Why any god is imagination at heart

epronovost said:

I don't think transcendent experience preclude imagination. Being particularly intense emotional experiences, imagination becomes almost necessary to describe and communicate them. The collective imaginary and culture are also extremely important in how those experience are shapped and remembered by an individual.

PS: it's also good to note that transcendent experience aren't, by definition, positive. Existential dread could be an example of a bad one.

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Yes, you have a point but the definition of "imaginary" that the OP is using is likely equivalent to "false" or "make-believe". It's similar to how modern sorts distort the meaning of "myth" to mean "false" or "untrue". The OP appears to be a materialist anti-theist and they're not big fans of the nuances of mythology, much like fundies aren't.

Phaedrus said:

From an anthropological and sociological perspective, the theology of god made its presence known directly from one source.

Imagination.

Man has used it to his heart's desire since the dawn of time, and people often confuse it with reality.

The first man obviously wondered from whence he had come, because we ask that of ourselves even today. From an anthropological and sociological perspective, we can understand that early man used his imagination to connect the world around him to that which he did not understand. An invisible air current moves things around; it must be a god. Today, we know it as wind. Yet, in every culture, there's a god of the winds. For obvious reasons. Men tend to attribute what they don't understand to that which is supernatural.

Christians: Yeah, god sent a hurricane to blow down your house because you're gay.
That's the Christian attribution of god to the winds. (Didn't want Christians thinking, "wait, we only believe in one god, and he's not a wind god")

With science, and literacy, god still remains non-existent. Yet, the unchanging religions keep changing their arguments to better suit defending that which cannot defend itself? Yes, apologists are not good at what they do.

In the end, imagination is its own downfall in religious matters when facing reality.

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I tend to agree, although I'ld phrase it differently.

For me, religion is the logical consequences of animal psychology in a social species like homo sapiens with too much free time on their hands.

The animal psychology aspect are 2 things most complex animals are very prone to:
- type 1 cognition errors (the false positive)
- tendency to infuse agency in otherwise random events (especially in animals that are prey to others)

Both those tendencies have clear evolutionary advantage for creatures that are hunted by others for example. A noise in the bushes created by the wind will be assumed to be a dangerous predator sneaking up on you. You'll run. And if it were in fact such a predator, you just escaped if you run. If you stand around gathering more data, you're lunch.
But if it's just the wind, then you just engaged in the above 2 faults.

So this is the situation when being nomadic "wild" homo sapiens.
Fast forward a bit. Now, homo sapiens settles down in one specific spot, where it builds housing and which eventually develop into cities, nations, empires. Writing develops meaning it becomes easier to share ideas and inherit bodies of knowledge of the previous generation. Story telling gets an extra boost.

I think it's easy to see how this forms a fertile breeding ground for many a religious mythology to be invented and buffed.

epronovost said:

Really? I'm rather surprised. The Old Testament God is far from being nice by pretty much anybody's standards.

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It is interesting that it seems God is not nice, because He doesn’t allow evil to continue forever. But at the same time many seem to want that evil would end.

1213 said:

It is interesting that it seems God is not nice, because He doesn’t allow evil to continue forever. But at the same time many seem to want that evil would end.

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I would consider many of the things the Old Testament God has advocated for as finality, not as a means to an end, to be evil. Also, the ends don't justify any means either.

Gods are real. Atheists are in denial. In my opinion.

Phaedrus said:

From an anthropological and sociological perspective, the theology of god made its presence known directly from one source.

Imagination.

Man has used it to his heart's desire since the dawn of time, and people often confuse it with reality.

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I know where you're coming from, but our experience of reality is all internal. Our mind, or brain rather, mimics, copies, mirrors what it experience of the world, so in a sense what we consider to be "reality" is only subjective and "imagined" by our brain.

The first man obviously wondered from whence he had come, because we ask that of ourselves even today. From an anthropological and sociological perspective, we can understand that early man used his imagination to connect the world around him to that which he did not understand. An invisible air current moves things around; it must be a god. Today, we know it as wind. Yet, in every culture, there's a god of the winds. For obvious reasons. Men tend to attribute what they don't understand to that which is supernatural.

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God is for many the explanation for the things that we still haven't really figured out, like what existed before big bang, is God a form of entity living in a multiverse, where does consciousness and awareness come from if matter isn't, and so on. So yeah, God is the imagined "thing" that somehow is supposed to explain those things that we don't understand, but it doesn't make those thing unreal.

And for some people God is more about an experience than a physical object or thing, like anger, love, desire, hunger, etc,

Christians: Yeah, god sent a hurricane to blow down your house because you're gay.
That's the Christian attribution of god to the winds. (Didn't want Christians thinking, "wait, we only believe in one god, and he's not a wind god")

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Yet another way people have come up with explanations for the world and reality, things they don't understand. Chaos and chance can seem directed at times, so God is that thing that we try to understand.

With science, and literacy, god still remains non-existent. Yet, the unchanging religions keep changing their arguments to better suit defending that which cannot defend itself? Yes, apologists are not good at what they do.

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Well, if a person call randomness God, then randomness still exists, so it's rather the concept of calling it God that's an issue. Same for if someone call whatever exists beyond or above the quantum level God, it doesn't undo that there is something beyond Higgs Bosons but only that there's a problem calling it God.

In the end, imagination is its own downfall in religious matters when facing reality.

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Imagination is one of humanities strongest abilities, it's our superpowers, but also a curse. We just need to use it wisely.

syo said:

Gods are real. Atheists are in denial. In my opinion.

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Hypothetically, it suffice not for your gods to exist for me to stop being an atheist, you would also have to convince me to worship them for then to be " real gods" from my point of view.

For example, let's say you worship the sun. I can't deny that the sun exist, but I can deny that the sun is anything else then a simple star with no need for reverence and worship. It's just a natural phenomenon. Do you see where I'm going with this and how it ties with argument of the OP?

epronovost said:

For example, let's say you worship the sun. I can't deny that the sun exist, but I can deny that the sun is anything else then a simple star with no need for reverence and worship. It's just a natural phenomenon. Do you see where I'm going with this and how it ties with argument of the OP?

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I worship the sun. Worshipping means a number of laws. So, I adjust my behaviour around the sun. You should too, or else you'll get sunburns.

syo said:

I worship the sun. Worshipping means a number of laws. So, I adjust my behaviour around the sun. You should too, or else you'll get sunburns.

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I was using the term "worship" in the more usual sense of reverence/adoration; ceremonial praise and thanks giving; according the utmost importance, repect and obediance.

epronovost said:

I was using the term "worship" in the more usual sense of reverence/adoration; ceremonial praise and thanks giving; according the utmost importance, repect and obediance.

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Yup. We adjust our lives around the sun. All you describe we should do.