what do you think of these quotes??

Question

"It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men." -

"It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him." -

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." -

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.


"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say is that he is an underachiever.

THE RESPONSES I RCVD FROM MY LAST POSTING OF QUOTES WAS INCREDIBLE--I RCVD SOME VERY INTELLIGENT ANSWERS AND ALSO SOME VERY LAME ONES--WHAT WILL YOUR ANSWER BE?

Answer 1

Great quotes; it gets people to think about god; sadly those who are close minded will mock those quotes

Answer 2

1) Unprovable either way.
2) Assuming that God did not exist, one could not CREATE him. One could create a belief that he existed, but not actually create God Himself.
3) How does the speaker of the quote know what the desires of other people are? Does he or she have some mystical ability to see inside what's in the heart of others? It becomes self-interpreting, since any action, no matter how much on the surface and irregardless of one's true motives, can be seen as coinciding (however bizarrely) with what one desires.
4) Or it could be that God is morally justified in allowing the temporary existence of evil, such as the allowing of free will.
5) What if neither of us truly hates anyone? (see Ezekiel 18:23)
6) I believe God is good, not evil. But how does one go about determining whether God is an underachiever unless one fully knows what His full potential is and how much He has done?

Answer 3

I don't agree with any of those quotes, since none of those seem to apply to my God. If anything, we did not create Him but discover Him. What He wants doesn't coincide with my desires; if that was the case, I would not be a virgin. ;) My God doesn't hate all the people I do, rather He somehow manages to love everyone whom I hate. And about the omnipotence thing, I asked a question just like that; here's the answer I got:

Yes, God sees our life as a done deal. Yet, we ourselves do have free will to choose. It would be like I could go back in time, meet with George Lucas while attending USC film class. I would know everything about what he would write and the companies he would start. Does he have free will to write Star Wars? Yes. Would my knowledge change the fact that Darth Vader will be Luke Skywalker's dad? No. It's a done deal because I am not bound by time.

In this scenario, you can see how God is not bound by time. Another example might be that God may have a plan for a baby which will be aborted. Yes, God may have a plan for that baby, but He already knows that the baby will be aborted by his or her mother's free will. God *is* omnipotent.

Answer 4

Another good Woody Allen quote, "Why are our days numbered? Why not lettered."

A lot of good points to ponder! But I'm going to play devil's advocate with one quote about God :-)...

"Is God willing to prevent.....
You hear this a lot (e.g., why the pain, suffering, why does allow the devil, evil, etc.).

Putting aside any one particuliar religion, all of those terms are subjective inventions of man. I think we are a bit arrogant to think that understanding ends at the outward boundaries of our understanding and our "fish in a goldfish bowl" understanding of our exsitence.

Science is telling us that there is no reality, no true cause and effect, time may be an illusion and that the best guess is that our world is made up of many dimensions, possibly an infinite number of universes. Our greatest scientist have no idea how a simple photon can be a particle and a wave at the same time. Many feel it is beyond our imagination!!! And yet we have the audaciity to think that we know enough about our world to make judgments about appropriate god behavior.

It is incredibly easy to take shots at religion and we have immense justification for not putting our faith in people who say they know God's will, but is meaningless to evaluate God's behavior from our severly finite perspective.

There is no reason to believe that things in our world should be any different or that somehow that sheds light on the validity of god. Assuming there is a god, it is not a big leap to think that we do not possess the ability to imagine god's ultimate plan or design.

Answer 5

Good stuff.

If God Created all things perfectly then why does evil exist?

If a perfect God with a knowledge of the past, present and future is the creator of all things, then the existence of evil, disaster, war, pestilence, hatred and violence are by his perfect design and a part of his perfect will.

God created Lucifer knowing the result, free will is not an answer as a perfect God wouldn't have such a self esteem problem that requires him to create beings who can choose to love him, then eternally torture those who don't. That is the action of a schizophrenic, not a perfect deity.

Answer 6

I resonate with a lot of these quotes, particularly "You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do." How sadly true this is. The most extreme example of this is the Phelps clan in Topeka. Fred Phelps preaches, quite literally, the hate of God. He is very candid about this. It is no small coincidence that the accounts of Fred Phelps' life show him to be an abusive, raging, violent man. Just like the god he worships.

Answer 7

1) Definately true, god did NOT create man, man created god

2) As aboce

3) Again perfectly true, you only have to look at how different Christian groups put different interpretations on the bible to see that.

4) Not got a commen ton this one

5) Fits in perfectly with 3)

6) Definate underachiever, any god woth worshiping would have the whole planet worshiping them because they would have removed all other gods

Answer 8

You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do.
-I love this one...what more could I add to it

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." -
-and it's interpreted to fit their own desires, and re- written according to what those desires are.

Answer 9

I think that they are eloquently written, simply stated and contain pearls of great wisdom........they represent the writer (s) view very well, but none of mine at all. It is quite apparent that I have something this writer(s) does not and that is faith.

Answer 10

How about asking one question at a time since each of these takes a bit of writing to intelligently address.