Did God create the universe?

Regardless of any issues here, I am just going to comment on the one misrepresentation that bothers me from a theist angle. Any cursory study of comparative religion brings us a list of transcendent beings who created our universe out of nothing with knowledge. Some religious traditions describe this being as one, some as a Trinity perhaps, and others as an undefined group. Either way, pretending the Bible is unique in all of its descriptions is simply incorrect. It may have unique aspects, but let’s not pretend that it has the only “true” independent transcendent knowledgeable creator in any of the traditions. I know it takes time to work out a long post like that, but you probably need one more pass through at the end to remove, or restate, some of the points to make it stronger. Also, saying “almost” all the traditions don’t have this transcendent creator., while still incorrect, doesn’t really solve the issue of why not Egyptian, Haitian, voodoo, Brahma, etc. creators?

PS I hope any of you on sciforums I used to talk with are either still here, enjoying it, or somewhere else enjoying your lives and staying safe and happy. I’ve just been busy Lol.
Ha, long time no see! :)

Concordicus seems to have buggered off (seems to have been a drive-by poster) but your point about the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition being far from the only one with a god-as-creator narrative is obviously sound.
 
That's more of a side-effect. Religion is a vehicle for societies to interact with the abstract Sacred, the things they find to be Eternal and the source of the world around them. Religion is mainly built around ritual, not belief. Sometimes the Sacred informs ideas about death and the afterlife. But a lot of the time, its serves a structural purpose of identity-formation and community solidarity.
That was very true when society was the driving factor. In modernity, the pre-eminent factor is belief, and ritual secondary, I would say. In the west for sure.
Ha, long time no see! :)

Concordicus seems to have buggered off (seems to have been a drive-by poster) but your point about the Judaeo-Christian religious tradition being far from the only one with a god-as-creator narrative is obviously sound.
hey, hi, I see there’s still plenty of room in this area of the forum for people to come in shooting fast and loose with these types of posts, lol.
 
That was very true when society was the driving factor. In modernity, the pre-eminent factor is belief, and ritual secondary, I would say. In the west for sure.

hey, hi, I see there’s still plenty of room in this area of the forum for people to come in shooting fast and loose with these types of posts, lol.
Re your comment to Hapsburg, what you say strikes me as very much a post-Enlightenment, Protestant Christian perspective. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, which comprise well over half of Christendom, ritual remains important. And this is true of several other major religions, besides Christianity.

Sometimes I feel in the West we focus too much on orthodoxy when discussing religion and rather neglect the role of orthopraxy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopraxy
 
Re your comment to Hapsburg, what you say strikes me as very much a post-Enlightenment, Protestant Christian perspective. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, which comprise well over half of Christendom, ritual remains important. And this is true of several other major religions, besides Christianity.

Sometimes I feel in the West we focus too much on orthodoxy when discussing religion and rather neglect the role of orthopraxy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopraxy
But here’s the thing, when you talk about primary and secondary, we can be very esoteric about it and say oh primarily, the spirit and psychology of a human being requires ritual, a la, some of the 20th century experts, psychologists theologians and mythologists included. But when humans generally speak and talk about primary and secondary, we are talking about what is the most important to the existence of, continuation of or experience of, the religious practice or experience. And in the west in 2025, we can be very clear that the primary factor is belief. For most religions there is no entry via religion and entry via membership of the church. Even in Catholicism, there has been a long time tradition of the first and second level entry into membership into the church. These entries are done via assent and study of the child or other person being initiated. It is never done via simple attendance at the ritual. In the middle ages, of course there was no need for people to understand anything they just showed up at the ritual and did what the God talking human told them to do. But we are far from that, again, in the west. I’m not saying ritual is no longer important, because ritual may psychologically be of extreme importance and connect us to this feeling or experience or belief in the first place via the ritual practices. But unless we are going to get engaged in a chicken and egg philosophical discussion about what is most important, and we want to stay sort of rooted in basic human experience and language, I still will have to sort of insist that the individual assent is primary while the ritual is secondary.
 
But here’s the thing, when you talk about primary and secondary, we can be very esoteric about it and say oh primarily, the spirit and psychology of a human being requires ritual, a la, some of the 20th century experts, psychologists theologians and mythologists included. But when humans generally speak and talk about primary and secondary, we are talking about what is the most important to the existence of, continuation of or experience of, the religious practice or experience. And in the west in 2025, we can be very clear that the primary factor is belief. For most religions there is no entry via religion and entry via membership of the church. Even in Catholicism, there has been a long time tradition of the first and second level entry into membership into the church. These entries are done via assent and study of the child or other person being initiated. It is never done via simple attendance at the ritual. In the middle ages, of course there was no need for people to understand anything they just showed up at the ritual and did what the God talking human told them to do. But we are far from that, again, in the west. I’m not saying ritual is no longer important, because ritual may psychologically be of extreme importance and connect us to this feeling or experience or belief in the first place via the ritual practices. But unless we are going to get engaged in a chicken and egg philosophical discussion about what is most important, and we want to stay sort of rooted in basic human experience and language, I still will have to sort of insist that the individual assent is primary while the ritual is secondary.
OK, but I make no assertions about what may be primary and what secondary. I agree entirely that since the Reformation and Enlightenment, all of Western Christianity has followed Luther to some extent in coming to stress belief, rather than ritual. Catholicism has a blend of both. I would be interested to see the perspective of an Orthodox Christian, or a Buddhist or a Hindu. I'm afraid I don;t know enough about these religions, though I'm aware that orthopraxy is an important component of Buddhism.
 
Re your comment to Hapsburg, what you say strikes me as very much a post-Enlightenment, Protestant Christian perspective. In the Catholic and Orthodox traditions, which comprise well over half of Christendom, ritual remains important. And this is true of several other major religions, besides Christianity.

Sometimes I feel in the West we focus too much on orthodoxy when discussing religion and rather neglect the role of orthopraxy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthopraxy
Sure. That is why I stress in the west. In the east religious/social standing and community can be determined by birth, family, social structure, much more readily than in the west, where western theology and philosophy has indeed been “seeded” into all the practices to a large degree, as you say.
 
I did not leave, I just got tired of reading responses which were not relevant to the original post and people running off on irrelvent rabbit trails. So I just ignored it until a few days ago when I looked at the thread and found some interesting and, at least tangentially related, posts.

First was Consular Corps who put forth an idea that “Universe” should include “all of existence.” But I think that really poses a problem for materialists as it implies that a material definition of “Universe” is inadequate. It potentially puts the materialist in a position where he must include that which he does not believe exists in his concept of Universe.

Strangely, I think both the materialist and Theist have very similar concepts of “Universe.” That concept would be that Universe connotes all that exists in our space-time continuum. But CC’s idea also brings to mind questions of how do multiverses and dimensions and The Theory of Everything fit into this more expansive concept of universe. I think it far more comprehensible to consider the Universe as being limited to our expanding material time-space continuum while leaving open the option that something else might exist beyond the Universe’s edges or within its spaces.

The word “universe,” of course, did not exist at any time when the writings in the Bible were inscribed. Nor did paleo-Hebrew even have a word that meant all of everything. However, that concept was covered by the Gen. 1:1 phrase Heavens and Earth. There is a paleo-Hebrew word which is translated everything, but it is more of a limiting word than the expansive meaning we give it. To them it was used to connote all of a group such as all things which are green, all things which have four legs or all thing that live and breathe.

My point here is only to show that materialist and Theists (as well as almost all of science) have settled on the idea that Universe refers to all that exists in our time-space continuum.

But then CC goes into what appears to be a reference to Cyclic Universe or Ekpyrotic Theory which are fun to consider but have relatively little support. It is probably more fruitful, for now, to look at those concepts which seem better supported by what we are actually able to substantiate.

We are limited by the problem that our only real reference points are the Universe within which we live. Thus, we can only explain that which may not be in our Universe by analogy to our Universe. We do not know for certain that the physical laws applicable in our Universe are laws that equally apply without.

But then I came upon the interesting exchange between Cole Grey and Ex-chemist which revolved around the idea of the transcendent qualities of a creator. Cole ended is first post with the question, “[This] doesn’t really solve the issue of why not Egyptian, Haitian, voodoo, Brahma, etc. creators? “ (Please note that was only one of three qualities I suggested might be required of a creator.)

This is exactly the question my original post was intended to elicit. If there are a number of candidates for the office of creator, how do we determine which candidate receives our vote, so to speak. So, Ex-chemist, I did not just bugger off. It is true that many religions have similar concepts including a transcendent creator but that does not mean they are all alike. Nor are their similarities as important as their differences.

Humans and chimpanzees, it has been shown, have 96 to 98 percent of the same DNA strands meaning there are different in only two to four percent of their DNA makeup depending on the method of analysis being employed. So what is more important and what differentiates between the two – the 96 to 98 percent which is the same or the two to four percent which is different?

So, of what consequence is it that many of the religions of the world have similar origins and stories? That should, in my opinion, suggest that , historically, they all had similar (or maybe even the same) experiences and observations in common. But the early word of mouth recounting of those experiences and observations diverged as each one was carried forwards with more or less accuracy. Their stories became metaphoric explanations of things civilizations had experienced. So, even if two religions were 98 percent alike, the more important aspects would be that two percent which is different.

One of the biggest differences, to me, is what I discussed earlier in a response to Q. There, I compared the Genesis 1 account of the cosmogony of the Earth with the generally accepted scientific cosmogony. Even ChatGPT recognizes this account as being unique among ancient origin accounts.

Chat GPT said:

“The Genesis account is distinct in its detailed, day-by-day structure and theological emphasis. While it shares motifs like the separation of elements and progressive creation with other ancient stories, its linear, symmetrical development and focus on divine order, human dignity, and ethical purpose set it apart as a unique narrative within the ancient Near Eastern literary context.”

It just seems like something to take into consideration.
 
(Please note that was only one of three qualities I suggested might be required of a creator.)

This is exactly the question my original post was intended to elicit. If there are a number of candidates for the office of creator, how do we determine which candidate receives our vote, so to speak.

One of the biggest differences, to me, is what I discussed earlier in a response to Q. There, I compared the Genesis 1 account of the cosmogony of the Earth with the generally accepted scientific cosmogony. Even ChatGPT recognizes this account as being unique among ancient origin accounts.
yes, a Hawaiian pizza is also pretty unique, and a Philly cheesesteak sandwich is unique, and forbidden by many cultures, and really only valued by a very small chunk of the population in the world, honestly. After studying a bit on comparative religions, I am of the opinion that yes, the Bible as a long exposition of many ideas is unique, but most of the ideas in it are not so much. Of course, we could go into which tradition came first with the idea, but christians do not accept that generally, as other precursors are simply "foreshadowing of the truth that the Bible revealed." I am not saying this to pour cold water on any belief system, I just want to avoid a big build up with the ultimate let down of "that has already been proposed and rejected as being important." I am just trying to avoid a build up of the value of the unique (although quite often not) nature of the Christian or jewish stories in the Bible. Now, if we want to go deeper and talk about unique propositions BASED on those combinations of stories, I think that is probably more useful than the stories anyway, but I'll admit my fascination with stories and details is generally left behind, after forming a dependence on abstractions formed from those details. But really, again, if the question is "why yahweh, or Jesus?", I think there are better reasons than a sort of pumped up uniqueness of the origin story to make that choice of faith activity or of belief. In the end those are personal ideological points, not forced upon us by logic or stories about cosmogony. (also, the other qualities mentioned for creator candidacy are generally met once the "candidate" rises to a certain status. Another quality, which is not solved by any discussion of the trinity that's for sure, is the idea of monotheism and how it relates to christianity which is amorphous once the trinity enters the picture).
 
That was very true when society was the driving factor. In modernity, the pre-eminent factor is belief, and ritual secondary, I would say. In the west for sure.
That's still an outlier in the overall history of religion, and is mostly only relevant to Christianity. It's part of what makes Christianity so strange. But if you look to religion in India, China, and most of Africa, ritual is predominant; they don't necessarily have a separate word for the religion as whole, other than adopting the othering language of Western observers in order to convey ideas to those same observers. Rather, they have lifestyles and philosophies that might differ and have distinct names, but are all still a part of their local ritual tradition.

Even in Judaism, the 'belief' part comes from affirming their god's singularity as opposed to polytheism, but it's taken as a given. Much of the religion is focused on tradition, on culture and practice. Even the mythological narrative that makes Judaism stand out from other religions-- the Bible-- ultimately emerged from the traditions of the Jewish people in order to explain those traditions. The religion wasn't founded on the Bible, the Bible was built outward from Jewish religion.

Heck, in practice, Christianity is just as much about the social aspects of religion, including ritual, as Shinto is. And not just the high-ritual branches like Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Protestants have ritualism, too, just maybe not the same kind of sacramental acts that Catholicism does. But there is an understanding of right action in the context of forming the identity of "Christian". And much of that is based on social activity and shared experiences-- going to church, attending church cookouts, socializing with your fellow parishioners, the shared childhood experience of Sunday School, shared teaching/instruction, etc.

When you describe modern religion as being very individualized and focused on belief, I would call that spirituality. To be religion requires the social and ritual aspect.
 
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The word "God" has funny connotations that often make people uncomfortable. I would replace it with cosmic intelligence. We are creations of the cosmos, and the fact that we are conscious implies that the cosmos is conscious, if not only through us. I suspect it is not isolated to only us and is larger than us.
 
That's still an outlier in the overall history of religion, and is mostly only relevant to Christianity. It's part of what makes Christianity so strange. But if you look to religion in India, China, and most of Africa, ritual is predominant; they don't necessarily have a separate word for the religion as whole, other than adopting the othering language of Western observers in order to convey ideas to those same observers. Rather, they have lifestyles and philosophies that might differ and have distinct names, but are all still a part of their local ritual tradition.

Even in Judaism, the 'belief' part comes from affirming their god's singularity as opposed to polytheism, but it's taken as a given. Much of the religion is focused on tradition, on culture and practice. Even the mythological narrative that makes Judaism stand out from other religions-- the Bible-- ultimately emerged from the traditions of the Jewish people in order to explain those traditions. The religion wasn't founded on the Bible, the Bible was built outward from Jewish religion.

Heck, in practice, Christianity is just as much about the social aspects of religion, including ritual, as Shinto is. And not just the high-ritual branches like Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Protestants have ritualism, too, just maybe not the same kind of sacramental acts that Catholicism does. But there is an understanding of right action in the context of forming the identity of "Christian". And much of that is based on social activity and shared experiences-- going to church, attending church cookouts, socializing with your fellow parishioners, the shared childhood experience of Sunday School, shared teaching/instruction, etc.

When you describe modern religion as being very individualized and focused on belief, I would call that spirituality. To be religion requires the social and ritual aspect.
What an excellent post.

I got a bit of insight into this from my son, who is reading Ancient History at university. We were having a discussion about orthodoxy vs. orthopraxy (a subject brought up by a Catholic Scottish lawyer whom I had invited to dinner with his religiously inclined, but not religiously committed, girlfriend). My son explained that the ancient Romans seem to have observed rituals involving their various gods - whose identity changed somewhat over time, I gather - principally as a common, socially binding tradition, rather than as an expression of a coherent set of beliefs, or not as far as we can tell from the writings that have come down to us.
 
When you describe modern religion as being very individualized and focused on belief, I would call that spirituality. To be religion requires the social and ritual aspect.
Well, there are plenty of social/ritual organizations that are not religion. The Boy Scouts for example.

To qualify as a religion there needs to be a supernatural component - an omniscient God, a process of soul transference etc.
 
To qualify as a religion there needs to be a supernatural component - an omniscient God, a process of soul transference etc.
Even that's too restrictive. "Buddhism, Jainism, and some interpretations of Taoism and Confucianism" are all non-theistic religions.
 
Well, there are plenty of social/ritual organizations that are not religion. The Boy Scouts for example.

To qualify as a religion there needs to be a supernatural component - an omniscient God, a process of soul transference etc.
No. It requires the Sacred. But the Sacred need not be supernatural. It really just needs to be of central, defining importance. The Sacred is whatever that religion orients itself around, that which orients its practitioners in the cosmos. Now, that's often something eternal, divine, or supernatural, like gods or spirits. But its overly restrictive to say that it has to be.

I don't think modern day pagans and druids have gods either.
Modern Pagans and Neodruids (which are a sub-set of neopagan) are overwhelmingly polytheistic.

...the ancient Romans seem to have observed rituals involving their various god...principally as a common, socially binding tradition, rather than as an expression of a coherent set of beliefs...
Yes. There wasn't really a need for orthodoxy and specific, coherent beliefs, because the existence of the gods was taken as a given. You didn't really need to affirm belief in the gods... until Christianity took over and the existence of the many gods became less of an assumption. Up until that point, different philosophers conceived of different explanations of the gods, nature, metaphysics, ethics, etc. A diverse intellectual environment was encouraged by the distinct lack of an orthodoxy.
 
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