Should not Humanity be More Important than any god ?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by river, Oct 18, 2015.

  1. river

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    This the third or fourth time I have started this thread.

    Just wondering wethering we, as Humanity , have grown !!!!
     
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  3. river

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    So in the last 6 hours no responses.
     
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  5. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Wouldn't the answer depend on whether or not the divine exists?

    If something divine exists, it would be 'higher' than man simply by definition. I'm not sure how that 'higher' should be understood, but there's definitely an evaluative aspect to the idea of divinity, a strong implication of 'better than us' in some unstated way.
     
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  7. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    The two are not necessarily dichotomous. The Greeks and Romans, from whom I base my religious practices, elucidated the idea of pax deorum. The safety and welfare of the community and its people was of such paramount importance that the state funded entire systems of rituals and festivals to propitiate the gods and beseech them for their aid. This trickled down to neighbourhoods, clans, family households, and individual practice. The pious respect towards and of the gods was part of the broader patchwork of community and culture. The divine isn't exalted because they are "higher" necessarily, though the respect for their power and station is a part of it; it is because they are part of that patchwork.

    I carry forth the same ideas in my religion. I honour the gods because they are part of my home and the world in which I live. Suitable relations with them are prudent, if nothing else. Though I do have a great deal of personal devotion to a few particular gods.
     
  8. river

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    Well old fashioned thinking ; be prudent. No growth here.
     
  9. river

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    What's disappointing is the through lack of respect of our own being.

    This to me is a symptom of religious theft of our ; humanity self.
     
  10. kx000 Valued Senior Member

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    The better the God the better the humanity.
     
  11. river

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    So you think that Humanity must always rely on god to be better ?
     
  12. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know what you're trying to say. Your sentence structure is rather poor.
    If you're trying to say that my ideas are 'old fashioned' then I suppose so. I'm basing them on the beliefs and theology of ancient Greek and Roman religion. Regardless, I feel that it is suitably answers my questions and concerns about divinity and avoids the problems I've seen with monotheism.
     
  13. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    5,160
    Say we assume humans are more important than any god, that would mean at any point in history, whichever human can scam, coax, con, bully or even positively lead his fellow humans, will be considered the equivalent of a God to the rest. The equation would be; since man is higher than God and this man/women is the highest of all the humans; He is the God to the Gods. This is a sure recipe for failure; since you will get more duds than dudes. You will get one Solomon for every ten duds.

    God, as an abstraction allows all of us to imagine and discuss what would be needed, in terms of ideal character traits, so when all the duds come along, we don't fall back as far. Also we can use this ideal to inspire more and more dudes to rise and help humans move forward.

    For example, religious leaders like Jesus said, blessed are the poor. The majority of the earth's human population has always been poor, so to bless the poor, he was trying to maximize the majority of humanity. This idea was the ideal that humans have kept their eyes on, in a world where rich and powerful humans have led in ways to maximize themselves and their cronies. By keeping our eye on the ideal ball, more and more poor have evolved away from destitute and slavery. Without Jesus and other world spiritual leaders, there would be no eye on this ball and we may have become a world of slaves and overlords.

    We can still create an ideal, like blessed are the poor, without the idea of a God. However, this is not the same thing. The reason is, human leaders as the God of Gods, will attempt to change the ideal to maximize their own reign. For example, free speech is an ideal but some leaders will use PC to set limits on this ideal because this less than ideal will maximized them and their cronies. This is a step backwards.

    If the ideal is assumed to stem from God, this can't be overridden as easy by any leader, because a subordinate human can't boss the boss. If blessed the poor was from a man, it would have been easier to undercut by the new and improved God of the Gods. But since this is from Jesus or God, in the minds of many such undercutting would be like janitor telling the CEO how the run the business. The ideal remains, to stand the test of time. With that goal always fixed and unchanging, humans get closer to a better world.

    If you had a group of boys hanging out on the street corner, they will obey the law, when the police are sitting in the patrol car watching, since their leader's word is not considered higher than the police under those conditions. But if the police are out of sight; there is no God, the leader can justify doing things his way, through scam or force. This becomes the new law of the corner land. But if they all know the police are still watching with drones and cameras, then the higher law cannot be replaced so easily.

    The atheist do not know how to peacefully accommodate the faithful even if this represents billions of human beings. Their solution is to make it easier for themselves by outlawing what bothers them. That is a step backwards because man as leader and new god of the gods will change the rules for themselves and their cronies. He will forget the ideal of all living in peace and choice.
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2015
  14. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Except that "Blessed are the poor" was neither blessing them nor "maximising" them.
    The statement was that they ARE blessed - that they have a sacred nature - essentially saying "Well yeah guys, you're poor and downtrodden, but never mind Heaven thinks you're good people" - another form of control. Jam tomorrow and forget - completely - any chance of jam today.

    What utter bollocks.
    When was the last time an atheist used a gun or a bomb on the religious because of atheism?
     
  15. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    Assuming that Solomon wasn't a dud, which he probably was (if he existed at all).

    Yes, I kind of like that idea. We form the idea of virtuous character traits and imagine what ideal individuals would be like that possess them. And we do that concretely rather than abstractly, imagining hypothetical imaginary characters the possess all the virtues and qualities that we consider ideal.

    These imaginative personifications of the maximization of our own human values and virtues would be better than any of us simply by definition, since they possess all the virtues that we believe make people better, without the inevitable limitations and qualifiers that we find in every real-life individual.

    I agree with you that imagining a flawed human being as being the personification of absolute unquestionable goodness gives license to that divinized individuals' inevitable character flaws. That becomes doubly true if it becomes socially unacceptable to criticize the demi-god.

    Personifying our own human flaws and blowing them up into idealized cosmic virtues has similar dangers, especially when the product of that inflation becomes immune from criticism. The god of the Hebrew old testament is something of a monster, commanding genocide, murder and intolerance. But questioning him turns into the essence of sin and unquestioning obedience becomes the ideal. So the early Hebrews who worshipped him transformed themselves into an ancient incarnation of the horrors of ISIS.

    But what if our idealized personification of virtue is fatally flawed? What if it embodies the values of a crude and primitive society?

    If our ideal is fixed and unchanging for all time, how can it ever evolve into something better?

    Isn't evolution in the concept of God precisely what we see in the Bible? The monster-god of 1Samuel has some ethics injected into him by the prophets, and by the time we arrive at Jesus, God has become 'love'. That's a far cry from ordering the total extermination of a neighboring tribe, men, women, children and even their animals, or ordering death for daughters that have premarital sex.

    Who are you addressing?

    I'm an atheist. What do I supposedly want outlawed?

    I'm inclined to think that if it's so easy for you to create a mental caricature of 'the atheist', it's probably even easier to project a mental caricature of God into the sky, a caricature created out of our own desires. There's no reality to compare that heavenly projection against so as to judge its suitability and veracity, as there is with real-life atheists like me.
     
  16. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Religion can be occultism. It can pacify and it can brainwash. But it can also provide salvation to those who feel they have no other option.

    The atheistic mindset tends to close one off to a greater reality. In fact, it stunts the evolution of the human being within and without. Our evolution on an individual level requires a number of things, one of which is dependent upon the flow of energies within our bodies. Such flow is dependent upon our posture, our beliefs, what we eat, etc.

    Therefore, atheism causes self-inflicted harm to our psyches and reduces us to victims of ourselves. Self-defeatism in all its splendor.
     
  17. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Really?
    Isn't a fact that you can't show this "greater reality"?

    Unsupported claim.

    What "energies"?

    Complete bollocks.
     
  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that the Western Occult Tradition is fascinating. It's far more attractive to me than mainstream Christianity, Judaism or Islam. So unlike you, I don't use 'occultism' as a perjorative.

    Depends on how we define 'salvation', I guess.

    I think that you are sadly clueless about the depths and mysteries of 'greater reality', whatever it turns out to be.

    One of the things that blinds you is your belief that you already possess all the answers. That conviction stunts the skeptical curiosity that motivates more philosophical people to ask the questions that need to be asked.

    An 'evolution' that you think that you already understand, right? An evolution whose ultimate goal and destination you are here to preach to the rest of us?

    Sometimes it's hard for me to understand what you are saying. Your various ideas often seem unconnected to each other.

    What does that little nod to ayurveda, or to Daoist medical magic, or to 19th century Western occultism, or whatever it was have to do with what you imagine are the defects of atheism? Atheism prevents some mysterious "energy" from flowing in our bodies? What "energy" is that? What does atheism have to do with it?
     
    Last edited: Dec 6, 2015
  19. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    I have provided you with a definition of salvation, for your convenience;
      Salvation (Latin salvatio; Greek sōtēria; Hebrew yeshu'ah [citation needed]) is being saved or protected from harm or being saved or delivered from some dire situation. In religion, salvation is stated as the saving of the soul from sin and its consequences. The academic study of salvationis called soteriology.

    It is only by knowing the difference between real and unreal can one gain the pure awareness of reality and oneself. I believe in you Yazata. But more importantly, God believes in you. You are rather intelligent and knowledgeable. But far more importantly, you are kind unlike a lot of the stupid and ignorant high IQs of sciforums.

    In actuality it is quite the opposite. I am on sciforums because I enjoy converting time and energy into knowledge, and sharing what I know with others. As I am but a mortal, I cannot exceed that which is humanly possible, only G.O.D and the angels can. They watch over us.

    Your tone implies that you think I am some arrogant know-it-all. Such as certain atheist members of sciforums whom you mistakenly put your trust in.

    I was referring to our beliefs as the reason for how one perceives the external and relates to the world through it. The knowledge we have begins somewhere, and that knowledge can mean everything.
     
  20. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Btw Yazata,

    The existence of God is no longer a question.
     
  21. Kristoffer Giant Hyrax Valued Senior Member

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    Laughably wrong.

    Btw Spellbound, are you ever going to stop preaching your version of god or the CTMU?
     
  22. Spellbound Banned Valued Senior Member

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    Put simply ladies and gentlemen, just because Kristoffer knows not whether God exists means not that I know not.
     
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  23. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Is it me or is there a recent spate of people arguing against the strawman of a woefully ignorant caricatured notion of atheism. If it wasn't so worrying in its inaccuracy it would actually be funny.
    I'm sure you have convinced yourself of that, yet you have provided nothing coherent to establish your claims as fact.
     

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