My 2 cents into the view of the world as a whole.
First, there's this thing called "belief" that is basically a psychological state. It has zero bearing on the reality of the thing being believed in. I hope even the believers themselves can appreciate the veracity of this statement.
This belief can be easily imparted upon a child, if the thing being believed cannot be easily disproved. EVery culture imparts their own views onto their children and it has worked well for millenia, why change a winning formula?
For the case of belief in gods, it has come to be reinforced with vacuous statements like the ones we find in this thread.... "god is everything good", "god is love", god is kindness", "god is all good emotions", etc.
The belief in the divine has existed for millennia. One of the earliest recorded mythologies contains a "Sky Father, King of the Gods, Lord of the Constellations". This impression that a god is a king and lord, has led people to approach the divine in pretty much the same way as they'd approach a king or ruler. As if a god would be so petty as to require the adoration of lowly humans. As if a god would require us to kneel, to grovel, to worship it like an insecure ruler would demand...
It must, therefore, be an impression that comes about through the "divinification" of the tribe-ruler. A movement which was recorded to be still in existence in the ancient Egyptian mythology, with the pharaoh-as-god.
That people believed in the various mythologies that have existed in, I hope, incontestable... that the content of those mythologies represent reality is, however, very contestable.
Over the generations, may smart people who were taught to believe have developed mechanisms to justify that belief to themselves. Trying to come to make the observable reality fit with the gods they believe in. With only one god, this has become a particularly difficult task, so a few entities from previous polytheist mythologies have been retained in most monotheist belief systems - angels, devils, djins, etc... Saints seem to be remnants of the human becoming divine I mentioned before. Trying to make sense of it all, many desirable traits have been added to the monotheist divinity, such as perfection, goodness, knowledge... curiously, traits valued by most of us, in all other humans... and even love.
And, nowadays, we have this hodgepodge of "arguments" for the existence of the divine creator, coupled with "arguments" for the attribution of certain features to that creator, yielding an overall argument for a particular god, followed by a given religion. Tweak the arguments a bit and you get a slightly different god, followed by another religion. All arguments end up being logical and seem to present a solid case for the existence of the particular god that people are brought up believing in.... but this only works for the believers.... the believers and those who fail to notice where such arguments are lacking.
There are also smart people who don't get taught to believe in any particular divine entity. These tend to become atheists. According to the literature, it seems these have been around since way back when writing began...
As when I started, note that all this is independent from the actual existence of any divine entity.
This realization alone should be enough to give anyone pause to reconsider any belief... but I know believers are too wrapped up in their beliefs to even process this information. A not so simple choice, huh?
First, there's this thing called "belief" that is basically a psychological state. It has zero bearing on the reality of the thing being believed in. I hope even the believers themselves can appreciate the veracity of this statement.
This belief can be easily imparted upon a child, if the thing being believed cannot be easily disproved. EVery culture imparts their own views onto their children and it has worked well for millenia, why change a winning formula?
For the case of belief in gods, it has come to be reinforced with vacuous statements like the ones we find in this thread.... "god is everything good", "god is love", god is kindness", "god is all good emotions", etc.
The belief in the divine has existed for millennia. One of the earliest recorded mythologies contains a "Sky Father, King of the Gods, Lord of the Constellations". This impression that a god is a king and lord, has led people to approach the divine in pretty much the same way as they'd approach a king or ruler. As if a god would be so petty as to require the adoration of lowly humans. As if a god would require us to kneel, to grovel, to worship it like an insecure ruler would demand...
It must, therefore, be an impression that comes about through the "divinification" of the tribe-ruler. A movement which was recorded to be still in existence in the ancient Egyptian mythology, with the pharaoh-as-god.
That people believed in the various mythologies that have existed in, I hope, incontestable... that the content of those mythologies represent reality is, however, very contestable.
Over the generations, may smart people who were taught to believe have developed mechanisms to justify that belief to themselves. Trying to come to make the observable reality fit with the gods they believe in. With only one god, this has become a particularly difficult task, so a few entities from previous polytheist mythologies have been retained in most monotheist belief systems - angels, devils, djins, etc... Saints seem to be remnants of the human becoming divine I mentioned before. Trying to make sense of it all, many desirable traits have been added to the monotheist divinity, such as perfection, goodness, knowledge... curiously, traits valued by most of us, in all other humans... and even love.
And, nowadays, we have this hodgepodge of "arguments" for the existence of the divine creator, coupled with "arguments" for the attribution of certain features to that creator, yielding an overall argument for a particular god, followed by a given religion. Tweak the arguments a bit and you get a slightly different god, followed by another religion. All arguments end up being logical and seem to present a solid case for the existence of the particular god that people are brought up believing in.... but this only works for the believers.... the believers and those who fail to notice where such arguments are lacking.
There are also smart people who don't get taught to believe in any particular divine entity. These tend to become atheists. According to the literature, it seems these have been around since way back when writing began...
As when I started, note that all this is independent from the actual existence of any divine entity.
This realization alone should be enough to give anyone pause to reconsider any belief... but I know believers are too wrapped up in their beliefs to even process this information. A not so simple choice, huh?
