In the Star Trek universe, there is an episode in which the ship travels to primitive world (Mintaka III) and the crew accidentally reveal themselves to the humanoid people there who are similar to bronze-era humans. The Mintakins think the captain of the ship (Picard) is a God because he obviously has powers they cannot comprehend. He rejects their beliefs that he is a supreme being and in the most beautiful ending possible, they listen to logic and believe him. But the climax in the story hinges around whether or not Picard can prove to these people he is not a god before he and the crew have to leave, leaving the peoples’ imaginations to run wild with what “God wants” from them. They almost murder someone, believing Picard is angry at them for something the person did.
The point of the story is to provide a scientifically feasible explanation for humanity’s belief in gods as essentially aliens who visited long ago and were unable to prevent humans from letting their imaginations run wild with tales of what the gods do, how powerful they are, and what they want from the people on earth. Over the course of thousands of years, there is no limit to how our imaginations can bend such an experience, twisting it into the culture of the time of the visit and adjusting over time to fit more and more into the development and history of societies.
But it doesn’t take a visit from aliens to start a religion. We have all seen things we can’t explain. Schizophrenia exists. Con artists manipulate reality to steal from people. Psychedelics exist naturally. Once-in-a-generation storms cause mass destruction. There are so many possible explanations for gods other than omniscient, all-powerful beings.
You’re sort of mixing metaphysical beliefs here.
The Ancient Greek concept of gods don’t align 1 to 1 with the Abrahamic concept of god, etc.
Each faith has a different concept of god, omnipotence, and what that means. It’s also changed over time. For example, the Romans saw wealth and prosperity as signs of piousness, as one would have to be blessed by the gods to possess so much. Christianity (ostensibly) argues the opposite.
Though, in short, god(s) demonstrates human traits because they’re abstractions from humans, the creatures that created them for various reasons throughout history and modernity. To get specific answers about each faith, you’d be better off speaking to spiritual leaders of those faiths.
You mind of explaining a little bit on the first sentence on metaphysical beliefs and how I am mixing them? Not looking for a fight just want more knowledge much love
some religions think of god(s) as sharing human aspects like you suggested with sex. Other religions consider their god(s) to be different from humans and therefor may not share all or any of our emotions/needs/wants.
In some occultic and gnostic philosophy there is a being known as the demiurge which believes it is the ultimate creator of reality but in actuality is a lesser being who only brought the physical reality into existence and is seen as ignorant, arrogant, or malevolent.
In some forms of Buddhism and Hinduism there is samsara or a cycle of rebirth which in some versions includes beings we would typically call Gods including the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God much like the demiurge falsely believing it is the ultimate being.
In short they are seen by other religious structures as lesser beings who create / influence the material world while there are yet higher states of being for more benevolent beings. The material world itself is often portrayed as one of the lowest realms through which practices of letting go of one’s desire or ego can free ones self and allow passage into higher states of being.
Gods are a human invention so they are like us.
So suspend disbelief for a second. Lets say they are not. Why do they show that human side more than other things? For sake of saying I would take the Sahara and plant a shitload of trees and make a river run through it and so on. Why would taking all the old testament…cause fuck that forgiveness shit be even close to human understanding. Is it just a dumbing down of said god? And if so how come the old testament, the best testament, vastly different from the hippie dippie New Testament?
Well the question of “why are the new and old testaments so different?” will have different answers if you ask a believer vs a skeptic. I think its just because these are stories written by people to control others, so the old and new testaments differ so much because different people wrote them at different times. To me, the difference is because its that religion trying to modernize, trying to change with the times.
Well for one, they’re all made up and as such, imaginary.
The older religions (Christianity, Islam, etc) were written well before most of our current scientific knowledge was available and as such, things like “omnipotence” being a logically inconsistent idea wasn’t exactly known.
Theae stories have been written by that age’s equivalent of fanboys so it’s no wonder that these rather extreme powers are shown off so much
A sidebar from the post. I’m curious if you have ever gone over any epistemology. Particularly thought explorations like Boltzmann brains, Descartes demon, last Thursdayism, Plato’s cave, or Chung Tzu’s butterfly.
In the study of knowledge it becomes clear that what most call knowledge isn’t as absolute or concrete as at least I personally would prefer it to be and that which is seemingly solid is quite limited. For instance I assume all previous moments before now actually happened and reality didn’t just start as is like a video game booting into some programmed state. I don’t mind axioms such as that but it’s worth being aware it is an axiom/assumption/faith and not something I absolutely know to be the case.
I’m not sure omnipotence (all encompassing power) had anything to do with having emotions
The Great Courses has a series on Comparative Religion.
They also have a series where each course covers a different world religion.
Then another course covers different mythologies (e.g. Norse) from different regions.
The first course would answer all your questions, the rest will fill out your understanding.
See if your local library carries them - mine does.
I more so see such entities (cognitive or otherwise) like the demiurge aka assuming it/they are at the peak yet themselves just at another strata of reality, not yet reaching enlightenment and still trapped in samsara.
I don’t think most polytheistic gods (like the Greek ones) are omnipotent. They’re powerful, sure, but not all-powerful.
The monotheistic Christianity-type ones are kinda weird actually, compared to most religions.
