Going down the God rabbit hole is frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying. Every answer boils down to faith, which is basically belief without proof.
To paraphrase someone: If God is all-good, then God can’t be all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, then God can’t be all-good.
I probably sound like I’m being dismissive of people who believe in God. That’s not my intent. Faith can be a healthy source of strength in difficult times, and when dealing with our chaotic world. I only have an issue when blind faith is allowed to override common sense, like not getting your kids vaccinated, or drinking raw milk.
Because main evolved advantageous uses for emotion. We cry, and no longer have to communicate with words that something is wrong. It is advantageous to us to be able to communicate with emotions in more than a vocal manner. Things make more sense when we consider the real reasons they came into being. “We” have probably had these emotions for far longer than we could be considered humans.
I asked a Christian friend of mine how an all knowing god could be jealous or angry if they were all knowing and the actions of the people they were angry/jealous at were part of his plan.
I never got an answer other than ‘mysterious ways’
In the Bible he is beyond human emotions. Even though he is portrayed as having human emotions in many instances such as in the garden of Eden or Job.
It’s a contradiction of course as the Bible is caulk full of them.
Remember the Bible was written by humans who cannot fathom the mind of such a character as God. At least in the Bible. So they imbue him with the emotions they feel themselves not knowing any better and hoping the illiterate masses will simply believe the scripture wholesale. Which they did and do.
God literally says that he is a jealous god in The Bible. Hardly beyond emotion!
Assuming we’re discussing the Abrahamic God, He used to be much smaller in scope; in fact, He was the ancient Jewish War God, back when they had a full polytheistic pantheon. So if we’re going back to the original myths, He didn’t really create humans, nor was He all-powerful or all-seeing, or ‘above-it-all’ in general.
(This is back in the days when Gods were more seen as local clan/town sponsors, like how Athena is the patron God of Athens. He was just a tribal patron god, one they prayed to in order to be safe and successful in war.)
Also, back then Gods in general were written as being much closer to humans, in term of emotions and motivations—again, Greek mythology gives a good showing of this, but you can read a lot of ancient myths and see it in play.
As Jehovah became more and more popular (due to all the wars in the region), He started to absorb many of the myths and abilities of the rest of the pantheon, which is why He seems kind of schizophrenic in the older stories. YHWH was actually the head of the pantheon, and as Jehovah supplanted Him as the ancient proto-Jewish tribes moved towards monotheism, the two Gods ended up essentially being merged with each other.
Still, back then, while Gods were seen as powerful, they were still somewhat seen as limited and fallible. In fact even today there is a strong Jewish tradition of questioning God (albeit politely and a bit indirectly so as not to get turned into salt or whatever).
But, as Judaism grew, and split off into Christianity and Islam, God’s followers began tack on more and more powers and abilities to make Him sound cooler (and increase the power of the Church). So that’s where the ‘all-seeing’ and ‘all-powerful’ Great-God-of-Everything business comes from, really.
TL;DR ‘God wasn’t all-powerful and was ‘written’ to have emotions much closer to humans when those creation myths were first being told.
Do you have any links to recommend to check out for further reading/watching? Or what search terms should help me find this the best? Ty :u
I’ve got one that would likely be relevant: The Early History of God – Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
It’s all made up buddy
Whipping out my clover and putting on my best Irish Accent to explain the Holy Trinity
Well you kind of have the thing reversed.
All gods are created by man in mans image. And gods are generally exactly as selfish childish (narcissistic) and emotional as a 4 year old, because that’s the mentality of the people with the delusions that created the gods in the first place. And then the people who think they know what god is and want.What gets me is in that belief god is essentially is the real person in the real world and he is the head honcho but there are other angels there. heck some things in the bible suggest other gods. definately a we oftentimes. well then our existence is created by him and he has totaly control of it. so from gods perspective our universe is essentially virtual reality. the matrix.
What “things in the bible suggest other gods”?
Mostly genesis but might be a few things in other old testament or something like revelation. If you insist I can go look around but the sections are either the creation area, tower of babel, or the flood. things like we or us. granted its the stuff that basically was just carried over from babylonian things. Its not until abraham that it kinda starts being its own thing.
Don’t go to any trouble. I thought you might have a quote in mind.
yeah im not real good at keeping track of these things. There is this great old testament story which im pretty sure is in kings that to me basically says you can’t trust anyone elses interpretation of god but I always have to search around for it. Its not the most obscure tale in it but it sorta cracks me up that so many fundamentalits seem to miss what seems to be the point of that one. Which to me is to think for yourself.
Most importantly is to ask why is he subject to time? Our only concept of existing or being alive is tied to time: thought is a change of state, and change is defined by a progression of time. But if God is everything, why is he subject to time? What’s “outside” time?
Projection?
I had a car that didn’t like when the weather was cold and damp. It wasn’t too happy about being parked on a slope, either.
Did the car actually have human emotions? No, of course not, but as a human it was both easy and natural to frame and process it that way.
Instead of it simply being “God made made in his own image”, the truth is probably that there’s more than a little of “man made God in his own image” too.
Yeah, all gods have been made by man.
I’m not sure if the metaphor of you anthropomorphizing an inanimate object is the best one to criticize the projection of one’s own desires and wills onto a fantasy deity. For one thing, your car actually exists, even if its emotions do not. Also, believing that your car simply doesn’t like cold and damp weather is a rather harmless belief. For a person to believe that a god’s will reflects their personal wishes and desires is inherently dangerous. I’m not aware of anyone rationalizing hate crimes because they thought the car didn’t like a certain group of people.
I’m not sure if the metaphor of you anthropomorphizing an inanimate object is the best one to criticize the projection of one’s own desires and wills onto a fantasy deity.
I’m not criticising.
People are welcome to follow a religion if they want to.
I know that I can no more disprove the existence of a god than prove the existence of one. I know that anybody doing something bad in the name of a god is either lying or being coerced.
Removed by mod
I appreciate it might be hyperbole, but you’re advocating causing actual harm to people who find comfort in religion. Honestly, that sounds more psychotic.
I’m taking a guess here, based on your spelling (all those 'z’s) that you’re American. It’s probably worth me pointing out that the US has some pretty grotesque implementations of many religions, particularly Christianity - but they are a poor reflection of religion in general.
I’m not overly religious (didn’t even go to Church on Christmas!), but know a lot of good people are. If they find praying, attending services or reading the literature helps them get through life, I won’t argue against it.
Removed by mod
Was this response meant for me?
If so, what do you want me to prove? That religion exists? I mean, it does - there are loads of them and the very oldest evidence of a prehistoric settlement is a temple complex, suggesting that religions have existed for over ten thousand years at least.
I’ve already said that the existence of a god can’t be proven or disproven.
The only thing I’m arguing with you about is letting people practice religion if they find comfort in doing so.
You’ve advocated institutionalising and using surgical techniques on people for their beliefs. And then called me mentally ill and a danger to society.
Neat. The guy’s argument with you has accidentally leaked into another community, with him replying to me and another poster with ad hominem attacks and desires to see us (who never mentioned religion) institutionalized.
Removed by mod
This still sounds like violent conversion therapy. What an aweful, merciless god you make of yourself.
Removed by mod
You can make the characters do whatever you want when you’re writing fiction.
Christian theologians believe in the impassibility of God, which means that God does not have emotions as humans do. Then biblical texts where emotions are attributed to God are explained as anthropomorphism - God using human language to communicate his nature and actions.
This is the answer or similar enough I got when I was Catholic
How the hell do they explain his “love” then? Seems like they create more problems than they fix with this crap.
“Love” in the scriptures is typically a verb, e.g., “God so loved the world…” It describes an action that God does, not a feeling. God’s love is his acting in a loving way towards undeserving people.
Exactly, that’s a perfectly theologian explanation, it sounds good, but doesn’t stand the least bit of scrutiny.
Already the creation story on the first pages says god created light and saw the light is good. How is it good without subjective emotion?
How exactly are gods emotions supposed to be different. Does good mean something different to god?Religion is nothing but worthless bullshit from start till end.
To play gods advocate, good isn’t an emotion. Good is a state of being, that could be defined and then other things can be judged by that definition to be good or not.
Subjective? Sure. But no emotion needed for subjectivity.
And to answer your rhetorical question: yes, they define it by god likes it equals it being good. Which is just the ultimate dictatorship, but Christians probably wouldn’t even disagree with that notion, since that is exactly what is written in the Bible.
It’s all made up by humans
Is there proof of a god like at all? Who tf is this mf. Also god caused your misfortune so asking him to help is counterproductive
If you believe God created this place, literally everything is proof of God. It’s hard to explain a good one, and particularly one that is both good and interventionalist, but the whole “God created it and left it to rot” idea one can kinda understand the appeal of. It’s hard to imagine how this all just popped out of nowhere.
Of course, it solves nothing, as you just shift the problem over to God. But that’s besides the point.
I think the religions that allow for multiple and often flawed gods seem easier to believe in, but if you’ve been taught to believe in some Yahweh spin-off I try not to judge to harshly.
I mean the creation of the universe and the beginning of life are the two big ones, among others. That said you can’t have scientific proof for or against a supreme being specifically because the sort of questions you’d ask to confirm or deny the existence of one don’t intersect with modern science.
Giving a serious answer with serious consideration that follows serious rules, is impossible with religion, as all the rules are made up, there’s no consistency, and they’re all silly.
