If God did not exist, then who thought up the idea that there even was a God?

Question

That's awfully creative of someone. Same with the Bible... A bunch of different men write a bunch of different books all pointing to the same God, not to mention it all lines up!

I wonder if the animals all run around looking for comfort in a God....

I'm so glad that some of you had to resort to name calling... Don't you have anything intelligent to say???!!!

Ok I guess creative would be an opinion... thanks for all the answers! : )

Oh come on!!! Seriously... can't you guys come up with something better! You're not convincing me!

Lupis... thank you for your answer... It's funny how your one of the only ones who actually tried to answer it... I"m not here to prove a point, sadly so many people live on the defense... this is actually a question I had and I'm attacked!

Sapient... like i said im not trying to prove a point... I'm asking a question...

Answer 1

First off, to your wonder that it "all lines up," you need to know that what they call the christian bible was cobbled together by comittee in the fourth century. For all that, it still lines up for crap.

If you sincerely care to know the source of humans propensity towards making up gods, I suggest you read a wonderful book called The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. Despite the title, the book is written in a very reader-friendly way.

Dr. Jaynes sets out in this book to explain his hypothesis of how consciousness was formed, but he falls short of the mark, I think. However, as a by-product of his research, he does show how the propensity towards creating gods came about as a side-effect of the origins of spoken language.

Answer 2

What I have read here I find mind boggling. The time of many these self proclaimed intellectual people would be better spend educating themselves on how to respond to a simple question without sounding like some grade school kid.

"I speak the truth” referred to you as ignorant. He has no idea how intelligent you really are but I do. I know you in RL. Boy wouldn’t he be surprised 

“Jolly Roger” said ignorant was not nice but turned around and implied you were. Is that an oxymoron and just plain hypocritical? Jolly, you are so wrong. Kimbo is very knowable about a lot of religions, how they started and their basic belief system. She was trying to educate herself further by simply asking from the point of view of someone who did not believe in God, where do you think the idea of God came from. You fail miserably and then called her the ignorant one. Hummmm

“Super Star” said someone very intelligent came up with the idea of God because people like you would believe anything. Ye who judges the intelligent level of others, is that the best answer you could come up with?

Some answers that took a stand against God, were very thought out and I am sure you appreciated the time they took to answer your question and you have became a little wiser because of them. Other answers given seemed to be mean spirited, without any true knowledge of why they believe what they believe so they attacked you instead. IF I was an atheist, I sure would not want several of them representing me.

And to answer the question, God simply is so therefore was never thought up.

Answer 3

It all lines up? People believe in hundreds of different Gods today... over the ages thousands of different Gods or spirits were believed in. That is not lining up.

And Re: the Bible, a bunch of different men wrote different books, and then there was a council 1600 odd years ago where men voted on which books made it into the Bible. And even then, the Bible does not 'line up'. For examples The Gospels have inconsistencies with each other. And there are obviously other inconsistencies and contradictions.

Answer 4

The people that came up with the Idea were actually pretty Dumb, their work has been polished and polished again and changed and made to point at some direction. We now then believe those stories and we translate it which ever way it suites us. Example: The bible may say something like, and "thy shall see the light where souls grow and the need to to see light becomes inevitable" To me it means nothing, its bunch of bluh, bluh, bluh right. but the priest some how hears that God was telling us the upcoming advancement of man kind the "light" is all of a sudden translated to mean the technological advances we have made. so the bible is translated to fit what we know today, except GOD is given credit for knowing all this. he was just testing us and just wanted to see how long before we can figure this out our selves.

Answer 5

Our ancestors lived in an unpredictable world and yearned for predictability. They saw spirits in everything (animism) and to get that predictability they would try to placate these spirits, such as hold rituals for the success of the hunt (cave paintings in France). When they became more settled with agricultural concerns, the rituals would become seasonal with a priest caste with to calculate the calender and the spirits became more complex in their minds, eventually becoming the historic gods and goddesses.
Religion still has its shamanic roots, visible in such things as faith healing or speaking in tongues.
Modern day religions are a lot more philosophically sophisticated than those of our ancestors, but the basic need is still the same, placate the god (follow his/her rules) and your life will be better, get into heaven, have your sins absolved etc.

Answer 6

The idea of GOD has been around for aeons. Ancient homanids needed a way to explain what was happening around them because they lacked the mental capacity to understand the mechanics of the natural world (the volcano is erupting, we must appease the gods!). Thus polytheism developed. Eventually the Hebrews developed the idea of monotheism somehow, but they were not the only ones - heard of Zoroastrianism? The alternative explanation is that a flying saucer landed......

Answer 7

God has created, is running, and will destroy the Universe. God is the Origin and Destination of the Universe. God was, is, will be everywhere, God was never Created and will never die / be destroyed. God is beyond Life and Death. All religions of world teach human way to get close to God. You give your Best, God will give thy Best. Ask God for help and forgive, God will help and forgive you. Pray; Worship and Thank God for everything. Remember wherever there is Happiness in Life, there will be Sorrow. To get Happiness, you must master Sorrow. For Success in Life; Believe in Self and God, Learn from Past, Concentrate in Present, Plan for Future. Have control on, be the master of, not the slave of your body, senses, and mind. Purpose of this Life is to Gain and Share utmost Knowledge and Experience to differentiate and choose Right, Good, God against Wrong, Bad, Devil. Set your Desire level perfect or OK to be brave, no low to be coward, no high to be cruel. You have rights of Survival, Self Defence, and Freedom.

Answer 8

Mighty poor logic there! To put it short and sweet, there are a lot of other books that have been written about "God" that didn't make it into the Bible. Do you have any idea why? It was the Jewish people's God and their writings. Doesn't it only seem natural that they're going to "point" in the same direction? If it didn't, do you expect that it would have been included? If you wish to believe, that's your choice, but I hope that you've got better reasons than this poor "proof". Like Geezah is talking about, there are a lot of books about Santa Claus that all describe him in similar ways, but that is no proof that he is real.

Answer 9

By that logic, we must assume everything in a "Dungeons and Dragons" book is true.

To quote one atheist: "Things do not exist merely because they have been defined to do so. We know a lot about the definition of Santa Claus--what he looks like, what he does, where he lives, what his reindeer are called, and so on. But that still doesn't mean that Santa exists."

As for who thought up the concept of God, that's like asking who invented campfires or art. It didn't come from one particular person or culture. People all over the world have invented notions of deities. People do this because 1) humans have a mind that thrives on pattern-seeking, and 2) saying "some person did it" is the first explanation for physical phenomena that will come to mind with primitive people. So deities and other ego-projections are a natural cultural byproduct.

And getting the impression that the Bible "lines up" is not all that amazing when you look at the history of the Bible (especially the council who decided on which books were to be included and left out of what soon after became The Bible), and the mind of a religious person who wants to find connections everywhere.

Answer 10

There is no one person who came up with the concept of God. Basically it's a lot easier to explain something you don't understand, like weather or death by pointing at the sky and saying "Blame that guy". Hence why every culture has some form of deity or spirit that controls things.