fmko #fundie

fmko #fundie answers.yahoo.com

If God has no basis in reality how did mankind come to imagine God?
our imagination is limited by our reality...there is no imaginary thing that doesn't have a basis in reality...example horses are real, horns are real, a unicorn combines those two realties with imagination...if God has no basis in reality how did mankind come to imagine God...i'm not referring to one God in particular...just the concept of God...

57 comments

old comment by Allegory for Jesus

Uggghh. Our imagination is "limited" by reality in the sense that we are influenced by it in coming up with our imagined things. So, we can add physical things up, like you did with the unicorn (horse + horn). Or we can alter the composition of things, like one would do for ghosts (basically, humans made out of insubstantial material...like wind). Or we can just extrapolate, and make things that are better (or worse) than ones that we normally experience, like giants (humans at inhuman levels of height). And what is a God? A ghost (or spirit, etc.) with all qualities extrapolated to superhuman levels. Basically, gods are just invisible, immaterial humans given superpowers. Not too hard of a concept to come up with.

old comment by Xotan

Fear of the elements by primitive man, who was terrified by lightning and its awsome power; by the deafening rolling of thunder; by the chance that could mean life or death; of death itself. Man's mind created a multitude of gods to be appeased so that life might be sweeter and longer, and that fear might be projected into ceremonies of appeasement and propitiation.

As man became more civilized and sophisticated the multitude of gods was whittled down to smaller pantheons, and finally, in a monumental stroke of genius, to One god.

Then the priests and preachers came along to take control of the masses and milk them of their money and goods... and to tell them what to do because they were intermediaries between the gods/god and man... they claimed.

Surely you could have worked this out for yourself?

old comment by Clown

Yep, let's think about this for a second...

Humans are real. - True. Well, you could argue that people you meet from time to time are just products of your sick imagination (25% internet for the one that gets the reference) but let's say it's true, because we can't check that.

Reality is real. - True and tauthology. You could do the same as with people, but that doesn't get you anywhere, except into the Matrix, of course.

Human ignorance is real, exists and is practically endless. - True. The more you know about something, you never know enough. Thus, by exploration, human knowledge grows!

Fear of death is real. - Well duh! Everything that lives, dies. Everything that dies, fears death (sooner or later).

Now, let's define god. What is god? The answer to questions.

You have pumped version of yourself (because I as myself is the only thing you can be "sure" really exists) that explains reality and gives you answers you don't have, effectively filling holes in your knowledge. Especially holes in "what happens after death" knowledge, thus getting your fear down.

There. Explanation how did mankind come to imagine God.

old comment by TWoozl

Not everything imaginary has a basis in reality. Like, say, orbiting shells of water (The biblical firmament). Or corners of the Earth (Again, bible nonsense). Or insects with four legs (God must have forgotten to pull two legs off the modern ones). God is an artifact of bicamerality. On about the same level as a drug high or drunkenness; A malfunction of the brain. Hell, they've even managed to induce similar effects with machinery. Unless you want to pull a flipflop of logic and declare "Deus ex machinae" to be the answer, God's an artifact of malfunctioning minds with insufficient data. Hell, there's even some pretty strong historical evidence to point towards marijuana-based temple liniments and similar substance use within faith.

So in a sense, you're right; God was imagined from something very real. Ancient men got stoned off their tits and giggled up an answer to things that we can now observe objectively and answer on our own.

fmko #fundie answers.yahoo.com

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