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Discussion » Questions » Religion and Spirituality » Why did people create God?

Why did people create God?

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!

Posted - May 5, 2018

Responses


  • 17404
    I'm gonna need a drink................;)
      May 5, 2018 3:15 PM MDT
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  • 14795
    Some very clever Wag of yesteryear worked out that if you torture and kill all disbelievers of his stories tales you can gain ulitimate power ,properties and unbelievable wealth......
    The more unbelievable the story the more you can rob people with out fighting or getting hurt yourself....:( 
      May 5, 2018 3:39 PM MDT
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  • 2327
    I think it was invented by people to better their own lives. And used by governments as a moderating tool to keep their subjects lawful and hard-working. 
      May 5, 2018 7:59 PM MDT
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  • 7280
    Well, your question begs the question as to whether or not "the" God---the Abrahamic one---exists.

    And since you are assuming that man created that god, you are restricting that god's nature to what we humans can conjure up.  The JW's have pretty much done that, and the god that they created is both weak, boring, and rather uninteresting.

    On the other hand, if the Abrahamic God exists, He---like any good father---would structure reality (or at least that part of it that we human beings are capable of noticing and even at least partially understanding) much the way that I structured the childhood and adolescence of my children and grandchildren so that they see life as wondrous and delightful.  (Three boys, 4 adult grandchildren and 1 30 month old granddaughter.)

    And that is the God who has revealed Himself to me---many, many years ago.

    And of course, it is quite possible that what you see as people's desire to "create god." is really the impulse that God created in all men to assure that they will seek to find Him.
      May 5, 2018 8:20 PM MDT
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  • 13260
    The god that "revealed" itself to you obviously is the same one to which my question refers. All evidence points to it having been created by people, not the other way around.
      May 5, 2018 9:06 PM MDT
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  • 7280
    No, the God who revealed Himself to me is the God who has always existed and created everything and everyone.

    If you had found the real God---as I have---you wouldn't have asked your question in the first place.
      May 7, 2018 9:40 AM MDT
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  • 13260
    First, why is God automatically male, and second, what proof is there that what you "found" is not merely a figment of your imagination - a self-fulfilling prophecy conjured up by wishful thinking?
      May 7, 2018 10:41 AM MDT
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  • 7280
    I do not shoulder onus probandi because I am not trying to prove that my God exists.  If He does I'm positioned properly with all of the rights and privileges that being right accrues. And I have shared that with others.  What they do with that information is their responsibility and---perhaps---their problem.  

    I started to refer to God as He because I was originally "introduced" to Him as a "father," and years ago transgender issues were not widely discussed (if at all).

    Shortly after joining Q & A sites, I thought it useful to refer to God as S/He, but I decided to back to the common grammatical use of the pronoun "he" when referring to "man" as in "mankind."

    I do think that male and female refer to that greater polarity in the universe of masculine and feminine---and since God must contain all perfections that exist since He created them, I have no doubt that He "possesses" all that is involved in "masculine" and "feminine"---whatever that may include.
      May 7, 2018 11:10 AM MDT
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  • 13260
    I don't understand why more people don't do as we do in the realm of egalitarian conservative Judaism - we substitute God or the Hebrew Adonai for any reference as he, his, him, or father. A beautifully simple solution.

    But it's clear that any literal existence of God is a self-fulfilling prophecy in that God exists to those who believe, or wish to believe God does, and God does not exist for those who do not believe. There is no objective reality of God's existence. That being the case, it follows logically that God is a construct of and was created by the human imagination. People believe as they choose, and that's really all there is to it. This post was edited by Stu Spelling Bee at May 7, 2018 4:05 PM MDT
      May 7, 2018 3:56 PM MDT
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  • 7280
    Simple or simplistic?  Increase the extension of a term and you decrease the comprehension.  Good tends to communicate itself and as the ultimate good, it follows that God wants to be known---but by and through the exercise of our free will. 

    God's existence is not decided by a democratic vote.  Nor do I have the power to create a God who is superior to me---that's just plain common sense and why would I want to.  

    For those who do not believe, their lack of belief has no effect on His existence.  They just don't think He is.

     
      May 22, 2018 11:06 PM MDT
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  • 2657
    Because you reject the scriptures is the reason you think the biblical God is created is weak, boring and rather uninteresting. Your made up god is an interesting group, I suppose. Three in one trinity, tortures immortal souls in a literal hell fire, allows your Church to burn people at the stake for translating the Bible and other offenses that reveal the atrocities and hypocrisy of your Catholic Church.


    EDIT: Talk about a created God, how about the one that was created by your Church several hundred years after the Bible was completed?


    https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02033b.htm

    The Athanasian Creed

    Please help support the mission of New Advent and get the full contents of this website as an instant download. Includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — all for only $19.99...

     

    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
      May 6, 2018 4:18 AM MDT
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  • 7280
    I don't reject the scriptures, I simply don't buy the JW's tortured manipulation of them.  God used the creed of the church He established to dismiss the erroneous claims that God knew the JW's would make down the line.

    The God you have found in the scriptures is indeed " weak, boring and rather uninteresting"---but that is only because the God you JW's think you have found in the Bible is not one that actually exists. 

    It is the God that continues to reveal and instruct mankind through the church that He established for that purpose that is strong, fascinating, and wondrous to behold.  

    And you seem to think I am unacquainted with the history of the Catholic Church---something I find quite amusing.

    And how ironic that you actually have stumbled across the truth when you posted that sentence above in red---and yet you are so invested in your beliefs, you failed to notice it.  (Psychologists call that "effort justification") 

    Truly, that it is approved by the Church....is ALL WE NEED TO KNOW.

    (The Marquess of Bute came under the influence of the advanced section of the Anglican Church, whose tenets his keen and logical intellect quickly saw to be inconsistent with non-communion with the Catholic Church. Bute's letters to one of his very few intimate friends during his Oxford career show with what conscientious care he worked out the religious question for himself. On the 8th of December, 1868, he was received into the Church by Monsignor Capel at a convent in Southwark and a little later was confirmed by Pius IX, in Rome. He was present in Rome during part of the sittings of the Vatican Council. His last years were clouded by a long and trying illness, patiently borne; and he died as he had lived, a devout and humble Catholic, a few weeks after his fifty-third birthday.
      May 7, 2018 10:16 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    You really should try reading the scriptures and comparing them to your beliefs so you can see how much you really do reject.

    You pretty much said with your Church, there is no need to read the scriptures as they tell you all you need to know.

    Quote: 
    [And how ironic that you actually have stumbled across the truth when you posted that sentence above in red---and yet you are so invested in your beliefs, you failed to notice it.  (Psychologists call that "effort justification") 

    Truly, that it is approved by the Church....is ALL WE NEED TO KNOW.]


    My beliefs come from the Bible, yours come from Church tradition.
      May 7, 2018 3:11 PM MDT
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  • 5391
    Even from the other sideline, I saw you very even-handed in your words, Tom.

    Respect, sir. This post was edited by Don Barzini at May 7, 2018 4:00 PM MDT
      May 7, 2018 3:36 PM MDT
    1

  • 7776
    To have something to believe in.
      May 5, 2018 8:41 PM MDT
    2

  • Man may not like being told what to do, but he certainly enjoys telling others what to do. And man values order. Man also desires to explain what he cannot explain. These reasons (and more) are enough to desire an appeal to a higher power than man himself. 
      May 5, 2018 9:29 PM MDT
    3

  • 5835
    Why does that sound more like a statement instead of a question?

    Here is a tougher question: Why do people who reject the authority of the scriptures expect us to accept bullsnot they made up out of nothing?
      May 5, 2018 11:39 PM MDT
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  • 13260
    People and institutions have (or presume to have) authority, writings that amount to what you call bullsnot made up out of nothing cannot and don't - they're inanimate objects.
      May 6, 2018 5:27 AM MDT
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  • 5354
    Because 'other people' should behave well. God is our stick to beat them over the head, while we stand back saying things like "this hurts me more than it hurts you"

      May 5, 2018 11:41 PM MDT
    2

  • 1713
    Perhaps it started out as a way to explain the world kind of like with ancient mythologies and all the different gods in charge of different things. They didn't have the fancy science and knowledge we do now.
      May 6, 2018 5:45 AM MDT
    2

  • 2657
    Knowledge like scientifically, the universe should not exist?
    https://www.newsweek.com/universe-should-not-exist-cern-scientists-discover-692500
    THE UNIVERSE SHOULD NOT ACTUALLY EXIST, CERN SCIENTISTS DISCOVER

    https://www.sciencealert.com/record-antihydrogen-spectral-lines-measurement-confirm-match
      May 6, 2018 6:00 AM MDT
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  • 1713
    But it does exist, what does it matter if it should or shouldn't? I guess we just don't know enough about the universe yet, but more than we did way back when.
      May 6, 2018 6:05 AM MDT
    2

  • 2657
    Most paid scientist have to start out with the preconceived idea that there is no God and work backwards from there, or lose their job. 
      May 6, 2018 6:13 AM MDT
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  • 2657
    Hello Stu Bee, curios, why do you go to a synagogue that assumably reads from the Torah and the rest of the Hebrew scriptures that teaches the existence of a non created God? 

    (Psalm 93:2) Your throne was firmly established long ago; From eternity you have existed.

    (Exodus 3:14, 15) So God said to Moses: “I Will Become What I Choose to Become.” And he added: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘I Will Become has sent me to you.’” 15 Then God said once more to Moses: “This is what you are to say to the Israelites, ‘Jehovah the God of your forefathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and this is how I am to be remembered from generation to generation.
    (Isaiah 45:5, 6) I am Jehovah, and there is no one else. There is no God except me. I will strengthen you, although you did not know me,  6 In order that people may know From the rising of the sun to its setting That there is none besides me. I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.
    (Isaiah 45:18) For this is what Jehovah says, The Creator of the heavens, the true God, The One who formed the earth, its Maker who firmly established it, Who did not create it simply for nothing, but formed it to be inhabited: “I am Jehovah, and there is no one else.

    (Psalm 10:1-4) Why, O Jehovah, do you stand at a distance? Why do you hide yourself in times of distress?  2 The wicked one arrogantly pursues the helpless one, But he will be caught in the schemes he devises.  3 For the wicked one boasts about his selfish desires And blesses the greedy one; He disrespects Jehovah.  4 In his haughtiness, the wicked man makes no investigation; All his thoughts are: “There is no God.
      May 6, 2018 5:53 AM MDT
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