Is our human ability to project a personality into "dead" notions and things what makes us able to invent gods

Question

We are possibly unique in our ability to personify almost anything we'd like to. Boats and hurricanes and Golden Idols can all have the human traits we choose for them. Even children display the ability to invent a bodiless playmate. Is this how God was so easily created by man?

What are your thoughts? How plausible is the idea of a man-made god and does this in any way cause you to question the validity of your personal beliefs?
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Answer 1

You pretty-much scored there; it's like when you were a kid, and had an imaginary friend...It made you feel better, not alone, someone understood you (Unless you were REALLY insane and your imaginary friend had different values than you)...It's the same prospect with 'god' but on a much grander scale.

My imaginary friend (god) was sort of, force-fed into my mind when I was younger. I was born and grew up believing my imaginary friend was there, however the psychosis goes deeper: Most kids (at least I hope) can't SEE or don't THINK they see any god at all. That's the catcher, he exists, you just can't see him...Parents promote this behaviour which their kids never grow out of and we end up with the near-theocracy we have today.

The problem with god is, on such a grand scale as it is, anything done can be related to this imaginary being. What I mean is, people like to use it to explain the good and justify the bad. If something good happens, they thank god for giving it to them, if something bad happens, they trust that it's just god's plan, and he has better things in store. That, 'everything happens for a reason.' This is easily comparable to the 'imaginary friend' thing, kids can invent an imaginary friend to cope with whatever may be going wrong in their lives, or to have someone to 'share' their happiness with. It's a disease of the mind most people never grow out of.

Answer 2

I believe that you have a very valid point. I think even a Christian or a Hellenistic Pagan would agree with you to an extent. The line being drawn at their own Deity/ies of course. In almost all religions the God/s exhibit usually the best or worst Human qualities. In some religions like Christianity their God displays both the best and the worst of our qualities. Going back to the begining of Humanity we can see a progression in Humanity's Gods. They have become more civilized as we have. Take for instance the Cave Man. From what we know of their beliefs they worshipped Animals. Then as Humanity grew more... Human. For the most part they had a similar "Earth Mother" Deity usually represented as a pregnant Woman. As Humanity clustered together in larger numbers and formed large Tribes and then Cities their God/s started taking on more "civilized" traits. If one can call Blood sacrifice civilized that is. I believe this is when Men started taking over in a lot of Cultures. Thus a lot of the Gods became Male and displayed Male traits. Very few Gods 4 thousand years ago were benevolent. Most required a violent sacrifice of some sort. It seems though that as Humanity progressed so did the God/s. They became more "Human".

I believe the plausibility of Man-made Gods is very real. As from my own study I can see how the God/s changed with the Human. It does not cause me to question the validity of my personal beliefs all that much though as i am atheistic in nature.

Answer 3

I doubt it, and actually i think of it rather is perhaps in basic terms slightly stupid to think of that they'll. If something's been shown in this web site repeatedly it rather is that Yahoo! incredibly would not care all that lots approximately guy or woman human beings and debts. this could be my opinion, in any case, i ought to be incorrect. in any case, whether all the "regulars" left, there might nonetheless be hundreds of random "ordinary" posters of questions and solutions to maintain the positioning going, and at last perhaps they might develop into the hot "regulars". incredibly this web site would not revolve around the commonplace individuals, it rather is meant to revolve around astrology....that's why it rather is suggested as the "Horoscopes" section and not the "Horoscopes regulars" section (or the Astrology section, with the aid of fact if Yahoo cared on the subject of the guy contributors of this web site and their evaluations, it *might* be suggested as the Astrology section by utilising now). it rather is a public communicate board, honestly everyone seems to be loose to come back and bypass and submit as they please, greater or much less. some will stay for an prolonged quantity of time, others will come and bypass rather quickly. Kinda like existence that way. one element is for particular nonetheless, the Horoscopes section won't die with the aid of fact some "regulars" have desperate that they now not want to submit right here, with the aid of fact there'll constantly be somebody else there waiting to fill the area of interest left empty by utilising that guy or woman's absence. it could be my opinion that if something have been to kill this communicate board, it could be loss of astrology appropriate questions and solutions, and the shortcoming/disinterest of contributors to proportion/impart their awareness with/to others.

Answer 4

I like how people in little nice comfortable societies come up with the idea of the loving God and people in societies where you have to struggle come up with a far angrier judging god from the exact same book.

Answer 5

Video, marching bands, and team sports are good examples of projecting, and animation of 'spirit'. They are not real, nor is your Governmenat, or the Corporation you work for. Fictional Identities. 'Esprite de Corp' has always been my favorite.

The fact is, there a only seven real 'Spirits' in the world, the rest are temporal, fleeting, and illusion.

Our ability to project, actuall limits our ability to invent God. We can't escape the tendancy to 'thing-a-fy' spirit. Especially other people...

Answer 6

This has no particular effect on my beliefs, but that is kind of the idea, or at least part of it.

The other part is man wants to be able to explain things, evolutionarily that was one of our biggest advantages, so it was greatly encouraged by natural selection. But of course, the more variables that come into play, the harder questions are to answer, so it was easiest just to assume that these complex things were kind of like those other complex things that are hard to understand, other people.

Answer 7

It becomes amusingly evident when you see how the writers completely changed the jealous, vengeful, and murderous god of the O.T. into the kind, merciful, and loving god of the "new" testament.
The Christians have no problem with the idea of an "infallible" god needing to rewrite their contract with him.
They call it their "new covenant".---How convenient.---and to think this was accomplished without involving lawyers.

Answer 8

Religion is not something we can merely muse over and intellectualize. It has to be experienced. If anyone does not have this experience, it is possible that such a one is engrossed in the limited logic within time, space and causations.

Answer 9

could've happened but i think that then everyone would've had a personal god.