The Origin of the Idea of God.

by Blueblades 6 Replies latest jw friends

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  Blueblades

  The History of the Question. No one knows the exact origin of the idea of God in the human mind. If the idea is true, it originated either from human reasoning, or from divine revelation, or from the experience and memory of a supernatural intimacy in Eden, or from the experiences of the mystics, or from ordinary, present -type religious experiences.

  If the idea is false, then it originated in either fantasy, fallacy, folly, or fear or all four or any combination thereof.

  From the book: "Does God Exist? The debate between Theists and Atheists." Interesting views from J.P.Moreland, Kai Nielsen, Peter Kreeft, Antony Flew, William Lane Craig, Keith Parsons and Dallas Willard.

  Some fundamental questions and their answers that have shaped individuals lives: Is there a God? What is the evidence for belief in such a being? What is God like? Or is God a figment of human inspiration? How do we know that such a being might not exist? Should belief or disbelief in God's existence make a difference in our opinions and moral choices, in the way we see ourselves and relate to those around us?

  I am starting to read this debate at the University of Mississippi for the second time and thought I might share and recommend this book for those who have not yet read it and like these kind of question and answer debates when it comes to why debate the Existence of God? They talk about: The Primacy, Nature, Defination, Parameters, Motives, Existential Import, Validity and History of The Question.

  The conclusions drawn by both sides leads us to decide for ourselves whether God is fact or fantasy. However they recommend a way to find out at the end of the book which I will leave to yourselves to accept that recommendation.

  Blueblades
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  nvrgnbk

  Thanks for this info Blueblades.
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  changeling

  Thank you. I think I'll go pick up the book. I have given the idea of whether or not thesr is a god a lot of thought since my fade. And I have wondered where the very concept of a god and of worship came from.

  Currently, I consider my self agnostic. I don't feel there is a being that rules and watches over us, though I'm open to being proved wrong.
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  serotonin_wraith

  Thanks for this info. I recently bought 'God? A Debate Between a Christian and an Athiest' by William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, so I think I'll be getting this too. I love these kind of debates.
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  VM44

  Karen Armstrong wrote a book "A History of God".

  However, as I have not read it I do not know how scholarly a work it is.

  --VM44
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  tetrapod.sapien

  true or false.

  fact or fantasy.

  right or wrong.

  inside or outside.

  literal or metaphorical.

  theists or atheists.

  ... i don't see questions coming from these dichotomies as genuine, or the dualities as mutually exclusive.

  human reasoning, or from divine revelation, or from the experience and memory of a supernatural intimacy in Eden, or from the experiences of the mystics, or from ordinary, present -type religious experiences.

  &

  fantasy, fallacy, folly, or fear

  ...it's not true or false because God came from all of the above.

  God: literally metaphorical, metaphorically literal. truely false, falsly true. ;)

  tetra (a-theist, atheist)
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  Narkissos

  Sounds interesting.

  I don't know if the authors deal with this aspect of the question, but I think the idea of "God" is unseparable from the idea of "gods" inasmuch as, for all we know, polytheism always predates monotheism in the history of thought. "God" as we know it is the result of the fashion of oneness which developed in many parts of the Ancient world in the second half of the first millenium BC for many different reasons, especially in Greek and Jewish cultures. But this is an epiphenomenon when compared to the much more widespread cultural feature of positing unseen causes and (id)entities "behind," "above" or "beneath" sensed phenomena. In a sense, when we speak of "chance," "natural laws," "forces," "energy," "life," "being," or any other abstraction we may use to make the visible intelligible, are we acting that differently?