Can God Change his Mind?

by peacefulpete 56 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  TonusOH

  Halcon: Why would he undermine himself by claiming someone was greater than man?

  To offload responsibility? To assign himself an authority that he didn't earn? To grift as efficiently as possible?

  Granted, the more likely explanation is that it began as a way to explain the (then) inexplicable. The development of gods into powerful invisible friends would come gradually, and the abuse of the concept would follow soon after, is my guess. The art of the con has existed about as long as human societies have.
• 

  Halcon

  The periaqueductal grey is an ancient structure that is believed to play a role in our response to fear, pain, and altruistic behavior. Damage to this brainstem circuit causes delusions, and alien limb syndrome also intersected this circuit. This brain circuit, and the apparent importance of the periaqueductal grey, may have evolved to encourage altruistic behaviors and reduce the fear of living in an unpredictable world.

  From the psychology today article, touchofgrey

  If this part of the brain evolved for these reasons, altruism and safety, why did it have to point to God, and not man himself?
• 

  Halcon

  Tonus -Ganted, the more likely explanation is that it began as a way to explain the (then) inexplicable. The development of gods into powerful invisible friends would come gradually, and the abuse of the concept would follow soon after, is my guess.

  Again, was it mere coincidence that instead of anything else as an explanation, time and time again it had to be God?
• 

  blondie

  I have thought about this many times. The WTS tries to show how the original language words meant something different (and we are not capable of understanding it seemingly since the WTS does not tell which word they are referring to.)

  "

  Doesn’t the Bible say that God never changes?

  Yes, the Bible records God as saying: “I am Jehovah; I do not change.” (Malachi 3:6) Similarly, the Bible says that God “does not vary or change like the shifting shadows.” (James 1:​17) This, however, does not contradict what the Bible says about God changing his mind. God is unchangeable in that his personality and standards of love and justice never alter. (Deuteronomy 32:4; 1 John 4:8) Still, he can give different instructions to people at different times. For instance, God gave opposite instructions to King David for fighting two consecutive battles, yet both methods succeeded.​—2 Samuel 5:​18-​25. (Found at ijwbq article 86 in the WT Online Library, no link not to make someone uncomfortable going directly to the site, remember just reporting, not supporting)
• 

  peacefulpete

  Blondie...they simply ignore the fundamental issue, by directing attention away from the contradiction. If a god has the ability to see the future and know all, the pronouncement of judgement ought never need be reversed. Such a being would only need to change his judgement if he failed to give the matter his full attention.

  An alternative available to believers is as Jeremiah suggested wherein pronouncements of judgement are actually just threats or possibilities that God can reverse at whim, like a potter doing what he wants to clay.

  Halcon...Belief in spirits (in objects or in actions like wind) is the product of inferential logic. When nothing readily visible accounts for an action or growth, something invisible must. These invisible agents naturally took the form of the visible animals and people the mind is familiar with. The ability to reason inferentially is vital for survival, but often leads to incorrect conclusions when the causative factor is less than obvious. My clever dog has inferential reasoning. When the wind blows and slams a door he barks assuming someone came in. Who knows how his mind explains the fact that he sees no one. He might be clever enough to imagine invisible someones.

  Religion, while involving spirits, at it's core is an attempt to control the uncontrollable. Rites and ritual combine with story as a way to tame the natural world and threats to safety. As was said it didn't take long for entrepreneuring/delusional individuals proclaimed themselves experts aka shamans. I'm also pretty sure my dog worships me as a means to end. Cuddling up and acting cute when he wants me to open the fridge door.
• 

  Halcon

  Pete-Belief in spirits (in objects or in actions like wind) is the product of inferential logic. When nothing readily visible accounts for an action or growth, something invisible must. These invisible agents naturally took the form of the visible animals and people the mind is familiar with. The ability to reason inferentially is vital for survival, but often leads to incorrect conclusions when the causative factor is less than obvious. My clever dog has inferential reasoning. When the wind blows and slams a door he barks assuming someone came in. Who knows how his mind explains the fact that he sees no one. He might be clever enough to imagine invisible someones.

  This is all clear. However, it doesn't answer the question of why, instinctively, does man always infer that it is a being greater than himself?

  From the beginning of time to now, it's the same conclusion.

  Why do you suppose the very first human that assumed it was God inferred this way... when the idea and concept of God was presumably non existent?
• 

  peacefulpete

  Well, that really isn't the case. Many spirits were assumed minor powers, many were thought of as mischievous and with unique abilities other than ours to cause trouble but not all powerful. Polytheism/henotheism essentially means that there was no all-powerful. Power was distributed around as agents of countless phenomenon. Eventually the philosophically literate had a problem with their deity being less than everything and imagined a single all-in-one God. We happen to come from a culture with that theology, but even today the majority of the world has more than one deity/spirit.
• 

  Halcon

  pete-Well, that really isn't the case. Many spirits were assumed minor powers, many were thought of as mischievous and with unique abilities other than ours to cause trouble but not all powerful. Polytheism/henotheism essentially means that there was no all-powerful. Power was distributed around as agents of countless phenomenon. Eventually the philosophically literate had a problem with their deity being less than everything and imagined a single all-in-one God.

  You believe that the very first human being that invented the concept of God looked all around at all the things he couldn't explain and all at once attributed them to a thousand different gods despite there being absolutely no concept of God in existence...then much later on someone different said no, it's just one god?

  Even if this was true, the inferring by this human lead to a conclusion that it was a group of beings greater than he. Otherwise, he would have been able to explain any occurrence thru his own human experience.
• 

  peacefulpete

  I'm not sure I quite follow, but the "all at once" phrase may be a large part of your difficulty accepting the natural explanation for belief in gods.

  I was trying to illustrate the fact that inferential reasoning is common, even among other animals. Primate studies have demonstrated they are very similar in their ability to impute motives and formulate opinions about personalities and anticipate behavior. This is sometimes part of what is called social cognition. In short the ability to conceive and retain an impression of another personality. For humans, having the added ability of complex language, we pass on detailed concepts, to get transmitted communally, eventually changing and growing in sophistication with the additional input of more imaginations. We can have real emotions about imaginary characters. Fear, affection etc.

  So, what I'm getting at is there is nothing "all at once" about it. Human religious development grew from simple assumptions of agency involved in the otherwise unexplainable movement into complex rationalizations of how to appease these agents. The agents are mental constructs that offer comfort or fear.

  Monotheism is a very late invention in our species. Some would say it is an unworkable one. Persians and Jews (and Egyptian Atenism) found it difficult to attribute all the good and bad to a single powerful praiseworthy entity. Hence the concept of an ultimately good and an ultimately bad god in eternal struggle. God/devil. True monotheism probably never existed.
• 

  TonusOH

  Halcon: was it mere coincidence that instead of anything else as an explanation, time and time again it had to be God?

  I don't know if god was always the explanation for the unknown. It may have been the most convenient explanation because it wasn't falsifiable. If there was a single being responsible, one would expect that every explanation would refer to this specific being. But, over the course of human history, entire pantheons were invented and catalogued and used to explain the unknown.

  Once we developed a more reliable method for discovery and learning, we began to find testable explanations for the mysteries of nature and the universe. To date, we have not stumbled upon god as one of them. I think this is not a coincidence.