Is God invented so that people would be 'moral' if there is an authority? Or to fear human authorities?

[strategist.com]

Sorry if my question doesn't make sense but I did it intentionally.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram%27s…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_pr…

According to these experiments it showed that we would tend to follow authority figures because if we don't then then a likely repercussions would soon follow. Do you think people who take religious texts as the literal truth fear God or fear human authorities? If we don't fear God's punishment because he is said to be forgiving and understanding, then why are some religious authorities have hardline beliefs claiming to know God and control us?

To put it simply, we fear our parents when we were young because they are authority figures in our lives. We believe practically everything they say and some of their teachings incorporates within us when we grow up be it good or bad.

[removeduser_4536284751384]

I think it's because they need a being like God to exist to cope with the many problems with our own existence, particularly the big questions like "why are we here", "what happens we we die" etc.

I don't think God is an authority figure for most people, but a loving friend.

[strategist.com]

I think it's because they need a being like God to exist to cope with the many problems with our own existence, particularly the big questions like "why are we here", "what happens we we die" etc.

I don't think God is an authority figure for most people, but a loving friend.

But the problem is why do some people follow a strict code of discipline based from religion.

[CamilleBonparte]

I don't think God is an authority figure for most people, but a loving friend.

I don't think that's true. God is the creator of the universe and ultimate judge of our actions during this life, far from simply a "loving friend".

[Monarchist]

Friend, the subject line in the title does not correspond to your actual question in the thread!

In the title, you ask "is God invented?", taking your cue from the human fetish for authority. This is a legitimate question, but after that you begin the actual thread's substance by asking a totally different question. "Do you think people who take religious texts as the literal truth fear God or fear human authorities?" is very different from "is God invented so that people would fear an authority?" These things may be mutually exclusive, since God is said to exist without the need for scriptures, holy writ, etc.; i.e. we can discover God's existence by the natural light of reason.

The Holy Bible certainly did not convince me that God exists. I became used to the arguments of Thomas Aquinas, Samuel Clarke, Bishop Bossuet, Peter Lombard, and so many others! It was, for me, based entirely in logic, since I was an atheist beforehand; however, I can see how it might not be so for others. Human beings are, generally-speaking, peasants in a great pigsty of willful ignorance. This is due to our laziness and sinfulness, sadly (not that I am exempt from that; quite the contrary!), and we are not at all interested in obeying anything that isn't shoved down our throats. Modern culture has allowed us to give in to the authority of our passions, abandoning all discipline in society. Authority is good, you know.

Milgram and Stanford conducted their fascinating experiments to bring out aspects of human nature. The fear of God comes from His infinity, majesty, eternity, and greatness. We do not necessarily need holy books to know these things, for they are fairly obvious from a cursory glance at the Universe. Please don't confound religion with faith, for the former is always corrupted by the sins of we men, but the latter can be purely internal and true.

I don't think God is an authority figure for most people, but a loving friend.

Sadly, that's exactly what you get in a society that embraces the spirit of the 1960's.

[strategist.com]

Friend, the subject line in the title does not correspond to your actual question in the thread!

In the title, you ask "is God invented?", taking your cue from the human fetish for authority. This is a legitimate question, but after that you begin the actual thread's substance by asking a totally different question. "Do you think people who take religious texts as the literal truth fear God or fear human authorities?" is very different from "is God invented so that people would fear an authority?"

Sorry if my phrasing is bad, it is because I am seperating fundamenlists from liberal theists. I do not want to categorise in one order and offend both sides since their ideas are different.

These things may be mutually exclusive, since God is said to exist without the need for scriptures, holy writ, etc.; i.e. we can discover God's existence by the natural light of reason.

Well said.

[jankren]

Tell a Christian man that his wife is cheating, he would demand a thousand evidences.

Tell a Christian man that a Jewish carpenter 2000 years ago rose from the death after three days, walked on water, healed the lepers and the blind, and turned water into wine, he would believe all of them without demanding a single evidence.

Such is the illogic of religion.

[Monarchist]

Tell a Christian man that his wife is cheating, he would demand a thousand evidences.

Tell a Christian man that a Jewish carpenter 2000 years ago rose from the death after three days, walked on water, healed the lepers and the blind, and turned water into wine, he would believe all of them without demanding a single evidence.

Such is the illogic of religion.

Perhaps someone raised a Christian might 'believe' that, because familiarity breeds laziness, sadly. Converts, on the other hand, are a different matter entirely. Almost all the greatest saints were converts, either from atheism/paganism, or converting back to true Christianity after having fallen away. Converts have been the life blood of all sensible religion. Don't group all Christians into one big barrel of stupidity.

Anyone with a sense of conscience will ask you for evidence, I'm sorry. We ask for the evidence of the Bible's authenticity, historicity, and place in time. Perhaps it might interest you to know that we have a larger number of copies of the Bible from a very early time; earlier, in fact, than we have copies of Tacitus, Pliny, or Cato. Who is to say that the events related in the much earlier Bible are any less real than those three eminent Romans? Everyone accepts that Tacitus existed, but we have evidence for his existence later than we have written evidence for Jesus' existence.

Anyway, your post jumps straight to Christianity. The O.P. asks about God, not Christ. Belief in God can come a thousand years before belief in Jesus. I hope I haven't angered the fundies and evangelicals, but real belief and subjection to God comes by stages. You don't just up and believe in Jesus one day. Rational belief in the Father comes first, at least if you ever intend to keep the faith.

[justicar5]

Perhaps someone raised a Christian might 'believe' that, because familiarity breeds laziness, sadly. Converts, on the other hand, are a different matter entirely. Almost all the greatest saints were converts, either from atheism/paganism, or converting back to true Christianity after having fallen away. Converts have been the life blood of all sensible religion. Don't group all Christians into one big barrel of stupidity.

Anyone with a sense of conscience will ask you for evidence, I'm sorry. We ask for the evidence of the Bible's authenticity, historicity, and place in time. Perhaps it might interest you to know that we have a larger number of copies of the Bible from a very early time; earlier, in fact, than we have copies of Tacitus, Pliny, or Cato. Who is to say that the events related in the much earlier Bible are any less real than those three eminent Romans? Everyone accepts that Tacitus existed, but we have evidence for his existence later than we have written evidence for Jesus' existence.

Anyway, your post jumps straight to Christianity. The O.P. asks about God, not Christ. Belief in God can come a thousand years before belief in Jesus. I hope I haven't angered the fundies and evangelicals, but real belief and subjection to God comes by stages. You don't just up and believe in Jesus one day. Rational belief in the Father comes first, at least if you ever intend to keep the faith.

the claim that we have more copies of the bible than we do of the works or Cato et al is true, howevfer Cato et al do not make supernatural claims, and they fit with sources that aren't written by there faithful converts, they aren't selling a salvation that requires then to be who they claim to be.

We have alot of evidence for Buddha, do you accept he was who he claimed to be? If not why not? Muhhamed? Zorasta? See where I am going with this? A man called Jesus of Nazareth mave have excisted, but that doesn't prove he was the messiah, any more than the excistance of Sidatha Guatama proves he was enlightened. THOSE Claims require further evidence.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

Morality is always an instrument. Western Christianity, especially Catholicism, undermined morality by praising it as an end in itself - the truth of the matter, is that morality has always been a simple mean. And in a society where being moral is merely equal to being compassionate, kind and gentle (ie, a function of superficial good will depending purely on individual inclinations), morality will not be worth a jot. People were moral because of Fear, and because they had the very tangible goal of spiritual achievement through the relatively easy tool of morality, as opposed to the left-hand path of conquerors, ascetes, gurus and people who went through extreme danger in order to improve themselves spiritually. Now that these have been laughed away into the dustbin, there's no reason or powerful compelling force to follow any sort of morality at all, and so we are currently following a pseudo-morality based merely on convenience, and surrounded everywhere by a degrading nihilism that takes away all the better purpose of life.

[SigniferOne]

Morality is always an instrument. Western Christianity, especially Catholicism, undermined morality by praising it as an end in itself

I thought you were for Catholicism? You confuse me and vaccilate in your opinions back and forth.

compassionate, kind and gentle (ie, a function of superficial good will

What a particularly Nietzchean thing to say. "Superficial" good will, geez. You know that he went insane, right?

[Monarchist]

Morality is always an instrument. Western Christianity, especially Catholicism, undermined morality by praising it as an end in itself - the truth of the matter, is that morality has always been a simple mean.

Morality is the mean by which we attain happiness, which rests in God. You may call it only a mean to power, but it is really a "mean by which we attain itself". Right morality is circular; the means are the end! God is perfect goodness; He is goodness, and there is no good without Him. In this sense, being good unites you to God, so morality is an end in of itself.

Please read the few arguments in St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologiae, First Part of Part II (Prima Secundae Partis), Questions 1 through 5: What is man's last end, why is it happiness, how is it attained, what does morality have to do with it, etc. These are very well presented, and logically so.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/2.htm , under "Man's Last End".

No? What makes you think so? Perhaps I've defended a couple of things, but I've never been a Catholic apologist.

We're going to have to change that.

"Superficial" indeed. Ad-hominens notwithstanding - and Nietzsche wasn't the only one in perceiving the hollowness of morality for mere morality's sake.

Nietzsche was wrong, I'm sorry. Anyone who acknowledges God, but says that God must be made dead by our refusal of Him, is absolutely in league with Satan. This is not at all an attack based on personality or character, but based on history. Satan fell because he couldn't stand the idea that God would save "low-born clods of brute Earth", as Newman called us in The Dream of Gerontius. Satan was jealous of God's mercy (i.e. he had it but wanted no one else to have it), so rebelled. Nietzsche was jealous of morality, wanting no one else to have it universally. He thought we all ought to embody it entirely within ourselves by using power and mere authority, sans morality. What a disgusting and evil idea.

God was not invented by authority.

God was co-opted by authority.

It's a nice couplet, but a tad simplistic. God wants rightly ordered souls, not simple faith. This can only come through catechism, and one can only have an agreed-upon curriculum if there is an authority to develop and expound it. We would not know reason if authorities had not enshrined Aristotle and the rest!

the claim that we have more copies of the bible than we do of the works or Cato et al is true, howevfer Cato et al do not make supernatural claims, and they fit with sources that aren't written by there faithful converts, they aren't selling a salvation that requires then to be who they claim to be.

We have alot of evidence for Buddha, do you accept he was who he claimed to be? If not why not? Muhhamed? Zorasta? See where I am going with this? A man called Jesus of Nazareth mave have excisted, but that doesn't prove he was the messiah, any more than the excistance of Sidatha Guatama proves he was enlightened. THOSE Claims require further evidence.

I'm not talking about the supernatural claims of Jesus, only His existence. The debate was whether He existed, not at all whether He was or is the Son of God. We can talk about that later, but sod that I'm tired.

[Claudius Gothicus]

God was the first answer to the first epistemological question.

Caveman#1: Why the are we here?

Other Cavemans: ... mmmmmmmmmm

Shaman Caveman#2: I GOT IT!! Because some guy somewhere has a plan and wants us to be here. And all the world around us belongs to the plan that he made because of his own undisclosed reasons...

Cavemans: Ohhhhh

And then it became a system of control...

Shaman Caveman#2: Yes, so we better follow his plan which coincidentally I have right here, because if we don't he'll get REALLY ANGRY .

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

I thought you were for Catholicism? You confuse me and vaccilate in your opinions back and forth.

No? What makes you think so? Perhaps I've defended a couple of things, but I've never been a Catholic apologist.

What a particularly Nietzchean thing to say. "Superficial" good will, geez. You know that he went insane, right?

"Superficial" indeed. Ad-hominens notwithstanding - and Nietzsche wasn't the only one in perceiving the hollowness of morality for mere morality's sake.

[Col. Tartleton]

The universe is ordered by very strict "laws" which CANNOT be broken.

If there is an intelligent designer he would have built humans along those lines. Thus anything a human CAN DO is something they CAN DO. If I can sodomize a corpse I am fully morally right under "divine law" in doing so. I am able to, thus I can. It's not as though gravity can choose to repel. It always attracts. Thus anything I am able to do is righteous. If I raped and impregnated a thousand underage girls and then butchered them with a wood chipper and refined their bodies down into raw elements with which I then used to paint pictures of babies getting molested, I would be well within my rights.

If there is a God it doesn't care. A perfect God makes perfect things. We are very good, but even we know we aren't near to perfect. So God can't be perfect either which kind of ruins it...

[Hounf of Culan]

The universe is ordered by very strict "laws" which CANNOT be broken.

If there is an intelligent designer he would have built humans along those lines. Thus anything a human CAN DO is something they CAN DO. If I can sodomize a corpse I am fully morally right under "divine law" in doing so. I am able to, thus I can. It's not as though gravity can choose to repel. It always attracts. Thus anything I am able to do is righteous. If I raped and impregnated a thousand underage girls and then butchered them with a wood chipper and refined their bodies down into raw elements with which I then used to paint pictures of babies getting molested, I would be well within my rights.

If there is a God it doesn't care. A perfect God makes perfect things. We are very good, but even we know we aren't near to perfect. So God can't be perfect either which kind of ruins it...

So why don't you do all those things if they are within your natural rights?

[Col. Tartleton]

So why don't you do all those things if they are within your natural rights?

Mostly because I have an innate (figuratively speaking, in reality I'm sure it was something I learned) disgust towards the destruction of beauty and human beings for all our faults are beautiful. Killing someone is "wrong" for the same reason burning down a forest is "wrong" or cutting the tails off of dogs is "wrong" or knocking down someone else's sand castle is "wrong." Now if someone is killed naturally, a forest is struck by lightning a dog loses his tail in a strange accident or a sand castle is washed away by the sea it is not "wrong" but it is a shame. However if I planted an orchard or a garden where the forest was, the dog liked not having a tail, and a better sandcastle was built in the place of the first one, the problem is lessened.

[Ciabhán]

As to god/s being made up. We'll never actually know, or at least we won't while we're in a position to tell anyone else about it.

When it comes to religion, yes. It's a man made thing. It's has an exclusive hierarchy and it wields power over people. Of course it is there to control.

[CamilleBonparte]

So many false assumptions leading to poor conclusions in this post Colonel...

The universe is ordered by very strict "laws" which CANNOT be broken.

Yes, natural, physical laws exist to maintain order. Ya know some use this as evidence of design.

If there is an intelligent designer he would have built humans along those lines.

Wait, what? He would have? Based on what? How do you know this? What divine creator experience do you possess which you are not telling us about?

Thus anything a human CAN DO is something they CAN DO.

That's correct, it's called free will. There's a ton of it in the bible.

If I can sodomize a corpse I am fully morally right under "divine law" in doing so. I am able to, thus I can. It's not as though gravity can choose to repel. It always attracts.

I don't see the connection or where these conclusions come from. You have the free will to sodomize a corpse, but that doesn't make it moral. Why do we mention the physical law of gravity? What does that have to do with human free will?

Thus anything I am able to do is righteous. If I raped and impregnated a thousand underage girls and then butchered them with a wood chipper and refined their bodies down into raw elements with which I then used to paint pictures of babies getting molested, I would be well within my rights.

....disturbing image. What's more disturbing is you'd believe that to be righteous simply because you can. A preview no doubt of the atheist utopia the Darwinists are striving for.

If there is a God it doesn't care. A perfect God makes perfect things. We are very good, but even we know we aren't near to perfect. So God can't be perfect either which kind of ruins it...

I don't think that is correct. God is perfect, however the things he creates do not have to be. By giving humans free will we are able to make our own choices. This does not mean God is imperfect, simply that he would be more interested in fellowship with creations which have free will rather than machines operating by physical laws. This is a common theme in the bible, God wants to have a relationship with humans, his sole creation to which he gave free will.

Also, you say anything you do is righteous because you can do it, and that God doesn't care, however that can't be true simply because we all have an innate moral compass. We know what's right and wrong, it is irrelevant whether or not we can do it, what's important is we have the capability to make the decision whether or not to do something. Though, I believe you already know this to be true and are simply trolling anyway.

[Col. Tartleton]

My Point Mrs Bonaparte is that there are laws which for all intents and purposes assuming we understand how things work cannot be broken. There may be other factors at work we do not yet understand, but the assumption should remain that all things are rationally ordered and that a fish will not spontaneously combust and become a parakeet.

So if there are very orderly bounds for physics these bounds would apply to humans (as we are being acted upon by those same bounds) as well. As such the only things we cannot do within the divine plan would be physically impossible. It is reasonable that everything possible is acceptable within the framework of these laws. There isn't right and wrong in the cosmic sense. There is what can and will happen, and what cannot and will not happen. Those are the boundaries which a "God" presuming it's existence put us in. So if the universe was intentionally ordered it is reasonable to assume that he would have ordered us better if we were expected to do something more specific.

Basically why were we "given" an "intellect" and "baser instincts." If we were meant to be "Good" we'd be perfectly rational wouldn't we? If sex with many partners is immoral why do we have those urges? If homosexuality is wrong why are there homosexuals. An intelligent designer would have done a better job.

Basically "God" was slacking off when he made us because we're just an animal that's too smart and reflective for it's own good. We might have "Higher Reason" or what have you. That noble "Godliness" to us, but ultimately it is dormant and constrained in most people by their improper development.

So in conclusion we are not as good as "Angels" and therefore we're crap because we're held to high standards and lack the tools to attain them (by and large). Or there wasn't a creator and we're the best thing ever. The latter is more comforting than the former.

I don't know how to explain this better but it makes sense to me. Basically we're not "Good" and we shouldn't try to be. We should try to be decent. If given the choice between stoning a hooker or giving alms to a homeless person I'd end up compromising and doing neither... That's the right thing to do.