Atheism vs Theism?

Question

Theist: God created Man.
Atheist: Man created God (or the concept thereof).

Which one in your opinion is true and why? An answer more than a mere sentence would be appreciated.

Earl D - I agree that both could be true. I disagree that "CREATOR of things is far more likely than RANDOM CHANCE". We did evolve from apes, which was a result of genetic mutation, which is nothing but pure RANDOM CHANCE. If God really created the world, the plants and animals (including Man), then God was really stupid in creating Whales, who breathe like humans yet live in water. Of course the story is Adam and Eve is like a fairy tale to me.

Nimit - I like the suggestion that we should "digest and absorb what is good for us and reject what is bad for us."

David B - I agree with most of the explanations except for the fact that religion is a "Virus" since problems arise out of interpretation or religion, not religion as it is.

April - The suggested book must be worth reading. I'll pick it up as ASAP. Appreciated.

st.aliaoftheknife - The explanation convincingly proves that God can be a cause of conflict and it is Man who suffers, not God, if he exists.

Answer 1

I say man created god for the following reasons.

1. there are over 40,000 gods and godesses in human history.

2. aside from books telling us to do so, there is no proof that we should believe in any particular god.

3. if god made us, who made god? the logic that things must be designed, yet the designer does not have to be designed just doesn't add up.

Answer 2

Ouch, quite a lot of cynics out there.
How about a definition of both words?

Theism - the belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world, who transcends, yet is immanent in the world.

Atheism - a disbelief in the existence of a deity.

My opinion and my belief has to do with my "worldview". Every worldview is a proposed map of reality, or a guide to navigation in the world. There is a "biblical worldview" and a "naturalist worldview".

Both worldviews hold to three basic questions. 1. Where do we come from? 2. What has gone wrong? 3. What can we do about it?

Biblical worldview answers: 1. Creation by a good and loving God. 2. Internal problem - good creation damaged by sin. 3. Change the human heart: The Great Commission & the Cultural Commission.

Naturalist worldview answers: 1. Cosmic accident. 2. External problem - humans naturally good until corrupted by society. 3. Utopianism: Build a perfect society by changing externals.
Sorry to be lengthy. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Theism is true.

It is true because there is every evidence of Special Creation; a God that created us and our world. Atheism says that there is no God, which raises the question, how did we get here and how did the world get here? Atheists answer this question by saying that the world just happened; that everything somehow magically evolved. Do some research. There is no evidence for this theory (evolution) and in fact, plenty of evidence against it!
If you just think about it logically, evolution (an essential component of Atheism) cannot be true.
For example, lets say that one day, all of the sudden, a cell phone battery appeared. (bear with me) No one knew where the battery came from and everyone thought that it just appeared magically. So, over millions and billions of years, the cellphone battery slowly grew and evolved into a cellphone. It did this without any outside help, it just happened. Now, is that a believeable story? No. And yet this is essentially what evolution is saying. It says that everything somehow magically appeared, and by random chance, evolved. And evolution is much more absurd because a cellphone does not even begin to compare to the marvolous complexity of our world and the things in it.
Here's another example. Suppose someone had 25 oranges in a basket and over and over, he would dump the oranges onto the ground, pick them up, dump them on the ground, pick them up, etc. Now, even if this guy did this for a thousand years, the chances that the oranges will fall in a perfect circle or square or any shape are VERY slim. But that's just a few oranges!!! The human eye, for example, whick has literally thousands of intricate electrical connections within its 1 square ince, is a million times more complex than a circle of oranges on the ground!!!!
Ok. Enough with examples. There are tons more and many proofs against evolution. Do some reseach or buy some video tapes; you'll be surprised.
Now, besides the impossibllity of evolution, there are other reasons why Athesim is not true as opposed to Theisem. The roots of Atheism are man's pride and humanism; man wants to eliminate the presece of a God so that he (man) can get all of the glory. Theism recognizes man's frailty and does not push men up to the level of Gods like theism does.
Well, I could write all night, but I really have to go. Hope my answer helped you. Please think carefully and logically about this.
Good luck! :)

Answer 4

Man created God.

Particularly if you are talking about mono-theism. We were polytheistic until the last few thousand years, having many different gods for different things.

Put it this way... if the Christians are right, then all the followers of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism etc.. are wrong. Or, if the Muslims are right, then blah blah blah...

Essentially, religion is a virus transmitted from Parents to Children. It's not always transmitted, but normally it is. People tend to believe in the same version of god as their parents.

Now if everyone (as a child) wasn't brainwashed in this manner, and were taught about all religions equally and were freely allowed to choose one or none. What, logically, do you think would happen?

My feeling is, we created god to fill some space - or to create some purpose to a seemingly purpose-less life. Looking back over the last few thousand years, it wasn't hard to convince people that you were a prophet, son of god, holy man etc... It's just a shame that the various religions that exist today have survived as well as they have. But it seems logical that it's a man-made creation. A god wouldn't be limited to starting a religion in one spot and waiting for it to spread around the world - taking thousands of years to reach people like the aborigines of Australia. Surely he'd be able to kick things off from more than one point simultaneously?

That doesn't prove or disprove the existence of god. But I think the god that most people talk about is definitely a creation of man. Religion is (hopefully) a temporary insanity of the human race. Fortunately, not all of us are infected... and some of us were, but we managed to shake it.

Answer 5

Actually, believe it or not both are true in the sense that God did create Man and then by forgetting God Man created his own artificial gods.

To know God is actually my deffinition of theism. To follow God means to become like Him but one can do that only after Knowing God accurately.

By forgetting the self as a soul we lose contact with spirituality so we also lose the connection with the Source of Spirituality - God. Then because of becoming spiritually powerless people feel the need to reconnect to God but without understanding any aspect of spirituality, without understanding the seed of spirituality within the self (that is without knowing the soul) one cannot know the Supreme Soul - God. Knowing that God deffinitelly exist they start looking for Him without knowing how that which they look for looks like. So they come up with all sorts of things that they can remember or immagine and that is how they start making their own gods or if they see some more spirituality in a person they start believing that one is God - because they don't know God.

So first God created Man and later on in his search for God and without knowing Him, Man created gods out of human beings or out of their own immagination and symbols.

Answer 6

humans created god(s), clearly.

it's like painting. If multiple landscape artists who have never met nor seen each others' works all independently decided to paint a the exact same vista, it would seem that the vista exists, and the painters found/chose/were independently directed to the same vista. Even if they painted from slighlty different angles/viewpoints, the same hills/mountains/bends in the river could still suggest a common objective subject. In fact, a common vista worth painting would likely attract a wide range of painters, and one could likely find this location on one's own, and document the place with evidence

but if every single painter painted abstract images and never left their studios or had access to visual representations, one must conclude that they were painting images that they themselves invented.

since we have a wide range of paintings (so to speak), and the only similar ones clearly copied off each other, and no one can give accurate directions to the objective subject matter, therefore there is no objective subject matter.

Answer 7

It depend on which God.
If by God you mean an eternal power, then God created man.
If the Gods have shape and colors then it is created by man.

Better not to believe in God. If at all you feel the need for some control over your actions, then it is safe to believe one image less God.

Answer 8

Both concepetions are passed on to us. As the digestive system works, we have to apply our intelligence and arrive at the conclusions and digest and absorb what is good for us and reject what is bad for us. However one cannot deny the existence of the creation of the Universe as we live in it. And what a great skilled job of perfection in its creation!

Answer 9

It's most clear in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures that man created god in his image. Would an all powerful being really be so Emo? Any being worthy of the title "god" should have no reason to throw such horrible temper tantrums.

Answer 10

Man created God (or the concept thereof), because there is no evidence of any supernatural power involved in evolution, or anywhere else in the universe.

Obviously this changes as soon as said evidence appears.