Is the ancient definition of "god" something that man could not explan or....?

Question

...was he explaining something he could explain?
Just because you do not understand it does not hold much water. Not saying it is true. Just saying "not much water".

Answer 1

Any explanation or definition even though coming out of an direct spiritual experience and not out of an already formed and established concept, will be made to a new concept or integrated into one that already exist. Concepts are part of the personality and the individual is identified with them, getting ones feeling of existence out of it. That was the same in ancient times and is still today. Founders of religions were obviously still too simple minded in ancient times and had not enough self knowledge and knowledge about human nature, otherwise they would have known, that humans always use every thing for their personality games, to protect themselves from the unknown finding security... using beautiful ideas, for example of 'Love and Harmony', integrating these into their self image, but continue living their primitive survival instincts, causing destruction and suffering. Not wanting and not being able to go beyond...
Probably the best would have been for founders of religions, just to live a normal daily life, not even teaching, but giving an example with their attitudes and their behavior, without talking about any sublime experience, but telling people if they ask, because they are touched by their presence, to sit down to do a simple exercise: Being aware of their pure existence and breathing... The world now would look quite different and there would be real growing and realization of love and harmony...
BeiYin

Answer 2

It is perhaps unfortunate but almost inevitable that the concepts of spirits and gods came about millenia before man learned to think rationally and use the scientific method to acquire testable, verifiable, logically sound knowledge of the world. Ancient humans came up with the concept of spirits to explain things like wind, drought, disease, good or bad fortune, why animals aren't inanimate, etc. Some humans tried to influence these spirits through the use of rituals. When a rain dance failed, it was the dancer's fault, or maybe he just kept doing it until it rained. The successes were remembered, the failures forgotten, and so the rituals were thought to largely work.

Later, in order to give more authority to these concepts, the spirits were given more and more powers until they became what we call gods. Gods need a realm to live in, and the afterlife developed as a means to explain and comfort against death. Still later when the authority of gods spread to the enforcement of morality, the afterlife got divided into heaven & hell, where you went depending on your behavior. And as the authority grew still more, multiple gods fell out of favor and gave way to a single, all-powerful god.

Of course there are still religions like Hinduism and some smaller religions that still worship multiple gods, or even spirits. And in some religions like Buddhism, the afterlife is replaced by the notion of reincarnation, but the basic concept is still the same, because your next life (good or bad) is dependent on your behavior in this life.

Religion actually starts to make sense when viewed as the creation of human minds to serve various purposes like explaining the unexplainable and enforcing morality. Still, I think it's past time that we as a species matured and adopted rational thought as our rule rather than our exception.

P.S. To "G G G G...", if you are in fact an atheist, that is probably the worst reason for being one that I have ever heard.

Answer 3

Man has been trying to explain God for 1000's of years and still is not able to do it. People who have been practising meditating for a long time come near to an understanding of what God is but still, but even so it is difficult for them to explain what it is to others, this is because this understanding can't be received through the intellect.

After having meditated for years then one eventually gains the ability to be able to simply be aware of one's pure existence and of one's breathing -- to be in a state of peace of harmony -- at least as long as one is sitting on one's meditation pillow.

But even after 50+ years of practise, there still appears the dilemma for man, that it can happen shortly after he rises from his meditation pillow and enters the world of people, places and things, that he reacts to an external trigger and responds out of his conditioned behavior. That temporary state of peace and harmony one acheived in meditation doesn't last long, and can easily fly out the window when confronted with the reactions of other people.

So it seems that even when someone does all they can to gain self-knowledge and who diligently practises for years, there still is this difficulty to remain in a state of peace and harmony in all one's waking hours. So for me this question remains: How is it possible that one can be so peaceful in meditation and then just a moment after exiting the meditation room be able to react to some person, place or thing, showing one's personality in all it's flying colors? Anyone with self-honesty and ability to self-observe will see this dilemma happening in themselves, nobody has to point it out to them.

So is this just the reality that humans have to accept, that one's awareness can only be full while in sitting meditation where there are no distractions? Do we have to accept that the most we can do is to only have the ability to sometimes be peaceful and harmonic? Is this a belief or truth?

Betsy

Answer 4

not sure what exactly you are trying to say but You know that the government invented religion to keep the people in line don't you? Think about it, if you think that you could possibly be eternally punished or rewarded, your gonna work for the reward as hard as you can. if that makes any sense

Answer 5

God was invented to explain the unknown. Earthquakes, lightning, death, stars, birth, etc...

Answer 6

Don't dig too deep it will make your head hurt.

"Who wants ice cream?"

Answer 7

What cannot be spoken about, becomes a problem when we try to speak about it!