Where Did the Notion of God Come From??

If GOD does not exist and there is nothing in science or nature to show that He does. Then where did the idea of a creator originate? How did people come up with the idea of being created if there is nothing in science or nature for them to point to?Naturally one theory proposed by Philosphers would be that God was created out of fear. But do we have evidence of mankind creating things (i.e., God) from things that cannot be observed, experienced, or explained?[This message has been edited Adminnemooseus, 05-04-2004]

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.Message 2-5 deleted.Adminnemooseus[This message has been edited Adminnemooseus, 05-04-2004]

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Okay... now for the incredibly sensible task of re-writing my post.

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Then where did the idea of a creator originate?

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The same place the idea of Superman originated. Someone made him up, and it caught on.

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How did people come up with the idea of being created if there is nothing in science or nature for them to point to?

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When Superman flies, he has no visible means of propulsion, nor does he affect the ground below him when he takes off at the speed of sound. Windows do not break when he breaks the sound barrier. In short, the idea is impossible. There is no correlation in science or nature. Are we suggesting that there must be such a correlation, because how else could Superman have been thought up?

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But do we have evidence of mankind creating things (i.e., God) from things that cannot be observed, experienced, or explained?

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Sure. It's called "fiction". It's got all sorts of things that cannot be observed, experienced, or explained.

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"As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"
-Holly

Bugs in the new software is causing both message attribution and topic sorting problems on the "All Topic" index page.So I'm bumping this newly moved topic.Adminnemooseus

Yes, we have lots of examples of people creating things that cannot be observed, experience, or explained. Smurfs, for example. I really feel that I don't understand the question....

I don't think anyone knows for sure where the idea of a creator originated. You should do a bit of research on ancient pagan religions and on Roman and Norse mythology. You won't find the precise answer you're looking for but you will come to an understanding that might obviate the question. You could start your research here, the wikipedia article on mythology.

Santa Claus
Murfs
Ghosts
Easter Bunny
Witches (from sleep paralysis)
Angels
Fairies
Unicorns
Pegasus
Live dinosaurs
Dragons
Cyclops
Chimaera
Werewolf
Vampires
...to name a few.

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The Laminator

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All animals have certain ways to cope with fear and anxiety. If some creature find itself in a dangerous situation, it will produce adrenaline to i.e. escape from that situation. This is instinct that can be found throughout all animals, also humans. Their main purpose is to survive so that they can produce offspring (from an evolutionistic view).When the first humans became aware of its own imortality, they would of course experience the same fear and anxiety. Some scientists (like some neurotheologist) believe that to cope with that knowledge of imortality, we would eventually evolve traits to pursuade us that death was not the end. And voil, religion was born.This was probably "the one theory proposed by Philosphers would be that God was created out of fear" you mentioned, but I just had to include it Regards,
SkepticScand

One explaination i enjoyed was written either in "The Naked Ape" or "The Human Zoo" both by Desmond Morris. He was of the opinion that we naturally look for a tribe leader. We have been social animals since we swang in the trees. You only have to observe any social primate today and you can see that they have the dominant male, and often a female also. Morris believed that as we began to live in larger and larger communities (making me think it was the Human Zoo he wrote about this) we slowly lost our tribe leader as someone personal to us.Throughout life there will be people we look upto for leadership, however in most situations this will not be an overall leader, just a few situations. We like following, its easier basically. However as communities grew larger the leaders grew more seperate from most people (I certainly cant remember the last time i had a chat to the PM). Morris believed that this, along with our expanding intelligence (concepts of mortality etc) could easily have lead us repeatedly (this has occured many many times, in seperate societies) to form a super leader as such. Someone who watches over us, and decides what should be done.Morris obviously puts it better than i have, but thats the main gist of it. We're just looking for a personal leader again, and the way humans are now, we would really only accept perfection (i dont know of a international leader that hasnt recieved any bad publicity).Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....

"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,when we made unto you known the power and coming of our Lord Christ,but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" 2 Peter 1:16"For the prophecy came not in the old time by the will of man,but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost" 2 Peter 1:21

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,when we made unto you known the power and coming of our Lord Christ,but were eyewitnesses of his majesty" 2 Peter 1:16

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I would agree with this. I have never felt that Christianity was very "cunningly" devised. Very sloppy and haphazard, it seems to me.

Ofcourse, those things Lam listed are infact based in nature.Santa claus is just a human who delivers toys. Superman is based on, erm......a man. Flight for superman is seen because we also observe it in nature.Unicorns are based on horses. Werewolves are based on sticking two things together which just happen to be real, wolves and humans. Easterbunnies. Easter is a real event, bunnies also exist. Vampires are just blood sucking humans made up from fear fo bats which just happen to also be a reality. Dragons are based on dinosaurs and fire breathing, fire is a reality, so is breathing.

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Superman is based on, erm......a man. Flight for superman is seen because we also observe it in nature.

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If these are the standards, then coming up with God is simple. We see creation in nature all the time.To quote a great man, "I have wiped entire civilizations off of my chest with a grey gym sock."

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"As the days go by, we face the increasing inevitability that we are alone in a godless, uninhabited, hostile and meaningless universe. Still, you've got to laugh, haven't you?"
-Holly

Where are the realities though? creation is only comparable to the Creator. However, if we see creation in nature all of the time - I'm glad you see that, does this mean you are creationist now? - I agree we see creation in nature.We see many animal gods in history, and they are based on animals. But what is God based on? Look at how indescribable he is in the bible. What does Hashem mean?