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I can see why you're "bemused"......and I think you're right.....God was created rather than the other way around. It's all arrogance and God is way too big for our little pea brains to even begin to comprehend.
But I contend that is why god exists in the first place.
As an Atheist I have always been utterly puzzled by the fact that one thing which seems to bind all religions is this need for prayers, rituals and other flim-flammery.
Suspending all disbelief for a minute and assuming there is indeed a supreme creator, a maker of all which is within our Universe,be they planets, stars, asteroids, single cell organisms, humans, flora, fauna etc... basically an omnipotent ,omniscient supernatural being why would this creature/being need and require us to accept his/her presence and worship him /her ?
Why the need for elaborate rituals, scriptures, why is it so important to this amazing creature beyond compare of such potency that he/she can wipe out an entire planet with simply the merest click of his fingers ?
What does it matter to this creature whether we even acknowledge it exists at all ?
Why do we need to go down on one knee and pray to something we cannot see and has no physical entity?
Why all the mind games ?
Is this God so needy and so arrogant that he/she needs constant reassurance and adulation ?
How does adoration of this creator actually enrich the human experience ?
Why should all this frippery of ritualisation and worship be important to someone so powerful and so wise ?
Wise people in my experience do not want to be worshipped, do not expect it and certainly will not punish those who do not.
Only despots and tyrants expect this level of constant adulation and like God seem to thrive on instilling the terror of death and pain on the little ants we all are.
I could just about get to grasp with the concept of a creator. Just. But all the accoutrements of religion , from commandments to scriptures, religious rituals, prayers seem to me to put it mildly petty and rather pointless.
Why is God not content with human beings who are decent, kind and morally upright, people who no matter what their faith ( or lack of thereof ) contribute in a positive manner to this universe he/she created ?
I simply cannot comprehend the concept that a supreme creator would actually need or want us to waste time worshipping him/her when our times would be better utilised becoming better people in a practical manner.
Where is the logic in prayer ? God is really that insecure that he/she needs to feel loved and revered ? That to me sounds utterly bizarre unless God is a human being with very low self esteem and a bullying streak...
We need to constantly abase ourselves to please him/her ? We need to never question his/her desires for his creation ?
All I see is mind games at best and I do remain puzzled.
To me the very fact that we have rituals and religious flim-flammery in so many different shades and colours around the world indicates that if there is a creator we have created those rituals to make ourselves feel more secure somehow, regaining a modicum of power over this creature. And as such all those rituals could be discarded easily by believers.
Trying to appease the beast so to speak. Humans are so afraid of God that they need to cloak everything in bizarre traditions and rituals. There is nothing more human to me as an Anthropologist than rituals. We all need them and we all have them be they religious or not. They make us feel more in control of a situation we usually have no control of.
But with religion we seem to go to extremes and seem to want and influence something which seems already pre-ordained and that we have no control of ultimately with petty little puzzling gestures.
Basically why would God need our prayers, our worship, our stunning sacred buildings and artefacts ... why do so many people feel that a deity of such power need such pointless and petty things to be appeased.
And why does someone like God need to be appeased in the first place ?
Only humans could be that arrogant and thus God was created rather than the other way around.
I remain bemused.
You imagine our God in human understandings as I did at one time, and so I have no condemnation for you. A person cannot understand what he as not experienced. God does not want ritual, as He has said, "Avoid vain and repetitive prayer." To pretend, is shear nonsense to God as it is to you. The relationship to God that we [but not all] who are "born again" have, is not by human forced effort nor false worship but by His Spirit who drew us to Himself. We have seen His Glory in our souls when we received of His Spirit. His only desire is that we experience an unfeigned relationship. Man cannot do that on His own because the Human spirit is like a stagnant pond that is cut off from a source of fresh water. We are warned to stay from dry religion. It is written "They have the form of Godliness but deny the Power thereof." Christ was crucified by the religious leaders of His time and thus proves the point. I would say to any man, do not seek religion but Christ Himself. He has said, "Search the scriptures; because in them you think you have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one can come to the Father except through Me." He needs no appeasing as you put it, nor trinkets and fancy buildings, silver and gold nor to get on your knees. What can any man give to God what He does not have already. He has said, "I have come not to be served but to serve." Every one has a legitimate need or many that only He can fulfill, but the first need is Living Water to satisfy the thirst brought on by an unfulfilled life. He loves the good the bad and the ugly of any religion or no religion. We on the other hand often times pick and choice who to love. His only desire is to give to all mankind and to elevate mankind's stature by a spiritual richness that purifies the character. He does not need your worship. He only needs an open heart that will allow Him to give to you. Once you have seen His Glory like we have, then and only then will you understand! You seem to make no distinction as to who a Christian is. The fear that you speak of is the blindness of not understanding what God is really like. It is written, "God is Love and in Him there is no fear because perfect love casts out all fear." Fear of God and fear of man is the enemy that mankind has fallen into, including many of the religious.
You imagine our God in human understandings as I did at one time, and so I have no condemnation for you. A person cannot understand what he as not experienced.
God is only described in human terms in the bible.
It is arrogant to assume atheists have not experienced your god, we did but came to the realization it is all in the mind and what we want to make real.
Quote:
Every one has a legitimate need or many that only He can fulfill, but the first need is Living Water to satisfy the thirst brought on by an unfulfilled life.
Sounds like you are a follower of the purpose driven life. Why assume we atheists have an unfulfilled life? Nothing the church had to offer ergo god made one iota of difference to me in RL.
Quote:
The fear that you speak of is the blindness of not understanding what God is really like. It is written, "God is Love and in Him there is no fear because perfect love casts out all fear." Fear of God and fear of man is the enemy that mankind has fallen into, including many of the religious.
This is also arrogant. How do you know outside your anecdotal experiences what god is like. It is called group think and everyone has a similar experience as they are indoctrinated from an early age. EVERYTHING you do and learn in church is willed alone by the mind to create a placebo reality.
God doesn't "need" us at all. God "wants" us to join Him in His kingdom of heaven for eternity.
This is amazing sense he could have given up on we moronical humans and yet sent His son
to die for all sin past, present and future. That's how "OUR" God rolls. Atheists go to your corner
and face the wall along with your philosphical nonesense.
Nonsense ( not nonesense by the way) ?
I like that from people who believe in a supernatural being and have never been able to put any proof forward of this "miraculous" "creator". Believers go to your corner, face the wall along with your religious nonsense...
I simply love the way we Atheists spout nonsense ?!? Pot, Kettle anyone, anyone ? It must be so nice to never intellectually challenge anything, so lovely and cosy not to have to think too much. I almost envy that freedom from thought.
God is only described in human terms in the bible.
It is arrogant to assume atheists have not experienced your god, we did but came to the realization it is all in the mind and what we want to make real.
Sounds like you are a follower of the purpose driven life. Why assume we atheists have an unfulfilled life? Nothing the church had to offer ergo god made one iota of difference to me in RL.
This is also arrogant. How do you know outside your anecdotal experiences what god is like. It is called group think and everyone has a similar experience as they are indoctrinated from an early age. EVERYTHING you do and learn in church is willed alone by the mind to create a placebo reality.
If it is all in your mind then you did not have the experience that I had.
I am sure that you have thought of the existence of God as most people have and experienced believe or unbelief. I do not doubt your intelligent, for then I would be as you say arrogant. I do not belong to Purpose Driven Life and I did not grow up in the church. My encounter with God was outside the church. What I am saying is that to just think about something and to actually have an experience beyond mere thought are two different things. This was not meant as a slight you but to say only that there is a difference of what we have experienced and your experience is valid for you now as it is what is, but I am saying there is more. Have you experienced everything yet? Of coarse not because no one has. I did not single you out as having an unfulfilled life because I do not know you, but I did make a general statement of fact that because so many complain of an unfulfilled life, there is a solution in faith in God. I do not Know all of what God is like but I do know "God is Love"
God doesn't "need" us at all. God "wants" us to join Him in His kingdom of heaven for eternity.
This is amazing sense he could have given up on we moronical humans and yet sent His son
to die for all sin past, present and future. That's how "OUR" God rolls. Atheists go to your corner
and face the wall along with your philosphical nonesense.
I had to laugh at this post.
Our god rolls....too funny.
God apparently designed us 'moronical' humans, What does that say about how great a creator he is?
Then, because he screwed up his creatures, he sends himself down to die to appease himself?
Do you realise how ridiculous that sounds?
I do, and that's why I am not a believer.
I am also not a philosopher, I am an atheist...and I will not stand in any corner except a street corner proclaiming your silly god doesn't exist.
Imagine you have only two choices in what to believe...To live life to its fullest and then die and that's it...or...To live life to its fullest and have have eternal life thereafter...
In the absence of knowing either way, why not pick the better story? Fantasy and conjecture not withstanding...
That could be the answer to why so many call themselves believers...
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Believers go to your corner, face the wall along with your religious nonsense...
Glass half full or half empty?
