You can make the characters do whatever you want when you’re writing fiction.
Because humans create their gods in their own image. Not the other way around. Your god becomes a reflection of what you already tend to believe because it exists solely as a justification for believing it.
If you’re part of a society that believes that all outsiders are bad. You’re going to invent your god that proclaims outsiders to be bad. If you’re part of a group that has no sense of monogamy, you’re going to create a god that proclaims “polygamy is good”!
Gods are the invented paragons of whatever society created them.
With literally hundreds of Gods I think you’re right.
Which God? There are so many to choose from.
They didn’t have science back then so they were even stupider than today.
The best answer. It really is that simple LOL.
Assuming we’re discussing the Abrahamic God, He used to be much smaller in scope; in fact, He was the ancient Jewish War God, back when they had a full polytheistic pantheon. So if we’re going back to the original myths, He didn’t really create humans, nor was He all-powerful or all-seeing, or ‘above-it-all’ in general.
(This is back in the days when Gods were more seen as local clan/town sponsors, like how Athena is the patron God of Athens. He was just a tribal patron god, one they prayed to in order to be safe and successful in war.)
Also, back then Gods in general were written as being much closer to humans, in term of emotions and motivations—again, Greek mythology gives a good showing of this, but you can read a lot of ancient myths and see it in play.
As Jehovah became more and more popular (due to all the wars in the region), He started to absorb many of the myths and abilities of the rest of the pantheon, which is why He seems kind of schizophrenic in the older stories. YHWH was actually the head of the pantheon, and as Jehovah supplanted Him as the ancient proto-Jewish tribes moved towards monotheism, the two Gods ended up essentially being merged with each other.
Still, back then, while Gods were seen as powerful, they were still somewhat seen as limited and fallible. In fact even today there is a strong Jewish tradition of questioning God (albeit politely and a bit indirectly so as not to get turned into salt or whatever).
But, as Judaism grew, and split off into Christianity and Islam, God’s followers began tack on more and more powers and abilities to make Him sound cooler (and increase the power of the Church). So that’s where the ‘all-seeing’ and ‘all-powerful’ Great-God-of-Everything business comes from, really.
TL;DR ‘God wasn’t all-powerful and was ‘written’ to have emotions much closer to humans when those creation myths were first being told.
Do you have any links to recommend to check out for further reading/watching? Or what search terms should help me find this the best? Ty :u
I’ve got one that would likely be relevant: The Early History of God – Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
Man saw his ego and named it God.
The answer to this is going to differ heavily from religion to religion. You’ve already been inundated with the atheist and agnostic response. Christian theology could give you a few different answers.
The Bible could been seen as man’s interpretation of God, therefore God’s will is placed in terms we understand: emotions. Calling God jealous, angry, sorrowful, or joyful is a lot easier than asking you to understand a four-dimensional physical space. The latter is beyond your perception, much like understanding the “feelings” God exhibits, so it is simplified to terms you can understand.
The second potential answer would be: why wouldn’t he/she be? You’ve made the assumption that emotions are bad or wrong, but if you throw out that assumption, there’s nothing wrong with an emotional God. Maybe being “beyond that” is in fact a mistake? If he/she made us in his/her image, then of course we are given emotions similiar to God. Ultimately, who are you or I to judge whether such feelings are good or bad, or make a being imperfect?
Admittedly, I am deeply agnostic myself, because I ultimately don’t buy any of the explanations I’ve provided here. But I’ve taken time and energy to understand Western theology, rather than dismiss it out of hand, and these are the explanations I suspect you are likliest to find.
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Trying to understand theology is a waste of time because it’s all made up.
Theology is not a belief in God. It is a study of the belief in God, the connection between humankind and the possibility of God, and the philosophies grounded in religious doctrine. Saying that trying to understand theology is a waste of time is the same as saying that trying to understand any social science is a waste of time.
You may dismiss the beliefs as “all made up”, but their impact on our world is very real. Is studying politics a waste of time because it’s “all made up”? Or are the arbitrary thoughts and feelings on how the world should be run suddenly more important because we’ve removed a belief that you personally disagree with?
Most theology is faith based and serves the purpose of dogmatically justifying and legitimising the religion in question. And all too often cover up the abuses. Of course I’m aware that there is also theology that follows a more scientific approach but if you go by the number of practitioners, that’s surely a pretty small minority.
Trying to understand theology is a waste of time because it’s all made up.
Made up, sure, but still very useful to understand because so many people believe it.
Ehh, I’m gonna push back and say that, as a lifelong atheist, I have greatly enjoyed reading books on Jesus and the early church. But I’m also a history nerd, so I enjoy stuff from other times already.
Religion is still dumb and makes people hate each other but the books are entertaining regardless.
Sure. There is value in studying religion in the context of history, sociology or philosophy. But to me that is distinct from theology.
Trying to understand fictional media is a waste of time because it’s all made up.
Trying to understand linguistics is a waste of time because it’s all made up.
Trying to understand the economy is a waste of time because it’s all made up.
Hey wait this sounds like anti-intellectualism disguised as anti-theism
I made no such claim so I’m not going to bother trying to argue against your stupid strawman.
What is it about theology that makes it worth less to analyze than something like fiction, or linguistics?
All religion can be dismissed out of hand. There has been literally no evidence for the supernatural ever at any time that can be verified objectively.
Why are people like you continuing to pretend the supernatural has any bearing on reality? Astounding.
Your ignorance on the topic of religion is what is astounding here. Reducing religion to “the supernatural” is to ignore centuries of philosophy and social theory.
While widely practiced religion, particularly in the Western world, has been disgustingly reduced to nothing more than a series of corporate institutions vying for social and financial power, this does not represent “religion” as a field.
People seek an understanding of the universe, and an answer to all the existential questions they have. Many people suffer existential dread as a result of their powerlessness in the face of the unknown. Seeking answers through religion is one way to quell such concerns and fears. Whether or not you agree with it, it has provided comfort to millions of people who suffer very natural, human fears.
People also want to know what it means to be “good” and live a “good life.” Religion has provided a number of philosophical frameworks in which to seek such answers. If you wish to dismiss all religion out of hand, you’re fundamentally discarding much of the basis for modern philosophy as well. You’re basically left with consequentialism, which has a number of serious pitfalls.
Religion is a lot more than the belief in God.
JFC, thank you. I was going insane with the replies in this thread and you seem to be the only one who actually has any understanding of religion. You’re my favorite agnostic person ever.
Its just a conversation bro, you can chill out
Because it’s all made up. It’s foolish to expect any of it to make sense or be consistent.
First prove that this god even exists, then maybe we can have a discussion about it’s properties.
In the Bible he is beyond human emotions. Even though he is portrayed as having human emotions in many instances such as in the garden of Eden or Job.
It’s a contradiction of course as the Bible is caulk full of them.
Remember the Bible was written by humans who cannot fathom the mind of such a character as God. At least in the Bible. So they imbue him with the emotions they feel themselves not knowing any better and hoping the illiterate masses will simply believe the scripture wholesale. Which they did and do.
God literally says that he is a jealous god in The Bible. Hardly beyond emotion!
It’s all made up buddy
I’m assuming you’re looking for a basic answer from Christianity. In that case, the TL;DR is that Humans are created in God’s image. We’re endowed with God’s emotions, not the other way around, and emotions aren’t necessarily bad, they’re just corrupted in us by sin.
God experiences all kinds of emotions in the Bible, he is “jealous” for us, he’s also depicted as sad or angry in many cases. Even Jesus, a “perfect man without sin” feels anger and flips the tables of a synagogue when he sees people turning that religious practice into a corrupt business.
So a religious answer to “shouldn’t God be beyond human emotions?” would be that emotions aren’t inherently bad. We should be angered by injustice, for example. Emotions can be bad, if you let them control you and fly into a rage for selfish reasons, for example, but they don’t have to be bad.
I think killing everyone on the planet would be considered bad or ungodly. Have you seen what God did to Job? God is pretty fucked up.
Politely, no one asked? OP asked a direct question, I’m doing my best to answer it, and you’re… dunking on me about a point nobody was talking about?
At best, this is an odd non-sequitur. At worst, it’s toxic behaviour meant to shut down any discussion about a topic you personally dislike.
Most importantly is to ask why is he subject to time? Our only concept of existing or being alive is tied to time: thought is a change of state, and change is defined by a progression of time. But if God is everything, why is he subject to time? What’s “outside” time?
Perfection is a malleable thing. To Christians humans are made in gods image, including emotions. In the minds of people they only think of the emotions that are reflected by god as the positive ones; like caring, empathy, love, ect. But if you take into account that god made everything it is reasonable to say that god gave us the negative emotions as well, since Satan (gods creation) harbored these feelings when it made Adam and eve sin in the garden of eden. Even if god only has positive emotion it does have emotion.
Giving a serious answer with serious consideration that follows serious rules, is impossible with religion, as all the rules are made up, there’s no consistency, and they’re all silly.
Because main evolved advantageous uses for emotion. We cry, and no longer have to communicate with words that something is wrong. It is advantageous to us to be able to communicate with emotions in more than a vocal manner. Things make more sense when we consider the real reasons they came into being. “We” have probably had these emotions for far longer than we could be considered humans.
