"god didn't create humans, humans created god"

[heya.biffo]

t seems that the more i think about it, the less plausible the idea of a god or higher power becomes, but with that comes the thought of "does it really fucking matter?" if the universe was created in a big bang, or if we're some kind of canvas for some intangible artist in the sky. does that even affect who i am now, and how i should/do live my life?

would i be better off, doing good deeds and being who i'm not just to make sure that an eternity im unsure of turns out ok? it seems more people now aren't good for the sake of being good people, they're "good people" because they're scared of hell.

should what my parents believe determine where i spend my eternity? do i even believe that there's anything after this life? i think the main problem today is too many people jump into religion too quickly. you don't jump into a relationship quickly. why should jumping into a relationship with the potential creator of everything be any different?

the only thought i had today at church, as they said the same tired old messages of "god" and his "goodness" was a little saying from the brainscratch episode of cowboy bebop, and the more i thought about it, it started to become a lot more plausible then "we are created for the sole purpose of worshipping and pouring our entire being into a god that we're not even sure exists." it went something like.

"god didn't create humans, humans created god"

[Wykid]

i really wish i could have thought of this whole "god" thing...id be one rich mo fo right now. :P

[mr_mojorisin]

I always think about shit like that. My theory is; why spend my life being a "good" person so that i can get to "heaven" when I die, if i don't even know if heaven exists? Why not just enjoy life now? And in the end does life really matter at all? And if it doesn't, who cares? At least I had fun, because thats really all that matters.

The whole idea of heaven/hell was created to encourage obedience to church. If you went against the church, you were "going to hell" If you were good, and gave all of your money to the church, you were guarenteed an eternity of hapiness by "authority of the church." Some people may be angry by the implications I just made regarding the legitimacy of organized religion of any kind, but just remember that just because it's my opinion, it doesn't mean it invalidates or jeopardizes your opinion in any way.

[$neaky]

Yea i agree that there is no such thing as god, i use to think there was a god when i was a kid but in the last few years i have decided there isn't a god. I think the big bang started every thing and god was just some idea that got passed around untill the story became what it is.

[Sails]

I don't believe that this is all there is, if there's no belief in god, then what are we?

I just think of the odds of us(being the human race) of existing through everything, every molecule placed correctly through the explosion of matter in the universe, us evolving into a civilization, and us having some reasonable thought could all just be chance.

There has to be something.

[AndyPL]

I'd like to apologize in advance for the length of this post. I had no intention of it becoming a huge a rant about religion but I really got carried away. Sorry if at some point this stops being a reply and more of a crazy polemic. I couldn't stop!



I don't mean to attack anyone here, but I think a lot of people dismiss religion on the very flimsy grounds that they can't accept a very limited and naive view of God and morality.

It's obvious that there is no big old man with a long white beard, judging us from his kingdom in the clouds. It's obvious that the church has known periods of corruption (a man-made institution being corrupt? It can ONLY be a church!)

But yet this is all that anyone needs to dismiss a profound faith that has shaped the way our society works, the way we behave, and the way we still differentiate in between good and evil to this day. I personaly find it REALLY tiresome to still have to argue with people who use the Crusades or medieval papal corruption to attack the christian faith.

Remember that religion was meant to encourage man's communion with whatever forces are greater than him. Whenever human authority comes into play you have an obvious case of corruption that is not in line with ANY major faith's core virtues.
But anyways... back to the point. You're absolutely right that a lot of people turn to religion for the wrong reasons. Obviously these people get little out of their experience. If you think that the reason you should adhere to religious virtues is to balance your cosmic kharma account and get into heaven then I'm afraid you just simply don't have a clue.

Western society is full of itself. Somehow people believe that the standard of human existence is to quietly suffer from depression and anxiety while building up an enormous ego to hide it. Somehow anyone who seems to have achieved any level of serenity must be diluded. Somehow it's become wrong to actually cut between good and evil. Now everything's relative to everything else, things aren't right or wrong, things are "academic" or "practical".

Growing up in this society turned me into one fucked up individual. I was hypnotised by charismatic TV figures, I was bought in by submersive commercials, I was encouraged not to descend to the level of some simple-minded hick and to learn to intellectualize everything. I was shown that I had to be a "tough guy" so that I would get girls. The people I respected the most were comedians who were the best at making fun of everything else. I was convinced that spending hours in unproductive self-contemplation was what made me a deep person! The snobbish intellectuals I learned to admire told me that to be sure of anything you had to be a brain-washed wishful thinker. They told me that religious people were just being suckered by "corrupt" priests into not being assholes who lived for their own self-gratification (which is obviously the best you can hope to achieve while on this earth!)

So I lived on. I had plenty of fun, but yet when I was alone, when I didn't have my friends to distract me or TV to hypnotise me... I felt incomplete. You KNOW what I'm talking about! That mysterious insatisfaction that haunts us all. The best way not to feel like this was to have more fun, so that's what I did. To dull everything that hurt me I developed a sense of humour that reduced to ridicule almost every aspect of my life. Mmmm what a good plate of armour that was! I just wished that everyone could get a sense of humour as good as mine and do a better job at hiding how insatisfied they were with their lives.

I was convinced that mine was the most sophisticated and advanced society on earth. It was obvious that our brilliance had done away with religion and all its primitive ideas long ago. Everyone knew this. How could some people call us "sinners" and say that how we were living was wrong? I guess they just weren't educated enough...

THANK GOD FOR MARIJUANA

When I smoked marijuana alone for the first time I felt SOMETHING! Obviously I couldn't even grasp at what it was at first, but it was my first hint that there was something... bigger. Something that was escaping my senses, something that my enormous ego was hiding from me. More importantly though I got a goooooood look at myself for what I really was. I didn't even quite understand what I was comparing myself to but I suddenly realised how many habits I had were wrong. I couldn't deconstruct it further than that, I knew it was just wrong.

Obviously when I sobered up, my "rational thinking" put an end to all that and I reminded myself that I was free to do as I pleased without any interference with morality, which was just a man-made invention after all. But yet a grain of doubt remainded.

That grain of doubt was enough to shatter my whole paradigm the first time I took LSD. With the "doors of perception cleansed" I could see creation how it really was, without being clouded by the artificial lense that I had been blocking my sight with. I felt something inside me too though. This may sound cheesy but... I thought of my family. I thought of how ridiculously badly I had been treating them, how hypocrital, how judgemental, how uncompassionate I was with the people who had brought me into this world and loved and cared for me when I couldn't possibly have survived on my own.

When I finaly faced my own evils I suddenly felt my heart EXPLODE with love! I had been so busy worshipping "myself" that I had chocked up the very lifeforce that had been pushing me forward all along.

Being selfish is what condemns our soul! Not to endless torture in an imaginary afterlife, but to endless torture HERE ON EARTH. We're convinced that because we don't outright cheat and steal or kill that we're good people. This isn't the only path to hell, and these aren't the only sins. The surest path to damnation has no signposts, no milestones... it's slow and steady. Every time we turn our back on someone else, every time we put ourselves first, every time a good intention goes unrealized, we take a step forward until we're just dead husks with only enough lifeforce to shift to work in the morning and to TV in the evening. The "pleasures" we thought we lived for have become unsatisfying since they were never indulged in for the right reasons in the first place.

I'm not a saint. I still have evil within me, I still have a pretty firm sense of self-importance that will take years to dismantle. But I thank God every day for showing me that there is something beyond our tiny little man-made worlds. I thank him for giving us such a precious plant that clears away our senses and helps us open our hearts to the glorious world that we arose from.

I thank him for giving a glimpse at our true loving a nature, a glimpse that I try to expand on every day!

[Yurburdcansing]

Originally Posted by mr_mojorisin

I always think about shit like that. My theory is; why spend my life being a "good" person so that i can get to "heaven" when I die, if i don't even know if heaven exists? Why not just enjoy life now? And in the end does life really matter at all? And if it doesn't, who cares? At least I had fun, because thats really all that matters.
.

And you know most of the people that I know who claim to be going to heaven when they die are not people I really want to spend eternity with anyway,so why take chances.

[FlyUntilYuCrash]

Originally Posted by Yurburdcansing

And you know most of the people that I know who claim to be going to heaven when they die are not people I really want to spend eternity with anyway,so why take chances.

haha. amen to that

[smokerings]

Originally Posted by heya.biffo

t seems that the more i think about it, the less plausible the idea of a god or higher power becomes, but with that comes the thought of "does it really fucking matter?" if the universe was created in a big bang, or if we're some kind of canvas for some intangible artist in the sky. does that even affect who i am now, and how i should/do live my life?

would i be better off, doing good deeds and being who i'm not just to make sure that an eternity im unsure of turns out ok? it seems more people now aren't good for the sake of being good people, they're "good people" because they're scared of hell.

should what my parents believe determine where i spend my eternity? do i even believe that there's anything after this life? i think the main problem today is too many people jump into religion too quickly. you don't jump into a relationship quickly. why should jumping into a relationship with the potential creator of everything be any different?

the only thought i had today at church, as they said the same tired old messages of "god" and his "goodness" was a little saying from the brainscratch episode of cowboy bebop, and the more i thought about it, it started to become a lot more plausible then "we are created for the sole purpose of worshipping and pouring our entire being into a god that we're not even sure exists." it went something like.

"god didn't create humans, humans created god"

nothing created anything but everything exists. please do NOT waste your time trying to figure it out. you will not succeed.

[Wykid]

Well, I don't think there is something to it.

You see, we are the only species on this earth that asks "Why?".

My belife is that people created "god" and "jesus"* to calm people or give them some sort of assurance. Assurance that there is a point to this thing we call life. It is all just a bunch of random events that occur. Some things we have controll over, some things we don't. Either way, our life is just to kill time untill time kills us. Because eventually we all go, and there is no heaven or no hell. We just die. Thats it, no need to try and figure out what happens afterwards, because THERE IS NOTHING.

* This is how I think "Jesus" came into play.

"Jesus" was a carpenter and him and his friends did a bunch of heavy psychedelics drugs...and he actually thought he was the son of this fictional character named "God". Then things got out of controll...and well, you know the rest.

So yeah, there is no devine source guiding us through life so we can reach eternal happines...it just doesn't exist.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

[spitfire396]

interesting thread, bump.

[runner's high]

AndyPL, your post was moving. Wow. + rep.

As for the God thing; yeah, it seems a little more likely that some highly-developed mammals created a diety in their image rather than the other way around. I don't have a problem with ideas of spirituality, or of divinity--these things inspire a sense of wonder and suggest to us their is something very special about reality--but I very much dislike the anthropomorphic constraints we put on them. In other words: we've taken our sense of wonder and molded it into a radiant human form. A limiting form. I do not believe we should need a God, much less a human one, to appreciate the specialness of reality and of our place in it. We should break open these monuments to ourselves, these human-shaped mythologies and dogmas, and set the wonder free.

[Ezav420]

Originally Posted by smokerings

nothing created anything but everything exists. please do NOT waste your time trying to figure it out. you will not succeed.

what is this "waste" of time you speak of?

[.ViciouS.]

God is playing hide and seek with us all, why don't we just try and play along? ...

[OVERGROWER]

I beleave that god and heavens and hell were made up to help make people be "GOOD".. Its worked IMO..