• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Is God a humanist?

George-ananda

Advaita Vedanta, Theosophy, Spiritualism
Premium Member
Is God a humanist in the sense that what he wants is human well-being?
.

Yes.

But God sees the past, present and future of humans from both the spiritual and physical levels, so he is more wise and sees things from a grander perspective than the well-meaning human humanists.
 

Sirktas

Magician
If god wanted our well-being wouldn't he design us and a world that epitimizes this? Some of us do not wish for the well-being of others, and god created them, as he did Satan and free will, so I do not believe that God truly cares what happens, exactly. He has his mysterious plans, eh?
 

Orias

Left Hand Path
I would also say "what God?" The Abrahamic God especially only cares about itself.

Yes, he/it reminds me of atheists :rainbow1:

Being that he thinks no other Gods exists.

I guess though to be a God, you almost have to a be a selfish prick.
 
Last edited:

Orias

Left Hand Path
If god wanted our well-being wouldn't he design us and a world that epitimizes this? Some of us do not wish for the well-being of others, and god created them, as he did Satan and free will, so I do not believe that God truly cares what happens, exactly. He has his mysterious plans, eh?

Hehe.

God is a broken condom.
 

Quintessence

Consults with Trees
Staff member
Premium Member
As others have noted, it depends on which deity. Some of them are, some of them aren't. It depends.
 
I believe that God did create us in a world that epitomizes this. He gave us everything we need to create a harmonious human existence and history shows we are on this trajectory. If you look past the misogyny and terrible things of our history, you can see that we are moving toward better health, human rights, environmental sustainability and so on. Maybe not quickly, yet it is undeniable that we are making progress being better humans.
 

Sirktas

Magician
So...You are saying humans are 'good', when they are not 'bad' and that they are getting better because of this. Or do you mean something else?

I see 'evil' in just about everything, so...
 

Orias

Left Hand Path
Maybe not quickly, yet it is undeniable that we are making progress being better humans.

Maybe on the individual scale, I'm not certain that the rest is true.

But then, "being better humans" can equate to an onus of things, like being better than you, what you believe, being better than a contrasting clan and what they believe and etc etc.
 

idav

Being
Premium Member
I believe that God did create us in a world that epitomizes this. He gave us everything we need to create a harmonious human existence and history shows we are on this trajectory. If you look past the misogyny and terrible things of our history, you can see that we are moving toward better health, human rights, environmental sustainability and so on. Maybe not quickly, yet it is undeniable that we are making progress being better humans.
Does it even seem like God is helping us be "better humans" or aren't we doing this on our own. The decks were stacked against us and we have to fight nature to be where we are.
 
God gave us the ability to do it on our own, but he helps those who seek his help. The only thing we are fighting against is the ignorance within ourselves. We need to learn from each other how to create a better world.
 

Sir Doom

Cooler than most of you
Is God a humanist in the sense that what he wants is human well-being?

I would say no, not directly. I would assume that god is in favor of life continuing, and we are (thus far) the pinnacle of evolution on this planet. So I imagine he regards us as a slightly more important part of life than, say blades of grass. But in the big picture, we can't be the actual pinnacle of evolution if there is a god, because god would fill that particular niche. In that regard, any species is just an inferior version of the next evolutionary step, and none of the species on this planet would really be more or less important to god. What can be done once (humanity) can be done again and WILL be done again if we fail to survive... or even if we don't fail.

Think about this. Cast your imagination to the future and see us in our next major evolutionary change. Its not important what it really looks like, so lets just make a few things up for the sake of argument. Lets go about 5 million years in the future just for fun (not necessarily enough time to make significant change, but indulge me). Say we have more complex brains that allow us to see much more of the spectrum like infrared or ultraviolet that we've been studying for so long as a species. Say we've developed a much more resistant skin to survive our shattered ozone. Say we've developed incredibly efficient lungs to filter out the gunk we've been pumping into the air for millenia.

Now, consider some of the other species on the planet. They will have 5 million years to evolve as well. How many of them will evolve into a species something like us now? Some of them are pretty close as it is. A better memory and language are about all that's missing from most mammals. Its not completely unreasonable to expect that some alternate species of canines, for example, begins to learn more complex communication skills in order to occupy an ever increasing equality to humans.

So, assuming something like this is possible, would these intelligent canines be regarded by god any differently than we are regarded by it now? Would it care more for their well-being than it would for ours? Or less? I would say equal. They may just survive longer than us, after all. But if that's true god must regard us as equals today, as well.

So god is probably a 'life-ist' as opposed to a humanist.
 

waitasec

Veteran Member
???
What warped interpretation of the texts gave you this idea?

really? come on!!!

the abrahamic god is more concerned about his kingdom than his subjects...
that is a no brainer. the entire concept of sin and redemption is all contingent on none other than...ahem...god.

what god wants, god gets



supposedly.
 

Orias

Left Hand Path
really? come on!!!

the abrahamic god is more concerned about his kingdom than his subjects...
that is a no brainer. the entire concept of sin and redemption is all contingent on none other than...ahem...god.

what god wants, god gets



supposedly.

This equals a "duh!" and a facepalm :facepalm:
 
Top