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Nothing but an Ego Trip!

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?

So of course, I asked Google (about as omniscient a thing as I am aware of). And I came across this:

Why Did God Create the World?

It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?
 

Enoch07

It's all a sick freaking joke.
Premium Member
It turns out the entirety of creation, everything, seems to be because God felt himself to be so incredibly wonderful that he "created the world for his glory!" Or in other words, "God created us to know him and love him and show him."

The exact wording is.

Revelations 4:11

11 Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?

Created for his pleasure, not glory or ego or any of that nonsense. He created us to keep Him company in what was once a reality where God was alone, the only thing in existence. Which if you think about it make sense. It explains why we all have free will and different personalities/traits instead of just a humogenous blob of completely identical "yes" people.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
The Eastern conception is different. For example:

The first imagination in Vedanta is called the lahar [whim]; by the Sufis it is called guman [fancy]. This first imagination was the first urge in the beginningless beginning to know Itself. As soon as this urge appeared, the beginning of the beginning started — not of God, but of the whim which created this Nothing which was latent in God. It was the whim: “Who Am I?” That very moment, with the beginning of the whim, Nothing was produced, and instead of knowing Himself, God began knowing this Nothing...
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Is that all there is, we're here only because God's on an Ego Trip? Is that what religious thinkers believe?
No, that is not what religious thinkers believe. What you quoted is not a "thinker" in my book. It's like that one friend's father who told me when I was 12 why God created the world. He was "lonely and wanted company".

I don't consider these the thoughts of "religious thinkers". They are the thoughts of a child imaging God in the heavens above, like a type of a man. Being an adult physically does not mean your thinking about God is yet beyond that of a child's.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
No, that is not what religious thinkers believe. What you quoted is not a "thinker" in my book. It's like that one friend's father who told me when I was 12 why God created the world. He was "lonely and wanted company".

I don't consider these the thoughts of "religious thinkers". They are the thoughts of a child imaging God in the heavens above, like a type of a man. Being an adult physically does not mean your thinking about God is yet beyond that of a child's.
Okay, you're willing to tell me that I'm wrong. Why not provide a little of what you think? What are the thoughts of you, presumably not "a child imaging God?"

After all, surely the question remains: If there's a God, and if that God created the universe, then why?
 
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beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
Personally, I prefer to think that if there is a creator deity, it is a creative artist...maybe even a performance artist...

Or, perhaps, a scientist, running a number of "simulations" or other experiments, testing variables under different conditions...

No, the "needs admirers" or "is lonely" viewpoint, while possible, just doesn't do it for me intellectually, morally, aesthetically, emotionally, etc.
 

steveb1

Member
As a panentheist (not a pantheist) I believe that God is real but is not a Creator or an intervener.

Therefore God cannot be blamed or praised for the world's origins and its current and past conditions.

The notion of a divine Creator is derived from the making of artifacts by human beings. We make some things; other things such as natural objects were not made by us; so we took the leap that some Maker like us made the non-human world.

Why would a supreme being engage in creation? I have no idea - it wouldn't be from loneliness, and if it was from some idea to shed a bunch'o'love on myriad worlds, why does the world contain so much meaningless, futile suffering?
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
I was thinking about a pretty obvious question during recent arguments about creation and evolution, specifically: "Why?" Why would a deity need to create a universe in the first place?
kinda difficult to say......I AM!

without something to show for it

I consider that pronouncement to be simultaneous with.....
Let there be light!
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
and you know the Artist by His creation
you know, people say that all the time, and in my experience, it's just not true.

You might see some aspects of the artist from the art they create, but it's only a window, and maybe not all that clear of a window, of the artist...
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Okay, you're willing to tell me that I'm wrong. Why not provide a little of what you think? What are the thoughts of you, presumable not "a child imaging God?"

After all, surely the question remains: If there's a God, and if that God created the universe, then why?
Why start with the premise that God is a human like creature that has motivations? That's the first hurdle to overcome before asking why about anything. Why assume God is an "entity"? Why assume God is like a human being? If we start by examining that, then questions about being and existence, and God by extension can get off the ground. Why assume an anthropomorphic God?
 

Ellen Brown

Well-Known Member
Why start with the premise that God is a human like creature that has motivations? That's the first hurdle to overcome before asking why about anything. Why assume God is an "entity"? Why assume God is like a human being? If we start by examining that, then questions about being and existence, and God by extension can get off the ground. Why assume an anthropomorphic God?

All we know about that is: "Your ways are not my ways".
 

Windwalker

Veteran Member
Premium Member
All we know about that is: "Your ways are not my ways".
I think we can figure out a lot of other reasons why humans anthropomorphize God than relying on a verse from the Bible, which is itself an anthropomorphism. While it's true language like that reinforces an anthropomorphic view, it's not the underlying reason why we as humans do this.

Anthropomorphisms aren't that hard to understand. Whenever we encounter something that is beyond our grasp, we try to relate it to things we already are familiar with in order to bridge that gap between the known and the unknown. God in the Bible looks a whole lot like a human ruler, or head of the household, or warlord, or benevolent king, etc. The problem with this however is when we literalize that projection as that "unknown's" actual reality.

What was originally a metaphor, a way to envision this transcendent reality in order to relate the human mind to it, through use like this becomes a definition, a doctrine, a theology, and so forth. It's the literalizing of a metaphor. It's mistaking the finger point at the the moon, with the moon itself, as Alan Watts put it.

So understanding that is the starting point for moving beyond the mythic-literal understanding of God, and trying to make everything fit into that metaphor as if it were a definition of God. If we take such language about God as the actuality of God and analyze the fallacies of that, we are doing the same thing the mythic-literal believer does in mistaking the finger pointing at the moon with the moon itself.

If we can't separate the two, then were are ourselves still stuck there, even as we criticize it. In other words, it's an invalid critique of what God is to the rest of humanity beyond literalizing anthropomorphisms. Of course God wasn't "lonely", or wanting to puff his ego up. That's what humans do. :)
 
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Thief

Rogue Theologian
you know, people say that all the time, and in my experience, it's just not true.

You might see some aspects of the artist from the art they create, but it's only a window, and maybe not all that clear of a window, of the artist...
I see a comparison.....

the abstract artist making image in everyway he does.....and he does it ….a lot
and God creates images....likewise
 

beenherebeforeagain

Rogue Animist
Premium Member
I see a comparison.....

the abstract artist making image in everyway he does.....and he does it ….a lot
and God creates images....likewise
my question is, how can humans decide what--if God exists--He/She/It/Them is actually doing...

You say you can tell the artist by his works, and in fact in the Bible texts, it uses the tree/fruit metaphor. But how can we tell between

a lonely deity,

a deity who seeks adoration from his inferior creations,

a creative artist, or

a scientist

and of course, the last two categories will include lots of subdivisions...metaphorically dancing, sculpting, drawing, painting, acting, recording, and etc., for the artist

and field observation, lab experiment, simulation on a computer, testing of samples, such as materials testing, and so on.

Seeing what we do of the universe, I don't see any clear 'signature' for the presence of or nature of such a creator...but then, except in the broadest of metaphors, I don't see how any humans could see and comprehend the nature of such a creator deity.
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
my question is, how can humans decide what--if God exists--He/She/It/Them is actually doing...

You say you can tell the artist by his works, and in fact in the Bible texts, it uses the tree/fruit metaphor. But how can we tell between

a lonely deity,

a deity who seeks adoration from his inferior creations,

a creative artist, or

a scientist

and of course, the last two categories will include lots of subdivisions...metaphorically dancing, sculpting, drawing, painting, acting, recording, and etc., for the artist

and field observation, lab experiment, simulation on a computer, testing of samples, such as materials testing, and so on.

Seeing what we do of the universe, I don't see any clear 'signature' for the presence of or nature of such a creator...but then, except in the broadest of metaphors, I don't see how any humans could see and comprehend the nature of such a creator deity.
well gee.....all of this around you
and you would argue......no Creator?

well then...….all of this is an accident
with no purpose
only coincidental direction
and it will all end in dust
as if it never happened

I say Spirit first
creation as effect of the Cause

science can explain some of it

the rest ….you get to ask Him when you get there
wherever it is you end up
 
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