There's no such thing as external charters from God since it's all made up internally by humans.
This is a strong assertion and needs strong support.
Are you saying that each believer makes up herm own God out of herm own mind? Where does the background information come from? Why is the God each believer makes up nearly identical with the God of everybody else in herm church or synagogue? Frankly, I don't think most believers are intelligent enough to create a God internally that has all the attributes of most modern Gods."
3 comments:
I'm not sure that I could support or deny the assertion that "it's all made up internally by humans," because the conotation we usually give to "made up" is akin to the process of fantacising and I don't think we simply fantasize God.
John Big Booty and I had an interesting exchange some years ago about the Theological Baskin and Robbins with an unlimited collectiuon of flavors, essentially one unique one for every believer. The traditional stories concerning God provided a common foundation but each person would have a range of beliefs that stretched from "content to be a sheep" all the way to a "serious skeptic/doubter" and every other "flavor" in between.
In my experience and even in the fundamentalist versions, few if any adherents can recite accurately the beliefs of any other adherent. There appears to be a private portion of each person's beliefs that just isn't shared with anyone else. Some demand an experience that is punctuated by sensed or perceived personal revelations while others are content with a relationship more distant and less personal.
I just don't think that believer Bob is capable of arriving at God in herm own mind without the support of herm congregation even with a long theological tradition behind herm. I don't even think Pastor Bob can do so. Even the scribes and prophets with the possible exception of J seem to me to be incapable of creating a God concept out of whole cloth in their own mind.
Religious leaders can influence the flavor of the God, as in your metaphor on johnbigboote's thread but the ice cream base is still the same. (Thanks for the excuse to link to this thread, it is still my all time favorite on beliefnet.)
There may be some that can change the base to yogurt or even dispense with the base entirely, but for most believers the community is necessary for any connection to God at all.
The original assertion was "There's no such thing as external charters from God since it's all made up internally by humans."
Your reaction was "Are you saying that each believer makes up herm own God out of herm own mind? Where does the background information come from? Why is the God each believer makes up nearly identical with the God of everybody else in herm church or synagogue? Frankly, I don't think most believers are intelligent enough to create a God internally that has all the attributes of most modern Gods"
Perhaps there was more to this thread that would make your response more understandable. Does your response address the original assertion? If we find that it is most likely the an objective God does not exist, where else would the God concepts arise but within the subjective thoughts of humans?
The word "God" does have a specific meaning with regard to traditional Abrahamic Religions. The sacred texts, the historical theology and the practices of those religions virtually guarantee a "common base for the belief systems" but that does not mean that it was "chartered by an existing God."
I offered the discussions of the old JBB thread as evidence that there was no exact repetition of experience or belief by each adherent. Hand each adherent a round red rubber ball and I doubt you could experience much variation at all, precisely because the human faculties of objective perception are very nearly identical [when fully capable tactily and visuallyl.] When you tell each adherent that "God is a feeling in their heart," they can parrot that idea but how does one prove there is such a feeling and that it is identical to all other such feelings?
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