1. Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is God both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able or willing? Then why call him God?
Epicurus 341-371 BCE
2. Religion is regarded by common people as true, by the wise as false, and by rulers as useful. Seneca 4-65 CE
3. If he is infinately good? what reason should we have to fear him? If he is infinately wise? why should we have doubts concerning our future? If he know all? why warn him of our needs and fatigue him with our prayers? If he is everywhere? why erect temples to him? Percy Shelley 1702-1822
4. If we go back to the beginning, we shall find that ignorance and fear created gods; that fancy,enthusiasm or deceit adorned them; that weakness worships them; that credulity preserves them and that custom, respect and tyranny supports them in order to make blindness of men serve their own interests. If ignorance or nature gave birth to gods, then knowledge of nature is calculated to destroy them. Baron D'Holback 1723-1789
God in a nutshell (a historical perpective.)
by darth frosty 4 Replies latest jw friends
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darth frosty
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Liza
1. Depends on how God is viewed. Evil is merely a side effect of free will, in the Bible, angels have free will. In pagan religions, Gods had all characteristics of people and thus could feel jealousy, hate, and resentment.
2. Religion also helps people be generally good, but is up to the worshipper. There was an experiment done in 20/20, where a cashier at a restaurant "accidentally" gave the costumer too much change. A lot of people did notice and retunred the money. When asked, many replied things like, "Karma", or "Thou shall not steal" or I think one person mentioned the golden rule and some said it was just their concience. Many conflicts in history related to religion, merely use religion as a front. For example, "Manifest Destiny" in the 1800's was endorsed by many religious nuts, but was really an effort for political power, rescources, and eliminating the number of potential enimies at the borders.
3. I'm not one into organized religion either. People though do it as a sign of devotion.
4. Why do people even had the need for a God? And why do many religions have a lot in common? There are signs of religion even looking at the practices and artifacts of early man' burials and even idols have been found. Why even make the need for an idol? The concept of sacfrice dosen't make much sense to me, and I doubt it would be a common concept if there was no inspiration for it. Sure you can explain that, it was because people needed an explanation to their world. But why would this explanation involve idols, sacrifices, prayers, passed on wisdom, immortal souls, and a sense of "spirituality"? Even to as far as distant islands and Native American tribes. -
Anti-Christ
Hi liza, how are you?
Our ancestors "need for a god" was there need to explain things that they did not understand and things that scared them.
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Anti-Christ
I like this explaination, so I'll cut and past, it's from intrnetinfedels www.infidels.org/library/magazines/tsr/1994/1/1idol94.html
When we start justifying evil to preserve our worship of biblical inerrancy, or any doctrine, then we debase our whole system of values. Our hearts and minds become warped, numb to atrocity, blind to evil, and we become the perfect cannon fodder for the next Hitler. The man or woman who can view the children of any age as evil, who can discover no solution other than killing them all, is not to be trusted with anything more dangerous than a squirt-gun... or any office higher than dogcatcher. A Stone Age deity, of course, can get away with such things, being little more than a stand-in for the random, fearful forces of nature. Thus, the gods of primitive peoples, including the storm-god of the Old Testament, were potential killers to be feared and placated with sacrifices. When a village was wiped out by volcano or flood, everyone assumed that their god had been angered or provoked in some manner. What else could they believe? Scientific enlightenment had yet to overtake superstition. When they lost a battle, everyone assumed that they were being punished by their god for some indiscretion. The job of their priests was to identify the provocation, correct it, and thus humor their god. Keeping their gods in good humor or sustaining them in symbolic ways (as did the Aztecs) was the all-important job of the ancient priesthood. Happy gods meant happy times; angry gods sent disaster. If you read between the lines of the Old Testament, you can see this type of rationalization constantly at work.
It never occurred to the ancients, therefore, to question the morality exhibited by their gods. The fearful forces of nature spoke powerfully... and man listened. Who could question the power of lightning or the thumping of giant hailstones or the strength of floods? It never occurred to the ancients that a truly powerful god would not have to act in such clumsy ways, for nature was the only god they knew. It never occurred to the ancients that a truly wise and powerful god would communicate face to face with each man or woman rather than through nebulous dreams, divinations, or (later) scriptures. The gods of nature never spoke openly but rather in whispers and dreams and omens, or so the ancients perceived. It never occurred to them that their god should be concerned with the well being of all peoples, includ in those days were tribal gods, including Yahweh. They concerned themselves only with their particular tribes.
Thus nature was the only god the ancients knew, and their gods spoke in terms of earthquakes, floods, epidemics, volcanic eruptions, droughts, fertility, good crops and bad crops, victory and defeat. Thus, the gods acted in strange and powerful ways for good and evil, and it was of the utmost importance to divine their will and placate them. The Hebrews had their magic "dice," the Urim and Thummim, and the study of animal livers was practically an industry in that part of the world. God's strange methods were not to be questioned, but they might be divined with profit.
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Anti-Christ
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