Why does anyone need a god?

[Brian37]

The concept of an all knowing, all powerful god is petty at it's core. If one has those powers and knows the outcome prior to the start, it is nothing more than knowing the end of a movie because you wrote the script yourself. What is the point other than self satisfaction? If you are a God the movie always ends the way you want it to. It seems reality is far less scripted than the utopias people needlessly dream up and kill each other over.

[Eel_LahjicK]

I agree. If he knows what he has done and what he has created, he is to blame for everything. Everything from love, kindness, hatred, murder, lust, rape, etc. If you believe in a god, then I think you can blame him for everything, because it is his will.

Since I don't believe in god, I blame people for their own actions. It makes much more sense.

[Diablo]

I suppose you could imagine a malevolent god, inventing a scenario for his own pleasure, so that his creations fought each other, indulged in vice and genocide, stuff like that.

Oh, wait....

[Brian37]

It is not about blaming people for the own actions either. "I did it all myself" is a motif I get from right winger and libertarian atheist as well which is as self absorbed as any god concept. Reality is messy, and diverse, and even atheists are not immune to script thinking.

[Lucanus]

I agree with the OP. The idea of an omnimax god is so divorced from reality, it's ridiculous.

As to why people need gods, well, tide goes in, tide goes out, you can't explain that! Right?

[Welsh cake]

Interestingly, whenever the subject of predeterminism comes up, theists usually take up one of two positions.

Calvinism, which not only embraces the concept, but equates to god is a dick, you're either a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath fit for destruction. Now bend over and take it.

And then those who cannot accept the implication, god is good to them, and so resort to pantheism and pandeism, where it wanted to experience being every single actor and actress in the play, because watching was no fun.

Its all nonsense. Reality is far more complex than our silly notions of fate.

[Chad32]

Dieties are just the logical conclusion of superstition. It starts when you hear something in the dark, and people who think it's a monster and run are more likely to survive than those who investigate. Then you have creatures powerful enough to control forces of nature. then you have creator gods.

It's all about explaining the unexplained, and controlling people. Saying your ideas are right might get you some respect. saying your ideas are the same as someone who can cause storms and earthquakes might get you a lot of respect.

Personally I don't need a god. If Yahweh was real, he's basically saying I need him to save me from him, because he's horribly self absorbed.

[vorlon13]

The God concept (or High Power as they say) is of considerable utility in the 12 Step orbit. I view it as a necessary fiction, most of the rest take it rather more seriously than that.

Most folks with an addiction problem do better in sobriety if they can credit their (assuming there is some) success to an external agency of any kind. 12 Steppers are extremely broad in what can be considered a "Higher Power", although most of the folks in the trenches subscribe to a fairly conventional Judeo-Christian idea.

The difficulty with addicts is if success is attributed to their own efforts (and in reality that is pretty much all there is) they get the destructive idea that since they are developing some control, then they can resume drugging themselves, invariably to negative effect.

I've found it useful, therefore, at 12 Steppers, to let the newcomers credit anything they want for their success, as long as it isn't themselves, even if it clearly is. It is a matter of life and death, and the necessary fiction of a 'Higher Power' is required in battling addiction.

I don't see much other call for it. But in 12 Steppers, I don't see a viable work around for most cases.

(and I'm not saying atheists can't overcome addictions, but there is going to be that complication of self-knowledge in regards to any successes that accrue, and 12 Stepping is fucking hard enough as it is with the 'crutch' of the Higher Power stuff, grin and bear it, work out the atheist angle when you're years, not days away from active addiction)

[ignoramus]

The only reason people go for a god is for the afterlife bit.
Realistically, how many religious people would there be if heaven and hell weren't mentioned in the holy books?

[Chad32]

The decision to stop must come from within, and not without, and if external help is needed, family and friends would serve better than higher powers. After all it's family and friends that actually help people. Not some nebulous higher power.