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| True Being | 77% | 1720 votes | Total: 2237 votes | |
| Invention | 23% | 517 votes |
God is a true being.
What intrigues me is that someone would ask this question in a serious manner.
If God were an invention of man's mind, then who invented God? All we know of cultural history evidences that man's existence has been intricately involved with God. Have we been suffering from this mass delusion since the first modern Homo sapiens appeared on earth 120,000 years ago? For those who believe that God is made up so that people can feel better about themselves, don't you think that in the past 120,000 years or so we would have come to feel better?
What is proven is that as far back as 2500 BC, civilization has worshiped god. As man's intellect evolved, that part of the brain, the frontal lobe, the area of "second thought" or reason, understood that God exists. It may have been the god of fire, Zeus, or the god of rain, but it was still God. As the ancient civilizations built their stone structures and the pyramids, they were constructing monuments to God.
There is a document, The Birch bark letter no. 292. This has been roughly dated to the 13th century, composed in an old Finnic language. It reads: "God's arrow, ten [is] your name This arrow is God's own The Doom-God leads." The Myans built their religious centers, the stepped pyramids, between 1000 and 800 BC. Stonehenge, with all it's mystery, was a burial ground and a place of worship. This was built around 2200 BC The Odessy by Homer was written in 800 BC. In book V of the Odessey there is this "and now, as Dawn arose from her couch beside Tithonus..the gods met with them" So again, who invented God, and why are we still believing? The Book of Job, from the Hebrew Bible, was written within the time from 2650 B. C. to 2250 B. C "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone
while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?
"Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt'?
"Have you ever given orders to the morning,
or shown the dawn its place,
that it might take the earth by the edges
and shake the wicked out of it? (Job 38:4-13)
If God is invented, than all we know of history is that: what? Is it a lie? Or has the myth been handed down by well spoken story tellers since the beginning of reason? If we presuppose that God is a lie, then where is the reality? Not in history, because it is built upon that lie. Then if history is built on the lie, how about this present reality. Can any premise be believed or trusted?Who invented God? God has always been. How can this be? It is more than faith, it is reality. It is supported by all evidence we uncover from the past. It is what the future is built upon.
Learn more about this author, Pennee Struckman.
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I may be re-capping what has already been mentioned before, but I will offer my opinion anyway.
I believe the idea of "God" could only be an invention of man. Since the very beginning of recollected time, the human being has needed some way to explain all of the things in our environment that we did not or ever hope to understand. The unfortunate part was is that as science grew and eventually became an everyday part of our lives, the mystery of "God" kept getting smaller and more unimportant. To this day we still have the main questions we as ourselves that only "God" could be responsible for. Such as the meaning of life, why people die in unknown ways (it was their time.) and other such things.
Science may not be correct in many of its theories, but just by reading the Bible you can come to understand that the way "God" behaves is as man would behave. It is said in the Bible that "God" created us in him image, if that is the case then that explains our behavior compared to his, but why does he act the way he does? I have been told my whole life that "God" is all powerful, cares and loves everyone, is merciful beyond my reckoning, and so on. Yet I look at many other events in the Bible and I see a very different "God". I see a "God" possessed of rage, vengeful behavior, and a very unforgiving temperament to those who do not obey his wishes. A few examples of such behavior: Adam and Eve, "God" placed them in the perfect place to live with nothing to fear and had that one tiny rule we all know about. In accordance to what my pastor once told me, "Sin cannot exist in the presence of "God" he is too holy and it would simply consume itself in front of him" (or her). To be very blunt I would like to know how is it that if "God" walked in the Garden of Eden with Adam on a regular basis, then how is it that walking in front of a tree with the embodiment of sin "Knowledge" could have worked if sin cannot be in "God's" presence?
The Tower of Babel was one other such case in which "God" displayed the all too human emotions of envy, jealousy, and anger at the mere building of a tower. I do understand the lesson meant by the destruction of the tower, do not be so vain and self important as to out shine "God" himself, but why? If "God" is perfect in every way then why destroy something that is imperfect and built by man, that in no way could out shine his greatness?
I could go on to mention the countless times "God" has burned whole towns to cinders with fire and brimstone, or mention how often he played games with mortal souls with Satan himself, but the point here again is the fact that we as humans summed up all of the different aspects of ourselves and gave them to a being that doesn't exist in order to give ourselves that "Higher Power" to explain things. If we are not in control or we don't understand something the very first thing we do is ask "God" why. We cannot seem to draw a logical conclusion that we lost our job because we were not good at it, or we did not meet the required quota on time and that is why we were fired, not because "God" willed it. If "God" loved us so very much as many claim why would he have our loved ones die, have us lose our jobs, and suffer through the many other things that life has to offer? Why call out to someone that will not answer no matter how many times he is called? Mind over matter many have said, and "God" being in our minds has given mankind a powerful tool to focus on in order to get past difficulties in life. Other than that power to focus the idea of "God" is as far as I am concerned useless.
In closing I would like to say, go ahead read the Bible, believe what you will, just know that faith in anything is only as strong as your own mind. If you believe anything long enough and with enough passion it will surely happen one way or other.
Learn more about this author, Owen Hayburn.
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