Ok, so god exists, and was the genesis of our universe.

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

Why Christianity, then? Assuming, for the sake of argument, that a supreme being caused the Big Bang, what makes you think this particular book accurately represents the will of that being? How is reincarnation, for example, any less valid a theory? Literally every other form of matter and energy follows some kind of cyclical pattern, so to me it actually makes far more sense that the soul, assuming there is such a thing, would be mixed back into the cosmic aether and recycled into a new body than it does for a person, based on less than one century of personal deeds and experience, to be either blessed with eternal bliss or damned to eternal, unfathomable agony, especially with such pointless and arbitrary rules as "don't wear mixed fabrics, don't eat lobster, and don't have teh buttsex."

Also, sup y'all? LTNS

[monkeygirl]

well, where do NEW souls come from, then? Cause every year, there are more bodies. Is somebody hording souls??

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

in karmic faiths there are no new souls, and humans aren't the only ones with souls. Sure, there are more humans, but you might have been a cat in a past life, so it evens out.

 

would it be cheating to nominate my own OOC quote for today's prize sticker?

[Carrie Mathison]

Dostoevsky, in the Grand Inquisitor, part of The Brothers Karamazov, said: "So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find some one to worship."

Dostoevsky talks about how people (though they won't admit it) would've rather had Jesus during the temptations of Satan turn the stones into bread, or rule all the kingdoms, instead of rejecting Satan. Because Jesus didn't, the Church had to essentially do these things- i.e. to rule kingdoms, to tell people what to do and why, because ultimately, people need to find someone to worship, to follow. As he states a little later in the text,

 

"They will submit to us gladly and cheerfully. The most painful secrets of their conscience, all, all they will bring to us, and we shall have an answer for all. And they will be glad to believe our answer, for it will save them from the great anxiety and terrible agony they endure at present in making a free decision for themselves...and all will be happy...there will be thousands of millions of happy babes...peacefully they will die, peacefully they will expire in thy name, and beyond the grave they will find nothing but death. But we shall keep the secret, and for their happiness we shall allure them with the reward of heaven and eternity."

[D-Ray Kenobi]

Since you're talking about religion on a cosmic scale, I'll share the thing that's always blown my mind in terms of how we understand God from our scale:

Looking at the universe from a Sagan-esque perspective, we are almost literally nothing. Our planet, and even our little corner of the universe, is absolutely insignificant. There are billions upon billions of galaxies, each with billions of systems more than capable of supporting intelligent life. The idea that we're alone in the universe is absurd.

That said, why is our perception of God and spirituality so biased towards our own speck of nothingness in the universe and our own species? Why are things like the Bible or Quran so singularly focused on Earth, such a comparably insignificant speck? Do other worlds with intelligent cultures have their own version of Jesus or Mohammad with their own accompanying texts?

[The Human Torch]

Worded for discussion... Premise: God Exists / Question: Why believe an Earth centric religion?

 

Worded to troll... Read the OP.

[Odine]

In answer to D-Ray, and THT (to an extent).

 

They're not geared singularly towards Earth, if you choose to believe that religious texts referring to "gods" and "angels" are misinterpreted representations of creation stories via extra-terrestrials. See the much ridiculed, but also popular Ancient Astronaut Theory. Which is no less likely than "God did it" in my opinion, and its an interesting bent that makes for a better narrative. Which is the real reason people want a Theism of some kind. To give narrative to our otherwise inexplicable and seemingly irrelevant lives in the face of something so vast and inexplicable like space, or life and death for that matter.

[Transducer X]

The biggest problem with a god as an answer for creation is it simply creates a new question: where did god come from? It just doesn't solve anything. Total derail, sorry.

[The Human Torch]

That "biggest problem" however stems from linear thinking.

[Transducer X]

That "biggest problem" however stems from linear thinking.

Ah, so "he created himself" is "non-linear". Got it.

[The Human Torch]

A sequence of creation is linear. Just being could be non-linear.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

They're not geared singularly towards Earth, if you choose to believe that religious texts referring to "gods" and "angels" are misinterpreted representations of creation stories via extra-terrestrials. See the much ridiculed, but also popular Ancient Astronaut Theory.

 

I don't know, I think that ratholes into an entirely separate religious discussion. If you approach it logically instead of spiritually, it's entirely possible. I know a lot of people didn't care for the movie Prometheus for various reasons, but I loved how it handled that very question of humanity being the creation or offshoot of a more established or intelligent species. To me, it logically seems entirely possible.

 

That said, I still believe there is a God or some type of higher power when approaching things at large from a spiritual scale. I've grown to question things and try to approach things scientifically, but I still cannot fathom how a universe that operates with such clockwork precision with all of its physical laws could not be designed by a much higher power. It's far more convincing evidence for me personally than any long-overtranslated spiritual text. And with that in mind, that's why I struggle understanding how that a higher power capable of creating and overseeing such a vast and complex universe would be singularly focused on just one world out of potentially infinite others.

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

Thing is, the universe isn't clockwork; it just seems that way to us because we're looking at the end result of trillions of years worth of, for lack of a better word, condensation. A ripple in the water seems very organized and artistic, like lines in the sand in a Zen garden, but it's really just the natural result of physical forces at work. A flower's petals are arranged as they are not because it's pretty, but because that pattern draws insects to the center where the pollen is. The plants evolved that structure because it resulted in greater propagation.

It's like the "ideal environment" argument. The planet isn't perfectly suited to us; we're perfectly suited to the planet because we evolved here.

[D-Ray Kenobi]

I totally understand, and you're absolutely right. I just personally feel comfortable in believing that things evolved and condensed by design.

Mind you, I am certainly not the type of Christian who is okay with leaving things with "God did it," or fighting tooth and nail against things like Evolution or the Big Bang. I personally subscribe to belief that all of those things happened, it's just that our culture is just now getting around to having more understanding of how that Higher Power, whomever they are, did those things.

I think it's in our nature and code to always try to understand things better, and I personally think we're given the tools and encouragement by that Higher Power to figure these kinds of things out the best we can.

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

So do you believe god created the universe or just Earth/humanity?

[pavonis]

... the end result of trillions of years worth of, for lack of a better word, condensation. ....

The universe is only 13.8 billion years old. A trillion is a 1,000 billion, so you've overestimated the age of the universe by about two orders of magnitude.

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

Whatever; the point stands.

[RamonAtila]

An ancient man said to his friend "Hey did you ever notice the sun and moon are ROUND and our eyeballs are ROUND and nothing else on Earth is ROUND?" Hence, the Lord created us in his image.

[Mitth'raw'nuroudo]

Exactly Ramon.

Since you're talking about religion on a cosmic scale, I'll share the thing that's always blown my mind in terms of how we understand God from our scale:

Looking at the universe from a Sagan-esque perspective, we are almost literally nothing. Our planet, and even our little corner of the universe, is absolutely insignificant. There are billions upon billions of galaxies, each with billions of systems more than capable of supporting intelligent life. The idea that we're alone in the universe is absurd.

That said, why is our perception of God and spirituality so biased towards our own speck of nothingness in the universe and our own species? Why are things like the Bible or Quran so singularly focused on Earth, such a comparably insignificant speck? Do other worlds with intelligent cultures have their own version of Jesus or Mohammad with their own accompanying texts?

Because, as you say, we're biased. Our knowledge when we came up with god was also extremely limited, to the point that even the notion of something other-worldly having some unknowable form hadn't even occurred to us. Moreover, until we had the technology to actually observe the universe beyond our own atmostphere, our understanding was pure speculation, and since THIS was all we knew, our only frame of reference, so naturally all of our guesses reflected what we saw around us, concepts we understood. Kind of an expansion of saying "if the only tool you've ever used is a hammer, everything will look like a nail." This is also more or less exclusive to western religions. go east and look at buddhism, shinto, even the pagan faiths of the far north, and things become more abstract and ethereal. Yes, the idols are humanoid, but you see beings with a thousand arms, animal spirits, and of course the idea of karma itself is fundamentally different from the way the Abrahamic faiths explain the universe. In the west, you are you and only you. In the East, all is one and one is all.