By nature man is rebellious. So rebellious, in fact, that he has to have this “conscience” that decides what is right and wrong for him. And what’s right for me is wrong for the next person (based on our upbringing). So please do tell me ... why did man create a Being greater than himself to tell him what he needs to do when, quite frankly, man doesn’t like to be pushed around ... especially by someone that you cannot presumably see?
What good did man see when he created a god?
For purposes of this discussion, let's assume that there was nothing once upon a time. And this nothing was intelligent enough to reproduce itself and everything else we see today (which then begs the question, if a self-reproducing independent organism could replicate itself, why create gender in the first place with women being child bearers? Why didn’t the organism just leave life as self-producing (like trees and some reptiles are?)
And then, furthermore, if this organism was so smart that it could create galaxies that go to the n-th power and create the sun, moon, stars, rocks, planets, why create life (be it trees, plants, animals, fish, etc.) on this planet? And on no other planet? I mean, really - is this planet that significant to one organism that came from nothing? Anyway, I’m detracting.
Of course, this reproduction process took millions of years to get us to where we are today so that nobody can really really prove anything (everything is based on assumptions and theories and dating models that we think are correct). We then turn our focus to man’s evolution over the past two hundred thousand years.
If Wikipedia’s timeline of homo sapiens' evolution is anything to go by, modern man is a pretty new species, with modern humans being only 200,000 years old. But religion is, at best, 6- to 10,000 years old (depends on your source). So why would modern man (called hunter-gatherers) live for 190,000 years with some meager developments such as burial tombs, pitchforks, axes, stone hunting tools, jewelry, the wheel ... and then, one day, just wake up and say, “Today, we shall make god!”
Religion – any religion – is at most 10,000 years old. So man lived for over 190,000 years and one day just got up and created a god. Why? What did man do for 190,000 years when there was no god? Why is there no historical evidence of a god prior to the recorded beginnings of the earth as in the Bible? And please, having records of burial sites does not denote the existence of a god - even atheists bury their dead!https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02033b.htm
One of the symbols of the Faith approved by the Church and given a place in her liturgy, is a short, clear exposition of the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, with a passing reference to several other dogmas. Unlike most of the other creeds, or symbols, it deals almost exclusively with these two fundamental truths, which it states and restates in terse and varied forms so as to bring out unmistakably the trinity of the Persons of God, and the twofold nature in the one Divine Person of Jesus Christ. At various points the author calls attention to the penalty incurred by those who refuse to accept any of the articles therein set down. The following is the Marquess of Bute's English translation of the text of the Creed:
At various points the author calls attention to the penalty incurred by those who refuse to accept any of the articles therein set down.
The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible
So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not Three Almighties but One Almighty.
So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal
Who, then, is the author? The results of recent inquiry make it highly probable that the Creed first saw the light in the fourth century, during the life of the great Eastern patriarch, or shortly after his death
The "damnatory", or "minatory clauses", are the pronouncements contained in the symbol, of the penalties which follow the rejection of what is there proposed for our belief. It opens with one of them: "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith". The same is expressed in the verses beginning: "Furthermore, it is necessary" etc., and "For the right Faith is" etc., and finally in the concluding verse: "This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved". Just as the Creed states in a very plain and precise way what the Catholic Faith is concerning the important doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation, so it asserts with equal plainness and precision what will happen to those who do not faithfully and steadfastly believe in these revealed truths..
From a dogmatic standpoint, the merely historical question of the authorship of the Creed, or of the time it made its appearance, is of secondary consideration. The fact alone that it is approved by the Church as expressing its mind on the fundamental truths with which it deals, is all we need to know.
This post was edited by texasescimo at May 6, 2018 5:42 AM MDT