Is “God” an emotion? (Christians, believer, heaven, verse)
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I told this story before on here and I'll fill in some details. When I was 13 years old, I had gotten in the habit of saying God d---, as the people around me used that phrase often. I was walking across my elementary school grounds with a friend and I heard a gentle voice say; stop saying that, and I listened and stopped saying that. It was in my late 20's when God fully got my attention, and after that I was talking about God to that same friend that I was walking across the school grounds with and he said that he didn't believe there is a God. It was a brief conversation and I didn't bring it up with him again. I just remembered that the other day.
Up until the time when God received me into His Heart, I spoke fluently in mixing cuss words in my speech and after that my language changed immediately and naturally, with no conscious effort.
I haven't seen that old friend in around 10 years, but if he called on me, he knows I would be there to help him, like I always was.
This can easily be turned around: many atheists cannot mentally accept a universe with moral accountability to a creator whose notions of morality don't mesh with their own.
The alleged morality of the creator, at least in terms of how I relate to fellow humans (don't steal, don't covet, love one another, etc) meshes just fine with my own, and I suspect, most atheists. The caricature of atheists as amoral or immoral rebellious carousers is just that -- a caricature. Or more exactly, a stereotype, as there's not much basis for the caricature.
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Originally Posted by O'Darby
The uncreated creator or uncaused cause is a deep philosophical concept and the foundation of one of the so-called proofs of the existence of god. The question isn't whether one is fine with it but whether it makes the most sense philosophically and scientifically and has the greatest explanatory power.
No it is the special pleading fallacy. Also in terms of explanatory power, totally useless, which makes it no input of any sort into science.
The alleged morality of the creator, at least in terms of how I relate to fellow humans (don't steal, don't covet, love one another, etc) meshes just fine with my own, and I suspect, most atheists. The caricature of atheists as amoral or immoral rebellious carousers is just that -- a caricature. Or more exactly, a stereotype, as there's not much basis for the caricature.
No it is the special pleading fallacy. Also in terms of explanatory power, totally useless, which makes it no input of any sort into science.
Please define morality and explain why you believe you can accurately assess God's morality. The sad thing is, you have to borrow from the Christian worldview to even make the argument. The natural world is amoral.
Here’s a hypothesis: “god” is actually an emotion, not a person who lives in the sky somewhere.
It would explain why so many people believe in “god” even though there is no evidence for an actual person known as “god.”
So there is anger, fear, love, hate, happiness, and god.
How’s that for a working hypothesis?
Major fail.
I would rather use the word Divinity instead of God as GOD carries a lot of baggage and denotes a Christian creator God. Divinity is the expression of what sustains the entire world, Brhman, unborn, uncreated, transcendental, pure existence, pure knowledge, and that which exists in every being.
Emotions are transient, unreal, change from moment to moment, a product of the individual mind, irrational. They are not, and cannot be, the Divinity within, our true Self.
Please define morality and explain why you believe you can accurately assess God's morality. The sad thing is, you have to borrow from the Christian worldview to even make the argument. The natural world is amoral.
I never said I can access God's morality or even that there is such a thing. Morality is a human construct based on empathy and what sustainably creates the sort of society most of us choose to live in. It is Christianity that borrows from that (and at times, perverts it -- e.g., eternal perdition).
Yes the natural world is amoral but morality is a necessary construct that came into play the first time 2 or more humans had to cooperate or coexist. To do that, they had to hammer out agreements / assumptions / standards to govern those interactions. That is all that morality is, an ever-changing agreement between interacting humans. And over countless generations of humans it has evolved certain common features that are widely recognized (don't murder, don't steal) and other somewhat less clear cut and generally less consequential ones that vary from culture to culture (do or don't belch after dinner).
Please define morality and explain why you believe you can accurately assess God's morality. The sad thing is, you have to borrow from the Christian worldview to even make the argument. The natural world is amoral.
What is he borrowing that belongs specifically to Christianity?
I never said I can access God's morality or even that there is such a thing. Morality is a human construct based on empathy and what sustainably creates the sort of society most of us choose to live in. It is Christianity that borrows from that (and at times, perverts it -- e.g., eternal perdition).
That has been shown to be incorrect a number of times. You know this. We all agree that exterminating Jews was evil and wrong. But the Nazis in 1943 didn't think so.
We all agree that human sacrifice is wrong, but there have been numerous civilizations over the years that have practiced it.
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Yes the natural world is amoral but morality is a necessary construct that came into play the first time 2 or more humans had to cooperate or coexist. To do that, they had to hammer out agreements / assumptions / standards to govern those interactions. That is all that morality is, an ever-changing agreement between interacting humans. And over countless generations of humans it has evolved certain common features that are widely recognized (don't murder, don't steal) and other somewhat less clear cut and generally less consequential ones that vary from culture to culture (do or don't belch after dinner).
That's an interesting theory. Now please demonstrate it's anything more than your opinion.
But c'mon, nobody actually thinks God "lives in the sky". Well, maybe that one poster we had years ago who said God lived inside the sun, but for most, heaven being upward is a metaphor for a realm humans can't see.
It depends on the sect. The sect I was raised in literally believed “god” was an invisible man living in the sky (or outer space) that watched everything everyone did at all times.
That has been shown to be incorrect a number of times. You know this. We all agree that exterminating Jews was evil and wrong. But the Nazis in 1943 didn't think so.
According to the Bible, the Christian God murdered (almost) the entire world in a global flood a few thousand years ago. The Bible also says that the Christian God will torture most of the world’s population for eternity after they die. That’s an infinite amount of suffering. The Nazis, bad as they were, caused only a finite amount of suffering.
It’s not always easy to determine moral right and wrong (see the Trolley Problem). The Christian God is probably the last person we should consult on such matters.
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Originally Posted by BaptistFundie
We all agree that human sacrifice is wrong, but there have been numerous civilizations over the years that have practiced it.
Human sacrifice is at the heart of Christian theology, specifically the human sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. If human sacrifice is wrong, the Christian God hasn’t gotten the memo.
I don't believe that makes any sense. Emotions such as anger, fear, love, hate and happiness typically have an ontologically real source or object. We don't just go around being angry and hateful in a vacuum.
Your statement that there is no evidence is simply false. Many people have religious experiences that are highly evidential to them. Many people believe in a god as the best explanation for very large bodies of evidence, scientific and otherwise.
It makes some sense to me...
Perhaps better put, God is a manifestation of human emotion?
Good point about the evidence one way or another, but I think you touch on why it's important to distinguish what sort of evidence we're talking about. A person's own emotional experience may be "evidential to them." Of course, but not really in a court of law. Emotions are more than just a little tricky that way. I've personally had experiences that felt more than real to me that actually were not.
Ever been in the dark and something caused the hair on the back of your neck to raise? Then, fortunately, only to find it was your imagination having it's way with you?
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