I have always thought that Humans will eventually figure out what Existence is all about. But we may not like what we ultimately discover. Take a particularly disturbing possibility. Religious people talk about the Oneness of the Universe. But maybe that is just another way of referring to some sort of Consciousness eating God that is cultivating our Conscious Selves for food. We all become One when we are joined with God through some kind of Consciousness based digestive process. Not only is this a possible reason for our existence, it also follows from the very nature of life on this planet where we eat each other. Had a good steak lately?
That’s the whole reason for the existence of vampires.
I can’t prove they’ve actually seen something though, but if they did, it’s either psychosis, a lie, or real.I saw a ghost once. Actually at first I thought it was real person, real enough to slam on my breaks.
I mean it was just like in the movies, suddenly literally in the middle of the road there was a ghostly white figure, long gown and all, just for a moment, it even made me slam on my brakes. Hard. Then it was gone. Fortunately it was in the middle of the night, one way, two lane road and was probably going 45ish. It was in Yosemite Valley (70s) after spending all day driving up 99 from San Diego to the Fresno turn off where I took over driving and toward Wawona and the valley.
I slammed on those breaks and she disappeared. That was quite an adrenalin jolt for my body, just what I needed to wake up enough to drive the last few miles home. Oh did I mention that the previous two days were partying and late nights and my chums were fast asleep? Needless to say, me thinks it was an amazing sleep deprivation hallucination I saw.
Paula just pointed out, it was actually one of my guardian angels.
So there. 
Non-belief just seems like the default setting. No one is born religious, no one discovers faith, it’s taught to you by people it was taught to by people it was taught to.
I used to be religious but now I find it more comforting believing there is no afterlife, better make the most of this one.
I’m taking a class in the science of religion on Edx. There are theories that some of what we label as religion comes from natural tendencies, like hyper-active agency detection and more complicated things like using seemingly useless rituals to signal to people the importance of the meaning behind the ritual and use that to build community cohesion.
Thanks for the comment Tyler, way to jump right in.
Welcome Tyler. Your observation was spot on, IMO
This seems bizarre in light of 4000 + churches going out of business every year. God lives in each individual mind – if the individual allows it. Increasingly individuals are leaving the church or rejoining their species.
Hal said; Increasingly individuals are leaving the church or rejoining their species.Aren't all species created in the image of God? Does belonging to a church the same as having a club membership that allows for special privileges?
Please God, spare me from theists.
Of course there is. Every single one of us has the capacity to harbor or vanquish spirits and gods that temporarily live in our mind. Its proof of how primitive we are.
Hal said; Of course there is. Every single one of us has the capacity to harbor or vanquish spirits and gods that temporarily live in our mind. Its proof of how primitive we are.That is an interesting observation. It is true that each of us can create our own gods and demons.
The earliest Gods were a product of observation of unexpainable phenomena (miracles) by “Powerful Unseen Creatures” that dwelled in the sky.
Almost every primitive culture had their own god of thunder and rain.
Thunder Gods
Mediterranean[edit] Teshub (Hurrian mythology) Adad, Bel, Ishkur, Marduk (Babylonian-Assyrian mythology) Baʿal, Hadad (Canaanite and Phoenician mythology) Set (Egyptian mythology) Aplu (Hurrian mythology) Tarḫunna (Hittite mythology) Tarḫunz (Luwian mythology) Vahagn (Armenian Mythology) Zibelthiurdos (Thracian mythology) Zeus (Greek Mythology) Restal (Renon Mythology) Northwestern Eurasia[edit] Afi (Abkhaz Mythology) Ambisagrus, Loucetios (Gaulish mythology) Atämshkai (Moksha mythology) Gebeleizis (Dacian mythology) Horagalles (Sami mythology) Jupiter, Summanus (Roman mythology) Orko (Basque mythology) Perëndi (Albanian mythology) Perkūnas (Baltic mythology) Perkwunos (Proto-Indo-European mythology) Perun (Slavic mythology) Ukko or Perkele (Finnish mythology) Taranis (Pan-Celtic) Tharapita or Taara (Estonian mythology) Thor (Norse mythology) Brontes (Greek mythology) Fulgora (Roman mythology) Astrape and Bronte (Greek mythology) Thunor (Anglo Saxon) East Asia[edit] Leigong (Chinese mythology) Dianmu (Chinese mythology) Ajisukitakahikone (Japanese mythology) Raijin (Japanese mythology) Tenjin (Japanese mythology) Susanoo (Japanese mythology) Takemikazuchi (Japanese mythology) South Asia[edit] Indra (Hindu mythology and Buddhist mythology) Parjanya (Hindu mythology) Raja Indainda (Batak mythology) Vajrapani (Buddhist mythology) Americas[edit] Thunderbird (Iroquois and Huron mythology) Aktzin (Totonac mythology) Haokah (Lakota mythology) Xolotl and Tlaloc (Aztec mythology) Cocijo (Zapotec mythology) Chaac (Maya mythology) Yopaat (Maya mythology) Chibchacum (Muisca mythology) Apocatequil (Incan mythology) Tupã (Guaraní mythology) Sub-Saharan Africa[edit] Shango (god of thunder and lightning, Yoruba Nigeria) Oya (goddess of hurricanes, storms, death and rebirth, consort of Shango in Yoruba religion) Azaka-Tonnerre (West African Vodun/Haitian Vodou) Mulungu Xevioso (alternately: Xewioso, Heviosso. Thunder god of the So region) Amadioha (Igbo, Nigeria) Àlamei (So region) Kiwanuka (god of thunder and lightning, Buganda, Uganda) Umvelinqangi (god of thunder, earthquake, sun and sky in Zulu mythology) Oceania[edit] Haikili (Polynesian mythology) Tāwhaki (Polynesian mythology) Kaha'i (Polynesian mythology) Te Uira (Polynesian mythology) Nan Sapwe (Pohnpeian mythology) Australia[edit] Mamaragan (Aboriginal mythology) New Zealand[edit] Whaitiri (Māori mythology) Tāwhirimātea (Māori mythology)
Reminds of the lists you can find on Wikipedia. There are few like this, where Yahweh appears as just another one among many.
Thanks for that link, very interesting.
The existence or non-existence of God can never be proved or disproved but certain considerations can be taken into account. The church, the bible, and the practice of religion have almost nothing to do with God and have quite a lot to do with man, coercive doctrines of conformity, dogma and naked worldly power. If we try to consider the question of God’s existence through the prism of our own personal experience with religion and church teaching we’ll eventually become disillusioned and cynical (provided we have a thinking and open mind.) The reason we see so many opinions asserting the non-existence of God is because the silly fairy tales that are still being promulgated in churches all over the world are increasingly being seen for what they are and have always been, moronic twaddle. The biggest obstacle to genuine belief in God is coming from those very sources that proclaim the loudest and most fervently how all of us need to believe. I say again as in an earlier post, science not religion owns the future of all serious theological discussion on this vital question. Those who in my view correctly assert the validity of God’s existence don’t have to retreat into the inane fabrications of the bible to justify their belief. Stories of Adam and Eve and Noah’s Ark wouldn’t pass the laugh test of a fourth grader but for the gullible ignorance of adults who give credence to them and more and more free thinking people are rejecting them.
It is science, cosmology, evolutionary biology and other related disciplines that offer credible support for the existence of a supremely transcendent power that both originated and orders the cosmos.
I’m feeling this is a bit of a repeat, but I can’t resist. I never followed your evidence from science, so I’ll pass on that. But your main theme is expressed here:
The reason we see so many opinions asserting the non-existence of God is because the silly fairy tales that are still being promulgated in churches all over the world are increasingly being seen for what they are and have always been, moronic twaddle.
I can’t untangle the “silly fairy tales” from the churches however. The only God I know of is the one talked about there. That’s the one I don’t believe. Which we seem to agree, that is, right up until you say we don’t. You say it’s a “vital question” and “serious”. Fourth graders do laugh, but because of how religion operates, they eventually stop laughing. They see that making these gestures actually helps establish their place in society. They aren’t gullible and ignorant, they are pretty much aware of how the world works and know they need to get with the program, or live on the fringes. Don’t know if you’ve noticed, but science is unpopular with a lot of people right now.
The Mesopotamian cuneiform script, invented in Sumer, present-day Iraq, c. 3200 BCE, can be traced without any discontinuity over a period of 10,000 years, from a prehistoric antecedent to the present-day alphabet. Your list of Thunder Gods was obviously written well after humans invented writing.
@write4u said “The earliest Gods were a product of observation of unexpainable phenomena (miracles) by “Powerful Unseen Creatures” that dwelled in the sky.” THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. Are you a creationist are something like that?
Religious stories were easy to sell when there wasn’t one human who knew anything about the origins of the planet or the life on it. Paleontology among other modern sciences has masterfully deciphered the evidence left by a developing planet and the evidence of evolution of life on it. Unfortunately the discoveries of modern science came along after the student experience of many Christians of today.
halster said; @write4u said “The earliest Gods were a product of observation of unexpainable phenomena (miracles) by “Powerful Unseen Creatures” that dwelled in the sky.” THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE. Are you a creationist are something like that?I'm sorry, but you are completely misreading that statement. IT IS TRUE and I can prove it. But that does not make me a creationist, on the contrary, it is a reasonable explaination how creationism started in primitive minds at a time when the first hominid looked up into the sky and asked the question; "who is this unseen powerful enemy, who lives in the clouds and when angry makes thunder and fire in the sky and then throws water down on my family ". This is how the first gods were born in the mind of primitive man. These powerful gods can be seen by the earliest cave paintings depicting strange creatures descending from the sky.
This proven by the the lists of the earliest sky-gods, which were common to EVERY HUMAN CULTURE on earth from the very first appearance of homo sapiens, regardless how isolated they were from each other.
This primitive behavior hundreds of thousands of years ago can be observed today in Chimpanzees who have mentally not evolved very much from our common ancestor and still see a tropical thunderstorm as being caused by a powerful enemy hidden by the bushes in the sky.
Worship and sacrifice came much later, when men started to try and appease these powerful skygods and created ritual worship.
btw. I’m a hard atheist. I don’t even see a remote possibility of a supernatural intelligent motivated creator being. I believe in a mathematical universe which yields the very same result, sans the religious BS.
See list of Earliest “Thunder gods” above in the very post you quoted from. That list did not mean anything to you? Think it through, man.
Every culture all over the world had a thunder god. They were the first invented sky beings imagined by human minds.