Going down the God rabbit hole is frustrating and ultimately unsatisfying. Every answer boils down to faith, which is basically belief without proof.
To paraphrase someone: If God is all-good, then God can’t be all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, then God can’t be all-good.
I probably sound like I’m being dismissive of people who believe in God. That’s not my intent. Faith can be a healthy source of strength in difficult times, and when dealing with our chaotic world. I only have an issue when blind faith is allowed to override common sense, like not getting your kids vaccinated, or drinking raw milk.
It’s all made up by humans
Is there proof of a god like at all? Who tf is this mf. Also god caused your misfortune so asking him to help is counterproductive
If you believe God created this place, literally everything is proof of God. It’s hard to explain a good one, and particularly one that is both good and interventionalist, but the whole “God created it and left it to rot” idea one can kinda understand the appeal of. It’s hard to imagine how this all just popped out of nowhere.
Of course, it solves nothing, as you just shift the problem over to God. But that’s besides the point.
I think the religions that allow for multiple and often flawed gods seem easier to believe in, but if you’ve been taught to believe in some Yahweh spin-off I try not to judge to harshly.
This is “no stupid questions,” but asking rational questions about religion is a waste of time. In most religions, the answer ultimately “you are too stupid to understand the great plan of god.”
You can debate interpretation of religious texts, or how best to follow the laws religions set down; but questioning articles of faith is fruitless.
Christianity is especially full of self-contradictions and paradoxes: can God create a rock so big he can’t lift it? You can spend a lifetime poking holes in The Bible, and you will never get a rational, satisfactory answer that isn’t based on a version of “you are too stupid/not meant to know.”
Many religions are less paradoxical, but the monotheistic ones are mostly just an unbelievable shit-show, unless you’re especially susceptible to self-delusion.
No apologies to Christians: your religion is a fucking mess. You have to be particularly dumb to read the old and new testaments and come away thinking those are the same God. That the loving, caring one who sacrificed his son for people is the same one who allowed Satan to torture his most faithful worshipper on a bet.
Buddhism and most pagan religions make more sense. Buddhism in particular lacks most of the dependency on mysticism and unprovable articles of faith, and is almost more a philosophy than a religion. Buddhists, I can respect. But Christianity is all sorts of dumb.
Actually, taken by itself, the new testament is mostly OK; if you follow only Christ’s teachings, and ignore the peyote trips of post-crucifixion books, like, Revelations, it’s a solid basis for a society of decent people. But Christ was a liberal socialist, which is why most organized Christianity leans so heavily on the old testament and ignores Christ’s teachings of acceptance, communism, and forgiveness.
Projection?
I had a car that didn’t like when the weather was cold and damp. It wasn’t too happy about being parked on a slope, either.
Did the car actually have human emotions? No, of course not, but as a human it was both easy and natural to frame and process it that way.
Instead of it simply being “God made made in his own image”, the truth is probably that there’s more than a little of “man made God in his own image” too.
Yeah, all gods have been made by man.
I’m not sure if the metaphor of you anthropomorphizing an inanimate object is the best one to criticize the projection of one’s own desires and wills onto a fantasy deity. For one thing, your car actually exists, even if its emotions do not. Also, believing that your car simply doesn’t like cold and damp weather is a rather harmless belief. For a person to believe that a god’s will reflects their personal wishes and desires is inherently dangerous. I’m not aware of anyone rationalizing hate crimes because they thought the car didn’t like a certain group of people.
I’m not sure if the metaphor of you anthropomorphizing an inanimate object is the best one to criticize the projection of one’s own desires and wills onto a fantasy deity.
I’m not criticising.
People are welcome to follow a religion if they want to.
I know that I can no more disprove the existence of a god than prove the existence of one. I know that anybody doing something bad in the name of a god is either lying or being coerced.
“There is no god but man.” - Aleister Crowley
God didn’t design us in his image, we designed him in ours.
1 In the beginning Man created God; and in the image of Man created him.
2 And Man gave unto God a multitude of names,that he might be Lord of all the earth when it was suited to Man.
3 And on the seven millionth day Man rested and did lean heavily on his God and saw that it was good.
4 And Man formed Aqualung of the dust of the ground, and a host of others likened unto his kind.
5 And these lesser men were cast into the void; And some were burned, and some were put apart from their kind.
6 And Man became the God that he had created and with his miracles did rule over all the earth.
7 But as all these things came to pass, the Spirit that did cause man to create his God lived on within all men: even within Aqualung.
8 And man saw it not.
9 But for Christ’s sake he’d better start looking.
- from the aqualung album cover - jethro tull.
“God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs”
