Most of this thread, and really most discussions about “god” boil down to psychology and sociology, nothing really to do with the big question. The problem with thinking about god is that we’re just smart enough to ask the big questions, but not smart enough to know if we even have the concepts to come up with an answer. Think of a tropical fish in a tank. No amount of evolution is going to provide it with the set of concepts necessary to answer the question x + 2 = 5, yet alone how he got there. And moreover, he doesn’t even, won’t ever, know that he doesn’t possess the concepts to even think about answering that simple math equation. We’re no different. There may be concepts “out there” that are needed to answer the big god question that we can’t even conceive of. Sucks of course, but that’s just the way it is. And even when we try to be fancy and talk about “reason” and “logic” and necessity, etc. even those are just slightly bigger concepts available to us that are nevertheless tied to our own limited ways of thinking. No matter what we do, we’re still stuck in our little fishtank of a reality.
@cuthbertj Most of this thread, and really most discussions about “god” boil down to psychology and sociology, nothing really to do with the big question. The problem with thinking about god is that we’re just smart enough to ask the big questions, but not smart enough to know if we even have the concepts to come up with an answer.Hmmm, seems to me if we hadn't already developed the concepts, we could never ask our selves about those concepts and their implication to begin with, they just keep growing.
You know what’s coming next, don’t you. ?
It seems to me that first base concept we need to appreciate before hoping to get further with those other “deeper questions” is a simple appreciation that the material biological world is real and whatever creatures we are, were born out of that physical reality. Earth Evolution created us, Mother Earth, we were born of her, live off of her, and will be swallowed up by her, when our time is done. All those billions and millions of year of life unfolding one day after another. That’s what we were born out of, full of emergent properties, a suite of adaptations and an environment that nurture us. Emergent everything, tool making, thinking, learning, animal plant husbandry, civilization, always thinking deeper and deeper thoughts.
But those thoughts are the product of amazing biology backed by billions of years worth of evolution. Our thoughts, our mind, is the inside of this magnificent biological body we inhabit. It’s of such mystical aw, I can’t describe it, but I feel some of it, now and then.
My point being appreciating the “Human Mindscape ~ Physical Reality divide”
The problem with thinking about god is that we’re just smart enough to ask the big questions, but not smart enough to know if we even have the concepts to come up with an answer.That reflects the western religious expectation that such understanding should be within the human reach. You know, of course, the God of this world would be all worried about us. It's childish entitlement, that humans have some a right to expect some absolute understanding.
We don’t, we only have the human mindscape, created from generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.
The missing key is appreciating the fundamental “Magisteria of Physical Reality,” and recognizing both science and religion are products of the “Magisteria of Our Mindscape.”Science seeks to objectively learn about our physical world, but we should still recognize all our understanding is embedded within and constrained by our mindscape.
Religion is all about the human mindscape itself, with its wonderful struggles, fears, spiritual undercurrents, needs and stories we create to give our live’s meaning and make it worth living, or at least bearable.
What’s the point?
Religions, Science, political beliefs, heaven, hell, even God they are all products of the human mindscape, generations of imaginings built upon previous generations of imaginings, all the way down.That’s not to say they are the same thing, they are not!
Though I think they’re both equally valid human endeavors,
but fundamentally qualitatively different.
Religion deals with the inside of our minds, hearts and souls,
Science does its best to objectively understand the physical world beyond all that.
That is false. The religious pride themselves in their Faith, that is far removed from “believing” in demonstrable facts and allow facts to drive our understanding of what we witness and experience.I noticed that was poorly written:
Religious Faith, is far removed from “believing” in demonstrable facts and allowing those facts to direct and alter one's beliefs.
Pasting did not work the way I hoped. Tried to post a tree chart of the religion of God. The above post is the site which has a good tree chart.
Tried to post a tree chart of the religion of God.So what, what good is such a chart? Even if it looks cool. Demonstrating the migrations of ideas?
Don’t you know God is the most personal relationship of your life? And just like that experience is born from within your body and mind, so too is religion a product of our own minds, dealing with the same kinds of mysteries and fears and desires and amazement as other human beings.
The point isn’t how many religions there are or how they are interrelated or not - the point is they are creations of the human mind, which is the inside reflection of our bodies. You say the meta-physical aspect of the creature. Lighting & Thunder and all that.
All the rest is just so much religious gossip.
Oh and then, there’s the Physical Reality that we need to reconcile ourselves with.
I like the umbilical cord reaching back to the dawn of time.
. According to my perspetive …
. I don´t see that there is any God who created the world. I certainly experience a quality of godliness in existence, but it is a quality, not a person. It is more like love, more like silence, more like joy – less like a person. You are never going to meet God and say hello to him, how are you? I have been looking for you for thousands of years; where have you been hiding?
. God is not a person but only a presence.
. And when I say “presence,” be very attentive, because you can go on listening according to your own conditioning. You can even make “presence” something objective – you have again fallen into the same trap. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else.
@anandhaqq. God is a presence at the innermost core of your being: it is your own presence. It is not a meeting with somebody else.I can agree with that. It's sort of the point I'm trying to make.
In fact, that what makes it (god) the most personal relationship of our life’s. 
I believe that in Tibet this phenomenon is called a “Tulpa”.
Tulpa is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1] It was adapted by 20th-century theosophists from Tibetan sprul-pa (Tibetan: སྤྲུལ་པ་, Wylie: sprulpa) which means "emanation" or "manifestation."[2]
Spiritualist Alexandra David-Néel claimed to have observed these[which?] mystical practices in 20th century Tibet.[1] She described tulpas as "magic formations generated by a powerful concentration of thought."[8]:331 David-Néel believed that tulpas could develop a mind of its own: "Once the tulpa is endowed with enough vitality to be capable of playing the part of a real being, it tends to free itself from its maker's control.
This, say Tibetan occultists, happens nearly mechanically, just as the child, when her body is completed and able to live apart, leaves its mother's womb."[8]:283 She claimed to have created such a tulpa in the image of a jolly Friar Tuck-like monk, which later developed a life of its own and had to be destroyed.[9] David-Néel raised the possibility that her experience was illusory: "I may have created my own hallucination", though she said others could see the thoughtforms that she created.[8]:176https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulpa
Tulpa is a concept in mysticism and the paranormal of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers.[1]What ever that means.
I’ve no objection so long as we recognize that the “being” or “object” is and remains a resident of your own mindscape, and not a physical manifestation.
@mriana. God is a human concept.I agree, a product and resident of our Human Mindscapes.
And then there’s physical reality,
this biological body with an incredible backstory, that I/we inhabit for our life,
but that’s constantly changing with the seasons, first growing, then aging, think of it, the stories of our years, all were experienced through this ever changing body.
The thing that connections us to real world, while our minds look on.
God may be a human concept. But that does not answer anything.
What is the reason for the concept?
History tells us that “God” came from science.
History shows us that it followed the same path in history as pre-history items like “The Spirit”, and “Reincarnation”.
Basically, human traits.
The Spirit was around first. It was your soul. Then came afterlife in the form of reincarnation. You were the judge of yourself. Only you knew if you were good and would move up or down the caste levels of society in the next life.
God translated means “knowledge”. Mostly started as animals and astrological items that communicated using temples and rituals. Then became part human and part animal. Next, you no longer judged your “goodness for afterlife”. God became the judge.
As you can see by the tree chart above. It was a mess. And passed on verbally.
Reason would conclude that you are not going to change human traits.
But you can do what your ancestors has always done and selected the constructivist approach as the most appropriate for knowledge seeking. People actively construct or make their own knowledge, and that reality is determined by experiences.
History shows that “Religion” was created for civilizations. Not the individual. So, as an atheist. If you believe in the civilization you should embrace religion until you have a better pathway that the people will take and will fill the needs of human traits.
The power of the religious institutions has changed from controlling “God”. To controlling the believers of God. The church will seldomly correct the misconceptions of the believers. Sort of letting the people take care of afterlife trait. Churches are expanding by building on other human traits. Right now, traditions seem to be a big item of churches. Mainly church traditions that are political. Like birth control.
As many of you dealt with Dad1. You got to view that religious followers require very little from the church as far as logic. What they require is a large data base to help guide them with responses to those who question the bible. Dad1 was totally unable to step outside of the bible. He had no database or guidance. Showing he knew nothing about religion as a science.
Whereas atheists are into objectivism over constructivism. Dad1 was a behaviorist of the constructivism movement of the bible.
It is pretty well agreed that gods developed out of our hyper agency detection. Then, some say we got stuck on the delusion, others say religion evolved to sometimes hold tribes together and pass on info but sometimes it held believes that harmed them.
@Mikeyohe. The Spirit was around first. It was your soul. Then came afterlife in the form of reincarnation.Where did you get that?
Spirit, Soul is a product of the creature that inhabit it.
Origins are to be found within the evolutionary story, not within your imagination. Reincarnation reflexes an inability to appreciate our minds as the product of our own body and its own interaction with the world, a product of billions of years worth of Evolution on this singular planet of ours. One can’t hand down one’s life’s experiences. It’s a non-sequitur.
@Mikeyohe. History shows that “Religion” was created for civilizations. Not the individual. So, as an atheist. If you believe in the civilization you should embrace religion until you have a better pathway that the people will take and will fill the needs of human traits.But the thing is, there's already one. Science and honestly learning about the physical reality of this planet Earth, and the evolution that created the biology, that created us!
@Mikeyohe. The power of the religious institutions has changed from controlling “God”. To controlling the believers of God.You sure do make some curious claims.
When was the Catholic Church or any other, ever about “controlling God”. That’s really bizarre sounding and could use a little explaining. Religions have always been about influencing people’s thinking and behaving. “God” has been their tool, free to be used anyway they wanted. That’s controlling the narrative of who god is and what it wants, but it not controlling god? It’s striving, often way too successfully, to control people’s thinking.
@mikeyohe. God may be a human concept. But that does not answer anything.It answers the most fundamental question. God is not some outside agency. God is a product of our Mindscape and an agent of our inner worlds!
Period.
No amount of verbal vomit changes the fundamental importance of that single realization.
The trick is learning enough about us and how we got here, to appreciate what it means.
. Yes. The theological God is a human myth; is a human concept.
. But not the experience which one is poured by existence when the state of no mind is attained.
. The latter can be called - God, Awe, Love …
And then we may even ask “where is God going to”?
Okay, it seems we’ve decided, or is it agreed, that God comes from within us and an accumulation of our (individual, collective, historic) experience of the world.
Reckon the actual question we might ask is, “where is the Human Ego heading towards?”