Why try to explain how we got here by inventing a religion? Then you get a God & you can't say how he got here

Question

so you have accomplished nothing by creating a religion. We still don't know how matter started, whether man or something called God, so why don't we admit we don't know? Better to be honest, than to deceive everyone with religious boondoggle that tries to give an answer where there is no answer.

Answer 1

Atheists commonly claim that humans invented God to satisfy some of his fear of death, therefore, wishing God into existence. According to the theory, man realized his limitations and fears and projected an image of God to calm these fears. In short, God is what man wishes to be - a kind of super-man. This model matches the gods of the pagan religions quite well, and possibly explains the origins of these religions.

Christianity however, if people were to have invented the God of Christianity, it is unlikely that it would be the demanding God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is described as holy - without sin and without the ability to commit sin. The holiness of God is described as being above anything that humans can attain, such that no human can stand before Him as holy. Behaving more morally upright than most other people is not sufficient to escape the punishment of the God of the Bible.

Salvation in nearly all religions, salvation is attained through human effort. Only in Christianity does salvation come solely as a gift from God - it cannot be earned through human effort. Clearly, in doctrines such as the nature of God and the way of salvation, there is very little common ground between Christianity and the religions of the world.

Transcendent GodThe God of Christianity also differs from the gods of the world's religions in terms of His nature and existence. Most of the religions of the world describe their god as existing within the universe. In many cases, these gods even have parents. Both of these attributes are logically inconsistent with the reality of our universe. Only a God who is transcendent to both space and time, like the God of the Bible, is logically possible.

God vs. mankind: The God of the Bible is quite unlike humans. Therefore, the idea that humans "created" God is unlikely

Answer 2

Perhaps. Certainly, at the advent of civilization, people "invented" all sorts of religious beliefs to explain "how": How the sun lights up the sky, how people were created, "how" water falls from the sky sometimes... Because we did not have scientific knowledge to explain basic phonomona, we said it must be "magic" or "gods" or "God."
MOST religious people accept the fact that "God" must give way to basic science, and the "literal truth" of the "how" of the Bible is simply a myth or (perhaps more deferentially) literary devices based upon the understanding of the physical world.
But the questions of "why" aren't solved by science: Why are we here? Why do we have consciousness? Why were we given power to destroy the planet?
And then of course, the ultimate question: "What happens when we die?" We can't answer these questions through science (although some we perhaps can get some data on).

I'm a "positive agnostic." That is, I'm not sure if there's a god, and even if there is, I'm not sure that humans can discern its "will" or how we "worship" (or even whether if God "wants" "worship.") But that doesn't mean that religion can't have some value to some people.

Answer 3

The invention of religion is far more reaching than just trying to explain how we got here.

It tries to deal with the things that we cannot explain in our lives.

Extract yourself from modern theology and look at some ancient religions for a better idea. Yes - they all have their own creation myths, but they also deal with issues like why the sun rises and sets every day; why the Nile floods every year at the same time; what happens when we die.

To those who create the religion, this provides the answer to all those mysteries, however ridiculous they may sound to other people. So, as far as they are concerned, they DO know the answers.

Answer 4

Your answer makes logical sense, but gods were not invented by logical beings. They evolved in pre-rational times from the earlier concept of spirits as a means to explain the unexplainable, and later became a method of enforcement for morality and ethics. That they are still so strongly believed in today by such a high number of people is evidence that we humans are still not all that far removed from the other animals. Rational thought is still largely the exception for humans rather than the rule.

By the way, Inflation theory _does_ have a pretty good explanation of how matter (and the rest of our universe) came about, and it is to date our best and most accurate explanation of the universe by a long shot. Check out your local public or university physics library for a book called "The Inflationary Universe" by Alan Guth, which explains how Inflation theory was developed and why it's the most accurate theory out there in layman's terms. I've also linked the Wiki entry for the theory below.

Answer 5

You are absolutely correct. INVENTING a religion is about as pointless an enterprise as inventing a science. If you just make stuff up as explanations without any kind of correlation to how things really are, then you are only likely to lead yourself astray. Better to have no story than a false one.

What you need to be open to is the flipside of that same argument. Few would criticize a scientist for trying to DERIVE explanations for the way things work from his observations and recognition of patterns. Why then do you criticize a theologian who does the same?

If you tried to describe how quantum mechanics worked to someone a thousand years ago, he would probably think it sounded pretty supernatural. Isn't it possible that a thousand years from now theology will be just as scientific as crossing barriers without going through them, being in several places at once, and the like?

Answer 6

Religion began out of superstition and the desire to "know" without actually having any proof. C'mon, you know that, don't you? Religion is an inevitable development of the human creature when he's starved of factual evidence. Of course it's more honest to admit you don't know how the universe began, but most people on this planet choose comfort over honesty every time.
And anyway, their dodge around your issue is to say that god is eternal, and was therefore always around, so there was no beginning to plague them. Plus, I'm pretty sure man didn't create matter, (we were quite a few billion years late for that one), so you can scratch that one off your list.

Answer 7

well don't forget the order of things here. The religion wasn't "invented" out of nothing. The idea of the god came first, then gradually more and more rules came about. The religion is rules, the god is what "explains the unexplainable".

Answer 8

-1- Religion is not invented or created. Religion is that expression of human consciousness which had ever felt a longing for the beyond, the transcendental. Dpending on different existential situations in which man found himself from time to time, and depending on the knowledge structure of given societies, that fundamental intentionality, that transcendental longing got expressed itself as different forms of religion, from archiac, primitive to modern religions.

-2- god is that pivotal point within religion, and is the pesonification of mans fundamental intentionality. It is not synthetically, artificially or wilfully created.

-3- why do you suppose that matter began? neither matter, nor energy ever began, and shall never end. Thir sum total remains constant, but they keep changing forms and one can know them only through their ever changing forms. simiilarly, space and tie also has neither beginning, nor end.

-4- Man in his finite mind can never comprehend the infinity: and that indeed is the human limitation. why should one be desperate that he can and should know everything like the communists? We know that we do not know, and that is for the intellectuals. As for the common people, for common existence in the mundane and material manner, many explanations are being offered. And wh should one take them so serious to draw futile conclusions?

this is Philosophy.

Answer 9

Is religion or faith in the existence of God simply about figuring out the answer to the question of "how we got here"? Further, consult Aquinas on the question of God's eternal nature. I believe that it is question 10 of the Summa Theologica.

Answer 10

humankind as a whole doesn't like not knowing. We like answers to everything. Some find their answers in religion, some in science, some in themselves. Whichever it is you believe in, feel free to believe it, but please don't look down on others because they believe in something else.

Please do remember that just because something can't be proven, doesn't mean it can't be true