Why do we need a God?

[Arioch]

@wynn --

Science works out of the assumption that all people are essentially the same and that the same things make them happy - and considers this assumption non-negotiable.

But it isn't an assumption that people are all pretty much the same, it's a biological fact. However it is also a biological fact that while we are all pretty much the same there is enough variation between individuals to make most blanket statements false.

However you need to substantiate your second claim about what science says, because I can find nothing in the peer review literature which supports it.

[spidergoat]

And (at least mainstream) science does insist that the material is all there is, ...

But not dogmatically so. It only says that the material is the only kind of thing that is supported with evidence so far.

[Rav]

@Signal

It seems to me that your penchant for engaging materialists in discussion is incompatible with your desire to embrace a more 'spiritual' existence. If you want to find happiness, why in the world do you spend so much time in the trenches with those who you believe can't possibly help you? It's absurd.

[aaqucnaona]

Response to OP: Query: "Why do we need a God?" . . . . . Ans: "But that man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?"

IMO - Man's should reach out as much as he can, his grasp shall follow. We have, for the last 200,000 years been rising to an apotheosis and now is not the time to back down. The fact is that we are outstripping our religious Gods, there are no things for them to do, no places where they might be when not found in previous places and thats why there is this carrot and stick of religion.

[aaqucnaona]

Btw, the purpose of science is and always was to understand, never to make someone happy. Religion did a fair job of it but now that science seems to be outstripping religion, technology and philosophy together can do a much better job of progress and happiness that religion does.

[lightgigantic]

Btw, the purpose of science is and always was to understand, never to make someone happy. Religion did a fair job of it but now that science seems to be outstripping religion, technology and philosophy together can do a much better job of progress and happiness that religion does.

If technology's only field of application is gratifying the senses and if gratifying the senses is (philosophically) indicated as a short lived means for happiness (at best), its not clear exactly why you expect your statements to be taken seriously

[aaqucnaona]

If technology's only field of application is gratifying the senses and if gratifying the senses is (philosophically) indicated as a short lived means for happiness (at best), its not clear exactly why you expect your statements to be taken seriously

For the same reason that PC games of the quality from 1995 are now on my smart phone while games like crysis are psuhing us towards the ability to experience almost real-like virtual enviroment; with movies like avatar, etc its clear that the quality and complexity of our experiences are increasing. There is no reason to expect that technology and our quality of life would go anywhere by up.

[elte]

I would like to have a god who could take care of me better than I, the world, and people in it, do.

[lightgigantic]

For the same reason that PC games of the quality from 1995 are now on my smart phone while games like crysis are psuhing us towards the ability to experience almost real-like virtual enviroment; with movies like avatar, etc its clear that the quality and complexity of our experiences are increasing. There is no reason to expect that technology and our quality of life would go anywhere by up.

Far from steering the topic of increasing technology philosophically clear of issues of being small minded, limited or even just plain old short lived (to paint it in the best of all possible lights) you are simply driving it further into banality.

[lightgigantic]

I would like to have a god who could take care of me better than I, the world, and people in it, do.

is that a request for reduced free will?
or simply a request to escape consequences for its misuse?

[elte]

is that a request for reduced free will?
or simply a request to escape consequences for its misuse?

I didn't have anything like that in mind when I expressed my wish about a god. Yet it gets me thinking how a caretaker god could cause a limitation in both of those regards. I prefer the second option you list, though. (You might recall that I don't believe free will exists. Please lets not get into that now.) regards

[aaqucnaona]

Far from steering the topic of increasing technology philosophically clear of issues of being small minded, limited or even just plain old short lived (to paint it in the best of all possible lights) you are simply driving it further into banality.

Ok then please point out what is wrong with my example and why its not an adequate response to the fixed or short-livedness of technological benefits?

[wynn]

For the same reason that PC games of the quality from 1995 are now on my smart phone while games like crysis are psuhing us towards the ability to experience almost real-like virtual enviroment; with movies like avatar, etc its clear that the quality and complexity of our experiences are increasing. There is no reason to expect that technology and our quality of life would go anywhere by up.

Yes, you're turning into a Stepfordian brain in a vat.


And when the power runs out, we'll just hum ...

[aaqucnaona]

Yes, you're turning into a Stepfordian brain in a vat.


And when the power runs out, we'll just hum ...

I have to admit that as a teen and also as a student of computer animation and CGI, I am much more dependant on recent technology than my father is. But I dont think the 'technology with debase the humanity of experience' argument is valid - idk but social network interacts dont seem worse than an actual visit, technology would make us like the wall-e people, just as the first wheel didn't make us weak, lazy idiots who dont do any physical work - we would indeed become different, but not necessarily worse.

[river]

I would say we dont. But this is a thread for the theists. I had the So what question come up in a thread with Wynn, where she says we cannot find, know or understand God. For God to have any relevance to us, he needs to effect us in some way. That is something that, if proven beyound reasonable doubt to NOT be random chance, would essentially proven SOME God. *humour ahead* However, the way I see it, God is being laid off from many Jobs. We no longer is the one to create humans, create animals, create life, create earth and the solar system. He might, just might still be the one to create the universe. His other job, everyday personal intervention, is in ruins. God is not coming in with the regularity or zest of before, when he performed miracles, magically inseminated virgins, gave revelations, controlled nature, fought evil and killed firstborns. *end of humour* So now we have to ask, did God leave us, knowing that we can care for ourselves, having become spacefarers; and is therefor irrelevant anymore or Maybe, he wasn't there all along? So - Do we need a God and Why?

the thing is people that if you back to the Sumer Ancient time this is where ALL this religion and the reality of the gods started , like it or not and none of you are talking about it

neither the religious are , of what ever denomination nor the so called " realists "

from his book " The Stairway to Heaven " by Zecharia Sitchin

quote from pg # 117;

" Let it be clarified here that neither the Akkadians nor the Sumerians had called these visitors to Earth gods. It is through later paganism that the notion od divine beings or gods has filtered into our language and thinking. When we employ the term here , it is only because of its general acceptance and usage that we do so. "

[Arioch]

Pure, pseudoscientific nonsense.

[river]

Pure, pseudoscientific nonsense.

pure ignorance Arioch

[spidergoat]

Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this view.

Makes sense. Praise Nibiru.

[Arioch]

If I am indeed ignorant here then prove it. Show your evidence for ancient astronauts....oh wait....you can't show me the evidence because there is none!

Anything which can be asserted without evidence can(and should) be just as easily rejected without any evidence.

[river]

Zecharia Sitchin was an Azerbaijani-born American author of books proposing an explanation for human origins involving ancient astronauts. Sitchin attributes the creation of the ancient Sumerian culture to the Anunnaki, which he states was a race of extra-terrestrials from a planet beyond Neptune called Nibiru. He believed this hypothetical planet of Nibiru to be in an elongated, elliptical orbit in the Earth's own Solar System, asserting that Sumerian mythology reflects this view.

Makes sense. Praise Nibiru.

he also understands and can read the Sumerian cuniforms , just a very few who can in the world, has combined archaeology , Ancient texts and the bible , with science

is a graduate of the University of London , a journalist and editor in Israel for yrs

he is not a person to ignor by any stretch