheist believe in something more ... its just common sense. Me personally? "alive", alive matches what we see better than the reverse. I am not interested in people being afraid of religion so they feel we shouldn't talk about. Its just way to lennon-ish for that tactics..

List all the beliefs side by side and discuss what ones match what we see?

nothing more
something more
Hindu stuff
buddha stuff
Trible beliefs
my god only stuff
add any more

It aint that hard if we aint selling "That's not tinkle ... I promise."

 

[TomC]

really the traits/events of a god that define the god.

It's this, to me.
I believe in something more than materialism. I believe that there's more to reality than atoms bouncing off each other. I believe that we humans are no more aware of reality than flat earth believers of yore.

What I find impossible to believe is that humans know enough about it to have an important opinion. I believe that there's more to reality than physical objects, and I also believe that religion is fiction.
Tom