Given the countless gods man created before and after yours; what makes you think yours is true and real?

Question

From aboriginal Australians to tribal Africans to American Indians to ancient Egyptians . . . they've all created gods prolifically and with ease. That man creates gods is a well-known, indisputable fact.

But what about the opposite? God creating man? We DON'T know that he did. We have no evidence that he did. We have no reason to think that he did. All the evidence points to evolution over the course of billions of years. There's growing evidence that life originated from abiogenesis -- from an electro-chemical reaction in the primordial soup of early Earth.

So, with countless thousands of gods to man's credit, believers are in the untenable position of asserting that all the gods that came before and after theirs are false . . . but their own god (and religion) is real and true. Asserting that one's own god is real, when we know that man created all the others, is ridiculous. It is so unlikely that we can safely consider it delusional.

How do you rationalize your god/religion?

Come on people . . . How do you rationalize the truth and reality of YOUR god, given that we know the others are man-made?

I know you believe your god . . . the question is how do you assert his unique validity, despite all the others being man-made?

Are there no takers out there? SOMEBODY give a REAL reply!!

Matthew T tried to make a logical argument but ended up avoiding the question, just like everybody else. His weakness in his analogy is that I didn’t create all those gods – mankind did. Creating all those gods to dilute a real god WOULD be deceitful. But I didn’t. The fact is, the Judeo-Christian tradition came a millennia after the first truly great monotheistic religion: Zoroastrianism. AND it plagiarizes Zoroastrianism (popular in Babylon during the Israelites' bondage), lifting the following concepts directly from it: the Kingdom of God; immortality of the soul; God as Creator; the virgin birth of a great prophet; a belief in God and Satan; a belief in angels and demons; a belief in heaven and hell; a belief in individual judgment at death; a belief in physical resurrection and the coming of a redeemer; and a belief that the world will culminate in a final battle between good and evil.

Abrahamic religions hinge on Zoroastrianism. Your God is a cheap copy of previous ones.

Answer 1

One of the problems when dealing with religion is that, however irrational, one is dealing with belief.

Religious belief may well be the last vestige of some psychological defence mechanism the earliest primitive humans developed to help them survive in their appalingly dangerous and competitive environment. Through evolution this defence mechanism became hard-wired into the brain. There is, in most modern humans, a need to believe.

Some, who were not so affected, were able to take advantage of this. Thus was born organised religion.

To paraphrase what a well known English author observed, "Gods are only as powerful (and true) as the number of people who believe in them at any given time".

Changes in religion are like changes in fashion, only spread over a much longer period of centuries rather than years.

Answer 2

Suppose in a math class you think you have the answer. Your buddy is busy inventing all sorts of answers until he has thousands of answers. Now he says to you that since there are so many incorrect answers, yours must have a low probability of being correct.

I guess I would ask if I made up millions of false gods would that change the probability at all? I think this approach is irrelevant.

The only God that concerns me is the God who created me. No other gods need apply. If I allow that I am created, I can see something about the character of God in myself. For example, I have this tremendous need for meaning and purpose and I know that without God there is no purpose. I got that from the atheist Bertrand Russell by the way:

“Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.” –Bertrand Russell

I know that love is better than indifference; compassion better than apathy; mercy better than revenge; justice better than injustice. If God created me, I reason that He must have put that knowledge into me. Therefore I know that He must have those qualities in His own character.

I could go on but I don't have the time. email if you're really interested.

Answer 3

As a Pagan I know exactly what you're talking about with the multiple gods. My religion honors them all. For me personally, the gods represent different aspects of humanity and our behavior, desires, and abilities. I would not dispute that our gods may have been created out of whole cloth by the various cultures you cite; however some of the myths are way too elaborate and unique for me to believe they are entirely fictitious. You'll find that most Pagans, though we believe in and honor the ancient ones, are very accepting of evolution and other scientific theories. Our religion is really about common sense and what is tangible more than anything else, and that includes the unseen energies present in everything.

Answer 4

Hai,
As for me I don't say that it is only my God that is real! Everyone's God is real. It is only that people call it differently but He is only one!
For Eg.
There is a circle with a number of radii. Each radius lead to the one and only centre. Even though the radii are different they all lead to one place. Similarly each radii is a religion and the space leading it from the circumfrance to the centre is the belief/ path in that religion to reach God. So no matther which radii/religion you are, it all leads to the same centre/God.
So I believe all religion is true and real which is why I am interested in learning about all religions.

But as for your question, I will say that my God is real as everything in the Bible written about Jesus and his life and all that in the Old Testament before he was even born came to be true after that, well, a proof that my religion/ God is real (I am not saying other religion/God in not real).
Hope this answer is interesting.

Answer 5

The Self Preservation Society.

Answer 6

It's all the same God. Over the years, humans have found new ways of enterpreting him/her, but essentially, yeah, it's all the same God. I know God has my back, because whenever I am in having a rough time, I always seem to get back on my feet.

And it is God who created man, it's God who gave us the basis for all life (bacteria) and a nice habitat (Earth), and let it evolve. You can believe in both God and evolution, you know.

Answer 7

You made the point yourself- all other gods are man-made. What makes it so hard to believe that God is real- not man-made? He is very real to those of us who have accepted His Son as Savior-

religion- man's attempt to find God
relationship- Christ paying the price so that we can know God.

I know it is hard to understand, however if you believed God would show Himself to you, and you would know He is real. Faith leads to seeing- seeing does not lead to faith

Answer 8

I believe in a higher power, not a particular religiously affiliated name. If others want to give a their version a name that's up to them, who's to say what's right or wrong?

Answer 9

Because I can see mine every time I look in the mirror. I am god.

Answer 10

Good question - I wonder that about my Jehovah's Witness in-laws after they stopped speaking to their daughter, because she left the faith (started to think for herself). Oh, but you aren't asking me, because I have no specific deity or deities myself.