Do our beliefs shape our reality? That is to say, do humans make God real?

Question

My friend and I were having a rather enlightening conversation where we spoke about the decline of faith and believers in society as time continues.

He told me that "back in Biblical times" they walked with angels, miracles were nearly everday occurances. Mankind had to have divine intervention in order to survive and what not. But nowadays, in today's society, we have everything. No one can ever truly fall as hard as they did back then. There is always SOMETHING.

So I feel that in a way science and industrialism has kindof replaced God. Not saying people worship machines (although some would argue they do) but more or less that machines have taken over God's role of providing for us.

As such, do you feel that as we move further and further into becoming entirely self-sufficiently, our faith, our belief in God will ultimately wane into non-existence?

Do you think that our faith and our need for God is what made God in the first place?

I think people are misunderstanding my question.

I have no doubt of God's existence in my mind. I'm not an atheist and this isn't an "anti-God" question.

What I'm asking is, does our faith in God give him his power and make him real for us? Without our faith isn't it possibly, nay, probable, that God does not exist for us?

For all we know God could be some cosmic entity that just floats around and only comes when summoned. If no one calls him, how can he be summoned?

I know this is a very strange way of looking at it, but just think about it with an open mind.

Answer 1

Back then they didn't have the Oprah show or American Idol, so what do you expect? Ooops, I just farted, excuse me.

Answer 2

Tom,

Interesting Q,

Your friend is correct, in a sense but only by accident.

In what we euphemistically call, “Biblical times” miracles were indeed common. The KJV, which many Christians consider thousands of years old was finalized, around the1750’s.

These are not the biblical times referred to in such a statement. The speaker/writer is usually referring to two to four thousand years ago; a time from which we have little or no surviving written documents. We have word of mouth accounts of ancient events written down within the last 1600, 1700 years and we all know just how accurate word-of-mouth accounts are; just read any accident report.

A miracle is any event the witness simply has insufficient knowledge to understand. The witness then makes a judgment based upon his or her childhood reasoning process and decided what happened. This assumption is almost always wrong and not supported by empirical evidence.

Thus a modern human, but living 5 or 6 thousand years ago, hears voices in his or her head, they assume that someone spoke to them; possibly their favorite god or goddess.

We surmise, this condition was prevalent back about 3 to 6 thousand years ago. It has been speculated that this phenomenon might have been present as the modern brain continued to developed as recently as a few thousand years ago, probably the neocortex.

Of course today, “AVH”, or Auditory verbal hallucination, would indicate some degree of Schizophrenia.

So, yes there are miracles anywhere people are confused. It is, however, not recommended to act upon these treasured assumptions. lol

Jim D

Answer 3

No, I myself don't believe that, but I know lots of people who do.

I think we're only jsut beginning to scratch the surface of science; finding out about smaller and smaller pieces of stuff, understanding what gravity is, black holes, dark matter, etc. And that's the reason some still think that science will one day completely erase God from our thought processes.

But as we learn more and more about the universe, I think that science will only raise more and more questions, and sooner or later everybody -- scientists too -- will know for a fact that there are some things that science can't answer.

That is the "realest" stuff in the universe: love, truth, devotion, loyalty, wisdom, compassion. Stuff that all the atom bombs in the world couldn't disintegrate.

When we get to the point where we're really at the nitty gritty of science, it'll point to God for all but the most entrenched, in-denial blind people.

So I think our beliefs shape the outer edges of reality, but the core reality is God. Does God ever change? That is another can of worms....

Answer 4

I do believe people need God to explain the unexplainable. No matter how industrialized we become or how much science can explain, unless people can answer the following questions without religion, there will always be a need for some form of god:
(1) Why are we here?
(2) Where did we come from?
(3) What happens when we die?

I don't think people (in general) will ever accept the POSSIBILITY that we are here by chance, and that nothing happens when we die.

Answer 5

So if God created everything 6 million years ago, it is not "supernatural"? The same forces would be involved. He had to start with "nothing" and end up with everything. How is that least of a miracle just because it happened further back in history or used more steps to get to where we are today? The word "supernatural" simply means something or someone who id outside of or beyond the laws of nature. If there is a God, for him to have an hand in the begin of the universe, he had to exist prior to the universe and outside of the universe. Thus he is "supernatural". What you are rejecting is not the idea of a supernatural God, but what is called "young creationism". This is a belief that the universe was created in it present form only 6000 years ago (a date given no where in the Bible.)

Answer 6

No. God is infinite and therefore existed long before any of us were a thought in his mind. People still walk with angels, they just are not aware of it.

There are still miracles, but not many of us are performing them. I think this has become a lost art through our own ignorance.

Science has done more damage in trying to disprove there is a God. In reality both exist harmoniously, people don't realize this. God is still there and he hasn't waned one iota!

God is real with or without faith. Faith doesn't bring him into existence or make him more real. He is what He is. Our faith strengthens our relationship with him. We all have his Divine spark. To deny his existence is like a slap in the face IMHO.

Answer 7

If all goes well it will wane or at least morph into a mild spiritual-like cooperative understanding between humans. It may be what made god, but I always feel those things are somewhat irrelevant and unnecessary to our understanding of things...possibly even damaging. Why should it matter for instance, how life started? It did. That's good enough for me. Crediting something for that occurrence can only lead to development of propaganda to push unrelated agendas. And we could do without that sort of thing.

Answer 8

This is a bit like Freud's postulate that God is a projection of our need into the sky. Do you really think that God needs us? We are but grass, here today, gone tomorrow and have nothing to offer. We are of little use to Him. But for some unknown reason he still cares for us, even after we have rejected him as our creator. He would like us too acknowledge Him and accept what he has to offer - eternal life. But no - that's the last thing we are going to do. Yet out of his grace he gives us faith - amazing.

Answer 9

I certainly do not believe that "our faith and our need for God is what made God in the first place"

We are literally children of God. Angels and miracles still do happen.

I believe that and that through man's lack of faith, man's pride and man's wickedness - man forgets / denies God.

"For behold, the Lord had blessed them so long with the riches of the world that they had not been stirred up to anger, to wars, nor to bloodshed; therefore they began to set their hearts upon their riches; yea, they began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another; therefore they began to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get gain."

Mankind tends to repeat a certain pattern (that whole 'not learning from history and being condemned to repeat it' thought)
Man lives in righteousness and is blessed with prosperity.
Man then becomes prideful and wicked.
Then comes the destruction and suffering.
Which will lead some to humility and repentance.

I'm not sure what you mean by "No one can ever truly fall as hard as they did back then." I certainly believe that man can, especially when he turns his back on God.

Answer 10

My bible doesn't say that miracles were everyday occurrences. Very few people over millenniums of time saw an angel and who knows that they are not among us today. I say positively that we did not create God because He does, as you say, intervine and works among us at His will. I know He speaks to my heart, guides, protects me and my family and even has worked miracles in my life. But I agree that man does worship technology since the defintion of worship is "love and serve". But there are still people of God in this world, people who are saved by Jesus's sacrifice and are walking with Him. We have built our society on eggshells and it will fall someday. And it's sad because it wouldn't take much to have it all collapse upon us and we know that yet we do nothing to prepare for that such as fix our electrical grids or back up our computer systems with good old fashion paper folders or hand crank cash registers. Good question.

Answer 11

You make a good and interesting point.
What concerns me is that we as a society are becoming too dependent on our technology. Bottom line is, machines are still vulnerable to error, and can be destroyed.
I have a lot of trouble putting my entire faith in something that I know was made by man, and therefore can not be fool proof.
That's not to say I don't enjoy modern conveniences, I just don't expect them to always provide for me in times of need.