This is a perfect explanation of god to me

[moobu2]

THE personality of God is thus the means by which man converts the qualities of his own nature into the qualities of another being, – of a being, external to himself. The personality of God is nothing else than the projected personality of man. -Ludwig Feuerbach 1841


from 'The Essence of Christianity'

God always wants what the believer wants because they are the same thing.

[baldguy]

1. Man made god in his own image.

[cosmik debris]

2. I don't think I've ever met a believer who disagreed with god

to any large extent on any substantive issue.

They seem to always agree with god -- which means that god always agrees with them.

So it boils down to which came first, the chicken or the egg.

As for me, I like boiled eggs.

:)

[knitter4democracy]

7. I have.

I'm just saying. It happens.

My kids like boiled eggs, too. Had to do up another half-dozen this morning. :)

[cosmik debris]

8. So, how did they deal with that?

How does one deal with a deity who is believed to be in error on a substantive point?


(boiled chicken is good too, as chicken soup)

[knitter4democracy]

12. I love chicken and rice soup. Chicken noodle, if it's mine, good, too.

I was pretty mad at what I felt God wanted me to do, but I did it anyway. It ended up being the totally right path, just a hard one to walk at that time in my life. I'm glad I did it.

The way I deal with God when I'm mad is that I get mad and stay mad for awhile. When I'm finally able to pray, I do, and either I go against God (rarely) or grudgingly agree after awhile. It usually works out.

[Deep13]

3. That pretty much removes the godliness from god.

Whatever else that projected personality is, god is the wrong word. A god is a being who created the universe (or part of it with other gods), that has control over nature or a part of it, who listens to prayers and who intervenes in the affairs of people. By giving these alternate definitions for god one ignores the meaning of that word. It's like saying that my explanation for a pencil sharpener is nothing more than the projected characteristics of a pencil. Well that's fine and all, but that is not what "pencil sharpener" means.

[dmallind]

4. Well sure - it can be said more simply but that's a nice way of putting it

isn't the same true of superheroes or legendary figures from folklore, or even many literary characters. Humanity ascribes their hopes and fears to fictional surrogates in order to distill and clarify the human condition.

That's not the simpler way I mention of course. The simplert way of putting it would be: Gods are made up.

[patrice]

5. Though they may not be aware of it, I believe this is what most people are referring to when

they say "God".

I believe, this is also one of the reasons that Orthodox Jews refuse to refer to "God".

Though the word "God" does not refer to what we claim it refers to, that does not mean that there is not something that is "all in all" and, thus, all powerful, BUT even if there is an Omnipotence, it does not follow that whatever it is/does it necessarily gives a shit about us.

[PassingFair]

9. Speak for yourself! I'm living in a "wealth cycle"!

On account of I am blessed.

:eyes:

[DontTreadOnMe]

6. Ask Frank

Tax the Churches -- FZ

[Meshuga]

10. I agree with that but I would add more

It also reflects fear and need for comfort. So God is also a teddy bear for grown ups sort of speak. There is also the "eye in the sky" idea used by a society to solve problems and disputes thus giving God attributes and values that reflects that society in a similar way that a God idea is the projected personality of the individual who holds the specific God idea.

[laconicsax]

11. God is good luck personified and a way of depriving others of desered credit.

When the believer succeeds, God is responsible.
When the believer fails, someone else is responsible.

When a plane hits a flock of birds and loses power, it's just bad luck.
When that plane is brought down safely by a skilled pilot, it's a miracle of God.

[knitter4democracy]

13. There's some truth to that.

For example, I don't think God gave me that kidney tumor. I think shit happens. On the other hand, I did think it was a miracle that I didn't die from it, though I think the jury's still out on whether it was cancer or not (four pathologists spent a month going over it and finally called it a "bizarre benign invasive tumor" and admitted that it acted like cancer, looked like cancer, and even had cancer cells in it but just that they weren't quite the right kind of cancer cells--even my doctor agrees with me that it's best to keep an eye on me, just in case). I do think God was with the surgical team that day, guiding their hands, and I think He was with me in the hospital when the morphine didn't work and helped me fight the pain and keep coughing and walking so I could get out of there.

So, I'm not so quick to blame God for bad things, and I know that people can allow God to move through them or not. Maybe you're right.

[laconicsax]

14. Two questions:

If God had (has) such an interest in your well-being, then why did he let you get the tumor in the first place?

Would you acknowledge that someone who despises you might see the tumor as God punishing you for some transgression and your recovery as purely a matter of chance?

[knitter4democracy]

15. Sure. That's what my STBX-husband said.

Already heard that version. Didn't agree with it.

The way I look it, shit happens. It's how we deal with it that matters. I do think that God works through people and through things, but I don't think He sits around punishing people or hurting people. I do think there's more to all of this than I can know or understand, though, and definitely more than is dreamt of in my philosophy.

[moggie]

16. Why did God need to "guide their hands"?

I have to say, I find that rather insulting to the surgical team. Why not accept that they're dedicated professionals who succeeded because of their skill and experience? Why insist on a supernatural kibitzer? If a doctor had come to you before the operation and said "I'm afraid the surgeon isn't available, so I'll be performing it. I've never cut anyone open before, but I've prayed for God to guide my hands", how would you have felt about that?

[knitter4democracy]

17. I think that great natural talent is a gift from God.

STBX is a doctor, and he was the one who caught the kidney tumor. That's not what he thought it was, though, so it was by sheer chance (or God's guidance, as I look at it) that they caught it before it went into my liver.

As for the surgical team, I do believe that anyone who can do that level of surgery as well as they did (I read up on the actual surgery, and I almost threw up about halfway through--I'd had no idea it was that big or difficult) has at least a God-given gift, a natural talent honed through years of experience, and considering even the other surgeon in the group said the suturing was better than usual, I'm going to go with the surgeon was particularly inspired that day.

God gives us gifts. We're born with amazingly complicated DNA, and somehow these talents emerge from that and from the environment we were raised in. Some people have amazing voices, and they sing like the angels--I prefer to say that it's a God-given gift and that a particularly wonderful performance was God working through them. If that doesn't work for you, that's cool. To each their own.

[cyborg_jim]

18. Funny how no-one ever talks about the god-given gifts of theives, conmen, murderers or despots

[knitter4democracy]

19. Why not? All those gifts could've been turned to the good.

Thieves could've been bankers, conmen could've been politicians, murderers could've been in the military, and despots could've run companies instead of countries. ;)

[skepticscott]

20. Many creatures

have more complicated DNA than we do, and many have less complicated DNA than we do. Do they all also have "god-given" gifts, and do they correlate to the complexity of their DNA?

And when a surgeon has a bad day and makes a mistake that results in someone's death, was god just on vacation that day? Or if a basketball team plays like world-beaters one night and like crap the next night, is that just an arbitrary and capricious god flipping a coin? Or does it make infinitely more sense to simply attribute this to the vagarities of purely human performance?

[knitter4democracy]

21. Don't forget we have our own wills.

If a doctor screws up, it could be his own poor choices or a conflux of crap all happening at the same time (not all medical mistakes are the doctor's fault).

As for animals, sure they have their own God-given talents. My dog is extremely talented at finding any food my kids have hidden in secret stashes around the house, and I think that's a God-given talent, that nose of his. I try not to be species-ist or whatever they're calling it these days.

For example, I knew that God wanted me to try out for a college puppet team. Other people confirmed it, even though I thought I was done with puppet ministry. Tryouts went well, and I found out later that I did make the team only to have my ex-boyfriend's brother remove me behind the president's back and replace me with someone else. Now, I could say that God was wrong, but I don't think he was behind my ex's brother's actions. I think that was free will. I ended up having time to try out for the spring play, though, so it all worked out.

[skepticscott]

22. So in other words

you invoke god and give him credit when it makes you feel better and conveniently absolve him from any involvement when giving him credit would make you uncomfortable? That nice as a personal security blanket, but when you boil it all down, you still have a world that looks exactly as it would if there were no god.

[knitter4democracy]

23. Not quite.

I've had plenty of times when I've been angry at God and have wondered why He's allowed things to happen the way they have, but I personally cannot discount the times when I have felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. I know others can, as brain chemistry or whatever, but I can't. I also cannot discount visions I've had and other spiritual experiences I've had and seen others have.

To each his/her own. I have come to a place where I really think people just are or aren't believers--you can't force a believer not to believe, and you can't force a nonbeliever to believe in something they know in their gut doesn't exist. The conversations are interesting, though, and I thank you for the good questions you've asked to help me stay honest with myself.

[moggie]

24. How do you feel about Daniel Dennett?

I'm thinking in particular about this piece, where he thanks goodness rather than God after surviving a medical emergency. I guess you'd say that the goodness comes from God, but doesn't it seem odd that our life expectancy has grown so enormously while religious belief has declined in the people making the medical breakthroughs which have made that possible?

[knitter4democracy]

25. I like what he says.

Sure, I envision goodness differently than he does, but it's an area of connection, of agreement, and I'll cling to that. :)

I also see most doctors I know agreeing with him, especially the part about good intentions. That part really rings true from my limited experiences as a doctor's (soon-to-be-ex-) wife.

As for life expectancy, I look at it like we're finally using science and listening to smart people who have shown us the way (clean water, clean food, antibiotics, etc.). I have little patience for believers who are anti-science in any way, shape, or form. We have these brains for a reason, I believe, so let's use them, for crying out loud. If using them means that some dogmas are going to be disproven, then so be it.

[dcsmart]

26. here is another person who says they know god

the problem with that quote is that it is no different than someone saying god says to kill his son as a sacrifice or that god says all unbelievers will go to hell or god does not like homosexuals. how can anyone know god, especially the personality of god. all religious leaders, priests, "holy people" say they have some intimate knowledge of god and many times it is contradictory. so, even though feuerbach's quote appeases the liberal idea of god, it is still someone saying they know the mind or personality or will of god. it needs a healthy dose of skepticism

[moobu2]

28. He was saying that god doesn’t exist outside the believers own mind.

That whatever ethics, morals, jealousies and other personal characteristics we attribute to god are our own ethics, morals and characteristics. God is simply an elaborate figment of the believers own imagination that they then treat as if it were a real thing..

Here’s something else he wrote.

But God is nothing other than the abstracted, phantasmagoric essence of man and nature, hypostatized by the imagination; hence theism sacrifices the real life and nature of things and of men to a being who is a mere product of thought and imagination. Thus atheism is positive and affirmative; it gives back to nature and mankind the dignity of which theism has despoiled them; it restores life to nature and mankind, which theism had drained of their best powers. God, as we have seen, is jealous of nature and man; He wants man to honor, love, and serve Him alone; He wants everything else to be nothing and Himself alone to be something; in other words, theism is jealous of man and the world and begrudges them any good. Envy, ill will, and jealousy are destructive, negative passions. Atheism, on the other hand, is liberal, open-handed, open-minded; an atheist acknowledges every being’s will and talent; his heart delights in the beauty of nature and the virtue of man: joy and love do not destroy, they are life-giving, affirmative.

It’s a profoundly different position than saying that god actually exists and has wants and desires and certain characteristics that are separate and independent from the believers mind. Believers can know god in as much as they can know themselves because the two are the exact same thing.

[RagAss]

27. Good...now tell me what man is?