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From ancient Greece to modern America, from short essays to long arguments, from individual lives to history and philosophy, in words reasoned quietly or
shouted loudly,
The Atheist God Would Read (or watch or listen) . . . offers a wide range of books for rational people in an often irrational world.
New titles added weekly. Plus DVDs, MP3s and more.
Added February 2010: Fiction: an eclectic selection of
novels and short stories from an atheist perspective. Come browse.
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Our picture of God has changed, from primitive spirits limited in their power to an omnipotent being that we only dimly understand.
The first section
of this chapter confirmed that the common view of God is that he is
the transcendent, omniscient, omnipotent creator of the universe.
The second section showed that our idea of God exists independently of God himself (assuming he exists).
That does not mean that we have always considered God to be all-powerful
or the creator of the world. In fact,
humanity's image of God - or, more often, the gods - has changed
considerably over time. Even today no single description of God is accepted by all believers.
In this section we are not concerned with the question whether God exists. We are only going to look at the idea of God. Where did that idea
come from?
How has it changed?
The notion of God first appeared in primitive societies where powers of reasoning were only beginning to
develop. Much about the natural world seemed inexplicable. Why did the sun
rise? What made rain to fall? Why did the earth suddenly shake?
Seeing how human
activity made similar things happen on a smaller scale - carrying fire,
pouring water, throwing stones - analogy led to the idea that natural phenomena were caused by similar, but more powerful and seemingly immortal beings.
With no other information to go on, this was a highly rational analysis. It also made sense to assume that these spirits or gods created the world in which we live.
At first the gods were shadowy beings who
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Chapter One: Defining God
Does God exist? Before we try to answer that question we
need to have a clear idea of who or what God is. How do we
describe God? What versions of God are on offer?
1.1: God, faith and religion
Do they need each other?
1.2: What is God?
God comes in several styles and models
1.3: Perception and reality
Is what we see what we get?
1.4: The evolving God
From prehistory to today
1.5: El, Yahweh et al
The Old Testament family of gods
1.6: Three's company
The Christian Trinity
1.7: Allah
Over to Islam
1.8: Majors and minors
Polytheism
1.9: The unknowable God
Is he there?
1.10: Your god or mine?
Made in our image
1.11: Summary
Finished this chapter? Move on to
Chapter Two
Problems with God
The real God – if such a thing exists – may be very different
from the god portrayed by Jewish, Christian or Muslim
scripture.
But whichever picture of God we look at - from the
Bible and Koran to the images presented by other
faiths and believers - we are confronted by problems.
When examined closely, God's nature is so contradictory
that it is unlikely, if not impossible, for him to exist.
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had very specific
tasks - unleashing winds, blessing harvests and so on - but as time
passed they developed more human attributes and began to interact with
their human followers.
They emerged in different forms in different parts of the world. Greece and
Rome saw Zeus-Jupiter, Athena-Minerva, Ares-Mars and many others. The Viking
pantheon included Odin, Thor, Loki and Sif. Hinduism brought the world Ganesh
and Garuda, Kali and Krishna and hundreds more. The Aztecs prayed to
Patecatl, Huitilopochtli, Centeotl and others.
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It was inevitable that the idea of gods would emerge as human beings
developed imagination and the ability to reason. Imagination
allows us to conceive of events that occur at a time or place
where we are not present – in the past or the future, a mile or a continent away. The ability to reason encourages us to ask why events occur, whenever or wherever they take place, and to come up with possible explanations.
The problem arises because reason often forgets that imagination blurs the boundaries between real and unreal. Is God real? Or have we imagined him, using reason to explain his existence?
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These gods were very similar to us. They loved and quarreled, fought and
made peace; they were immortal, but neither all-powerful nor all-knowing.
Their names and histories changed but for hundreds of centuries they offered their worshippers the same emotional satisfaction that the modern God fulfils today.
As time
passed, however, it
became clear that at least some natural phenomena were the product of immutable laws
and not the whims of petulant deities.
Greek thinkers such as Socrates and Plato began to challenge the idea of individual gods with very human attributes. From the Eastern Mediterranean to Northern India there was a shift in thinking towards a simpler, but more distant God, or to no God at all or
to concepts that might, or might not, be understood as God.
Among the alternatives that arose were Buddhism, which sees the universe
as a mindless cycle of birth and reincarnation, Zoroastrianism, which
considers our lives play out against an eternal struggle between good and
evil, and its later offshoot, Mithraism. And, of course, the Jewish-Christian Yahweh, who will be discussed in detail in the following chapter.
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Mithras slaughters a bull
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It is tempting to refer to the polytheistic gods of ancient Greece, Viking Scandinavia and modern India as Stage One gods, and the monotheistic God worshipped by Jews, Christians and Muslims as Stage Two. The former are a multitude of beings who are very similar to human beings and live close to them, while the latter is a single deity inhabiting a realm that cannot be reached from earth.
The Stage Two god may be more more remote, but he still has human - particularly male - attributes.
He’s prone to anger and violence and he’s obsessed with sex.
Like any male uncertain of himself, he is determined to control the sexual behavior of others – people can only indulge when he gives them permission. Yahweh is particularly strict, but his alter ego Allah is more generous,
at least to men, offering them multiple partners both now and in the afterlife.
Unlike Stage One, the Stage Two god fills the qualifications of transcendence,
omniscience and omnipotence. He has
not, however, reached the final stage of his evolution. He has been set aside by many believers
in favor of a later version.
The Stage Three god, personified by Jesus, has lost the anger that characterises his Old
Testament antecedent, moving on to a more accepting love and compassion. Some believers go further and come to a Stage Four god, so distant that
he is either uninvolved in his creation, as in
Deism, or so inconsequential that he
has faded into nothingness, as in Buddhism.
Of course these four Stages are arbitrary. They only exist here to demonstrate how our picture of God has changed, from primitive spirits limited in their power to an omnipotent being that we only dimly understand.
Some of the points here have been drawn from an earlier page
on this website:
click here.
Polytheism will be discussed again later in this chapter, in Section Seven
Next:
Chapter One: Section 5
El, Yahweh et al
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If God existed, he would...
admire the beauty of a universe that he did not create
recognize that eternity is meaningless
deny both heaven and hell
disown all men and women who speak in his name
denounce the harm caused by religious "morality"
help the human race to thrive without him
If God existed, he would be an atheist.
What is the difference between science and faith?
science is certain of nothing and requires proof of everything
faith is certain of everything and requires proof of nothing
Which do you trust?
"I know there is no God"
or
"I believe there is no God"
???
Check the answer
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