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Author Topic:   Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?
Greatest I am
Member (Idle past 273 days)
Posts: 1676
Joined: 01-24-2007


Message 1 of 511 (770885)
10-13-2015 7:57 PM


Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based?
IMO. All religions are manmade and all God’s are projections of man’s desires for supremacy and to be the Alpha male of the human race. Survival of the fittest and our desire to be the fittest human is what drives us and keeps mankind progressing and evolving.
I offer the following to prove my case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTepA-WV_oE&feature=em-su...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA
What Is the Father Complex? (with pictures)
This last shows the Gnostic Christian understanding of seeking the ideal human and Jesus archetype that we call Jesus the good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9QI3nlinYQ
The choice people have is to believe that religions are ultimately products of a supernatural God who dictates policy to humans, who then pen them into holy books, and we have many Gods who are of this ilk, or to recognize that all these Gods are products of man’s imagination.
Proof for manmade Gods is obvious. Men have created the documentation of what they think.
Proof for a supernatural God has yet to be shown other than humans who say they wrote what was dictated by a God. Some do not see that as proof.
I think the proof we have of God’s being manmade is that no real supernatural God has ever bothered to correct any of the contradicting information about him, her or it. No God has ever corrected us.
Do you think Gods are manmade or do you believe in a supernatural God?
Why do you think that way?
Regards
DL

Replies to this message:
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Message 2 of 511 (770887)
10-15-2015 9:42 AM


Thread Copied from Proposed New Topics Forum
Thread copied here from the Are religions manmade and natural or supernaturally based? thread in the Proposed New Topics forum.

  
Raphael
Member (Idle past 462 days)
Posts: 173
From: Southern California, United States
Joined: 09-29-2007


(2)
Message 3 of 511 (771299)
10-23-2015 10:32 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Greatest I am
10-13-2015 7:57 PM


I was not going to respond to this thread since it would mean opening another discussion with the potential to be very long and intricate. But after watching the videos, I felt compelled because of all the misinformation and vague, weird content they presented. So here we go
Greatest I am writes:
IMO. All religions are manmade and all God’s are projections of man’s desires for supremacy and to be the Alpha male of the human race. Survival of the fittest and our desire to be the fittest human is what drives us and keeps mankind progressing and evolving.
This is an interesting hypothesis and I look forward to you showing, with evidence, that this is indeed the case. However I can say(and will demonstrate) right off the bat that this is simply an alternative belief, made from misunderstanding scripture, misconstruing history, and once again, incorrect assumptions.
I will now address each link and respond to the content contained:
(I do not have time unfortunately to address Dan Dennett's video at this time, I hope you will not see this as me avoiding it . Hopefully I will be able to come back and address it at a later date! College calls! )
II. The Invention Of God & Religion
You posted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJ1PDxeUynA as evidence that all religions are made up. I watched the whole video. (As you prob. already know) this video is based on the work of Rudolf Steiner, author of The Philosophy of Freedom in 1894. The first thing we need to realize is that almost everything quoted in this video are part of a belief system, specifically, anthroposophy (a pseudo-science) and therefore are not necessarily backed up by much hard evidence. They are (not the Philosophy of Freedom as a whole, but the information in the video) mainly, only assertions, or truth claims, without any evidence whatsoever.
The entire video commits at least three or four different kinds of logical fallacies:
1) Ad hominem: the video bases at least the first half on "what religions/religious people are like" to say that religion is manmade/not supernatural. He cites two religious people as examples, picking at their character instead of attempting to rebut the actual claims of Christianity and scripture.
2) Begging the question/claim: The speaker already assumes he is correct without giving the viewer absolutely any evidence that it is so
3) It is a circular argument: the language used is the same language over and over again, reinstating itself but never offering any proof
4) Using the 10 Commandments (the movie, no less! lol) to draw a conclusion about reality is extremely fallacious and suspicious.
In conclusion, this video is built on so many logical fallacies that it's literally difficult to take it seriously at all. I know of Rudolf Steiner, his work is actually pretty interesting, but even Steiner himself was not fully convinced of the 100% accuracy of his ideas. In fact, in 1907, Steiner separated himself from the Theosophical Society Adyar (of which he was heavily involved in) because the Society was prepping a young man to become "the New World Teacher," and were claiming this boy was the reincarnated Jesus Christ, and Steiner totally disagreed!, causing a split in the Society. We find that Steinier was actually working toward developing a path that embraced Christianity at the time, and could not consent to the heresy. (check it, 4 paragraphs down for source)
III. The Father Complex
Luckily I am also a Psychology minor so this stuff is very interesting to me I read this whole article.
I am familiar with the idea of the father complex. However, this psychological phenomenon is more proof for there being a God than against. Think of it this way. We each have an innate desire/compulsion and real need to eat food. Food exists. Doesn't make sense that food would exist, given that we naturally crave it? The same goes for many things in life. Water. Sex. Belonging. Love. This is the same idea. The father complex (which we all have to some extent or another) is the innate desire to be fathered and all the ideas/assumptions/learned ideas about what that means. But at a base level, we all desire to be fathered. Does it not logically follow that this need is based on a reality? And, in fact, we find that it is. We all have a father. So what does this prove? It proves:
This innate desire for a father, and the subsequent projection of this need, is based on reality; we all have a father that exists/existed. Therefore, this seemingly innate desire to think about God, create Gods, worship God, know God personally, and create religions around God also is based on reality. That which fulfills this desire, the food to our hunger, is the real, actual, God, YHWH.
IV. Gnosis - The Secret of Solomon's Temple
this was the video in question. I also watched this whole video. The first thing I noticed is the title is extremely misleading. The speaker mentions at the beginning something about the secret of Solomon's temple, but then we hear absolutely nothing about Solomon's Temple again afterwards. Maybe this video is a portion of a longer one?
Moving on, I must say right off the bat, Gnosticism is not Christianity. It is a heresy that developed by the mixing of Eastern mysticism and mystery cults with Christianity during the first and second centuries, specifically. As an aside, I noticed you identify as a Gnostic? In that case, I need to say that I hold nothing against you personally and anything I write here is not a personal attack on you or your journey/life. If this were real life perhaps we might sit down over coffee and some apple fritters . It will, though, be a rebuttal of the misconceptions and assumptions of the ideas. AKA= offense is not the intention
I found this video extremely vague and misleading. The key here, friend, is EVIDENCE, where is the evidence? Once again, the speaker in the video provides us with a circular argument: he spends the entire time saying the same things without offering any real evidence for his assertions. Another huge red flag to me is the speaker quoting The Gospel of Thomas, a heretical book in the Apocrypha. If the claims of the speaker were so legit, why quote from a source that is inherently suspicious? Why not just quote from scripture or another historical figure? What this does for me is really hurt the credibility of his claims.
Now here, you you object to me classifying the Gospel of Thomas as heretical, and in that case you may not fully understand how the Bible was created. As I do not have time to go into that in this thread, here is an excellent source (the same one I quoted in your other thread) that goes very in-depth into how sources were gathered, the OT and NT were formed, and the Canon created: Introduction to New Testament Textual Criticism by Greenlee.
In conclusion, this video is nothing but wild claims without so much as a shred of actual evidence. Further, the speaker, again, never actually addresses the real claims of what he would call "mainstream" Christianity, and therefore a case really is not made. Cool ideas, but again, no evidence.
The choice people have is to believe that religions are ultimately products of a supernatural God who dictates policy to humans, who then pen them into holy books, and we have many Gods who are of this ilk, or to recognize that all these Gods are products of man’s imagination
I'm afraid that the way you've classified Christianity is absolutely nothing like that. This again, seems to be based around incorrect assumptions on what Christianity actually is. On an absolute basic level, Christianity is the assertion that: God inserted Himself into human history without prompting/manipulation from anything outside of Himself. "Dictating policy" has absolutely nothing to do with the God found in scripture. Rather, we find that God is good, and humans are not. In Exodus, we find a place where God invites humanity into a personal relationship with himself. (Exodus 20) Incredible! That's what the 10 Commandments really are, friend! Basically, a marriage ceremony initiated by God. the 10 Commandments (actually the 10 "Words" in Hebrew) are not even commandments (I can demonstrate this with a Hebrew study if required), but rather promises of what life is like in relationship with God.
Christianity is unique in that it is essentially an anti-religion. The main idea/goal of "Religion" is somehow "getting to god/supernatural" by means of "doing something." Christianity says God did it.
Proof for a supernatural God has yet to be shown other than humans who say they wrote what was dictated by a God. Some do not see that as proof.
There is no such thing as "proof" for a supernatural God. And there doesn't need to be, because the supernatural cannot be proven. Of course. But. There is evidence for a supernatural God. The greatest evidence being the resurrection of Jesus Christ. I wish I could go more in detail here, but will answer any questions.
I think the proof we have of God’s being manmade is that no real supernatural God has ever bothered to correct any of the contradicting information about him, her or it. No God has ever corrected us.
Another assumption, friend. . Why assume that if there were a God, he would correct information about Himself? If Jesus was who he said he was, and actually rose from the dead, then we have to assume God has a good reason. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, who cares?
Do you think Gods are manmade or do you believe in a supernatural God?
I believe in a supernatural God. I believe this because of the overwhelming evidence for the legitimacy of the New Testament, because of the existing evidence for existence of Jesus Christ, I believe this because of the cogent, excellent evidence for His resurrection, and lastly because of my personal experience with knowing Him as a friend and father, and experiencing unexplainable occurrences in my own life. I am willing to go into detail on any of these topics, I am not afraid of a debate
Regards!
- Raph
Edited by Raphael, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Greatest I am, posted 10-13-2015 7:57 PM Greatest I am has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 4 by PaulK, posted 10-24-2015 4:30 AM Raphael has replied
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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(5)
Message 4 of 511 (771309)
10-24-2015 4:30 AM
Reply to: Message 3 by Raphael
10-23-2015 10:32 PM


I won't comment on the videos because I haven't watched them.
But your own positive claims seem pretty dubious. And I laughed, almost out loud when I saw the claim that there was excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Odd that I've never seen any, despite investigation. I'd say that the evidence, properly considered is against it. Care to produce your evidence?

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 Message 20 by Raphael, posted 10-25-2015 3:31 PM PaulK has replied

  
Omnivorous
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Posts: 3978
From: Adirondackia
Joined: 07-21-2005
Member Rating: 7.3


(1)
Message 5 of 511 (771313)
10-24-2015 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 4 by PaulK
10-24-2015 4:30 AM


Persuasive objective evidence for not only the existence of the biblical Jesus but for his actual resurrection as well would make history and change my world.
No bated breath here.

"If you can keep your head while those around you are losing theirs, you can collect a lot of heads."
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.
-Terence

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 6 of 511 (771347)
10-24-2015 8:56 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by PaulK
10-24-2015 4:30 AM


The empty tomb.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 7 of 511 (771348)
10-24-2015 9:00 PM
Reply to: Message 5 by Omnivorous
10-24-2015 10:22 AM


Persuasive objective evidence for not only the existence of the biblical Jesus but for his actual resurrection as well would make history and change my world.
No bated breath here.
What's "persuasive" for you isn't going to happen I guess, but the Bible was very persuasive to me, as to hundreds of millions of others down the last two millennia. Its history was made gloriously already in thousands of ways, but it can't change your world unless you are willing to open your eyes to it. You might try praying for light.

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 8 of 511 (771349)
10-24-2015 9:03 PM
Reply to: Message 1 by Greatest I am
10-13-2015 7:57 PM


There's only one supernatural God-made religion and it's spelled out in the Bible. The rest are manmade with some help from the satanic legions.

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GDR
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Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


(1)
Message 9 of 511 (771352)
10-24-2015 10:36 PM
Reply to: Message 4 by PaulK
10-24-2015 4:30 AM


PaulK writes:
And I laughed, almost out loud when I saw the claim that there was excellent evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Odd that I've never seen any, despite investigation. I'd say that the evidence, properly considered is against it. Care to produce your evidence?
There isn't conclusive evidence so ultimately it is a matter of belief.
However, the Gospels exist. We know approximately when they were written and as Luke says in his opening that they were compilations drawn from other earlier sources.
It is very clear from the accounts written by Paul and other NT authors that they believed strongly that the resurrection was an actual historical event. The question is — did they get it right or wrong.
The Gospel accounts have a strong ring of truth in that they show the first Jesus followers in a negative light, they have women, (women were considered to be unreliable witnesses in that culture), as the first to experience the risen Christ, the accounts differ in small ways which makes collusion seem very unlikely, there is no written contradiction to the accounts and Paul who had been a strong adversary became convinced of the resurrection giving up a life of prestige and position for a life of living on handouts, a life always at risk and a life of discomfort in general.
There was no one who at the time was able to produce a body which would have put a quick end to the whole idea of resurrection.
There were many people at the time the Gospels were written who would have been able to dispel the Gospel accounts as well as the Epistles as written by Paul
There were numerous other messianic movements during that period and inevitably the leaders, and usually their followers, were put to death. In every other case when the would be messiahs were put to death their movement simply died out. Their followers simply went looking for another messiah. Many of these messianic leaders had actually been able to lead their followers into battle against the Romans with some success whereas Jesus simply led a small group of rag-tag followers preaching a message of peace that ticked off just about everybody. Without the resurrection Jesus would have been about the least likely to inspire an on-going movement.
The Gospels accounts tell of Jesus' followers doing what essentially amounted to a disappearing act at the time of the crucifixion. They didn't want to suffer the same fate as Jesus. They would have seen what had happened to others in their situation although in this case the risk would have been less as they hadn't mounted up a military threat to the Romans.
However something happened that changed all of that, They say that what had changed for them was that the Jesus that had been crucified had been resurrected as we see in the Gospel accounts.
That is evidence! Is it conclusive? No. Can it be repeated? No, but that is true of any historical account.
In the end, we all make up our mind as to whether we believe the accounts are essentially accurate or not, (but not necessarily inerrant in the details), and then decide how that impacts our life if at all.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


(1)
Message 10 of 511 (771354)
10-25-2015 12:09 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by GDR
10-24-2015 10:36 PM


More evidence for the resurrection
There's one terrific piece of evidence we often overlook, and that is that it was WOMEN who first discovered the empty tomb and it was a woman who first saw the risen Jesus Himself. We think nothing of it in our time but in those days to give women any responsibility for such an important role as witnessing the resurrection of Christ was a radical contradiction to the prevailing attitude toward women. That Jesus Himlself, God Himself, entrusted mere women with this revelation must have been quite an eyeopener to the male disciples who accepted the cultural attitude that women could not even testify in court (or only under some special circumstances, sorry I'm not up on all that.)
And this also has the wonderful effect of validating the scriptures as honest witness reports, since no Jew in his right mind would ever make up such a tale as that women were entrusted with this knowledge before the men knew it. It's also no doubt a big part of the reason why Thomas couldn't believe the reports he'd heard -- they came first of all from women.
Anyway, you can be sure none of the writers of the gospels would have made up such a thing.
Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

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GDR
Member
Posts: 6202
From: Sidney, BC, Canada
Joined: 05-22-2005
Member Rating: 1.9


Message 11 of 511 (771357)
10-25-2015 12:45 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Faith
10-25-2015 12:09 AM


Re: More evidence for the resurrection
I agree Faith. Actually, I had mentioned that in my post.

He has told you, O man, what is good ; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God.
Micah 6:8

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 Message 10 by Faith, posted 10-25-2015 12:09 AM Faith has replied

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Faith 
Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days)
Posts: 35298
From: Nevada, USA
Joined: 10-06-2001


Message 12 of 511 (771359)
10-25-2015 12:59 AM
Reply to: Message 11 by GDR
10-25-2015 12:45 AM


Re: More evidence for the resurrection
You're right, you did! Sorry, I missed it.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 348 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(1)
Message 13 of 511 (771361)
10-25-2015 2:50 AM


Shroedinger's Jesus
Being both alive and dead, Jesus existed in a state of quantum superposition. When they rolled away the stone and saw that he was alive this should have collapsed the dead Jesus wave function. However, a bunch of untrustworthy female observers got it all wrong and it has been uncertainty ever since.
Edited by ProtoTypical, : No reason given.

  
PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


(1)
Message 14 of 511 (771362)
10-25-2015 2:58 AM
Reply to: Message 9 by GDR
10-24-2015 10:36 PM


As you know we've been over this and the case against the resurrection is stronger. Despite your dishonest attempts to attack the evidence.
The Gospel accounts certainly do not have a "ring of truth" and the differences between Matthew and Luke show clear signs of legendary development. Adding in the paucity of the pre-Gospel accounts that Jesus was not resurrected is the best way to make sense of the mess.
Even the women's discovery of the tomb is poor evidence. Having women who did not pass on the story as the discoverers of the tomb would explain why the empty tomb story was not known earlier. Certainly it is absent from an earlier sources.
The absence of the body is easily explained, since there is no clear motivation for anybody who would have known the whereabouts of the body (likely a common grave) to produce it.
The rest is equally subjective. We can't know what happened to the others, whether some core of their movement hung on and found ways to deny their failure or not. Likely they did - unless the Romans killed them all - and certainly we can't know what beliefs they came to.
Really you haven't got much - relying on accounts known to be inaccurate. Claiming that they have the "ring of truth" Claiming they would have been corrected when the big, obvious differences between Matthew and Luke persist. Subjective and inaccurate impressions and obvious falsehoods have no value as evidence.

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PaulK
Member
Posts: 17822
Joined: 01-10-2003
Member Rating: 2.2


Message 15 of 511 (771363)
10-25-2015 3:03 AM
Reply to: Message 10 by Faith
10-25-2015 12:09 AM


Re: More evidence for the resurrection
Faith, I am afraid that you have no ability to evaluate evidence. Which is something of a handicap in these discussions.
The women did not even see the resurrection (nobody saw the actual event). They aren't put forward as court witnesses, just participants in the events. And in Mark, the original version, they don't even tell anyone what they supposedly saw.
As I pointed out to GDR this is evidence against the empty tomb story (which likely is fiction)

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 Message 10 by Faith, posted 10-25-2015 12:09 AM Faith has replied

Replies to this message:
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