Monday, January 26, 2009

Why Did God Create Us?

atheism, atheist, religion, fundamentalism, fundamentalist, bible, satan, jesus, god, christian,

I love when the average Christian attempts to answer complex theological questions, because the average Christian simply does not have the knowledge to do so. In fact, I have found very few Christians capable of answering rather basic questions, such as, "Why do you believe what you believe?"

So, let's lighten the mood around here, shall we?

From the Rapture Ready message boards: Why did God create us?

Actually, this is a really good question. An excellent question. Insightful, even. It really cuts to the heart of any religion, any religious belief. (If you have an idea, or know of a good book on the subject, please let me know.) Why would god create humans, the earth, the universe, anything at all? For the joy of creating itself? Because gods are compelled to create? For the purposes of being worshipped? For some reason we couldn't even fathom?

Each possible answer spawns a hundred new questions. Wow, this is just an amazingly thought-provoking question. The kind of question atheists love, in fact.

The answers, not so much.

Meowmix replies: I've wondered this myself, especially since He knew we would fall into sin. see, this is a huge problem atheists have with the whole adam and eve and the apple thing. god made us. god knows everything. therefore, god knew exactly what adam* and eve would do, or at least would be likely to do in that situation, which he knew was coming, so . . . why do that? why not tell adam and eve "don't pay attention to that serpent, he's bad news"? why make every human being in the history of the world suffer? seriously, why? My only conclusion is that He wanted love and loved us and the idea "it was good" i'm not even sure i should try to follow that. After all it [the bible] says "the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep....gen 1:2 not sure what that has to do with anything. maybe He was lonely? an omnipotent, omnisicent being was lonely? really? we're the cure to his loneliness? i can't decide if that's amazingly self centered, or just kinda silly.

SavedbyGrace is confusing the bible with Paradise Lost. (just for the record, that whole thing about the angels in rebellion against god, and the war in heaven, etc. IS NOT in the bible.) he has the whole angelic host that did not rebel with satan. i think savedbygrace is saying that god isn't lonely. maybe angels just aren't good company? i think we are a rebuttal to satan. huh? i imagined satan accused God of not being just and not having love ect. why do you imagine this? any particular theological reason? we are being used to prove that he is loving, cause nothing says loving like genocide and torment and disease and war and torture and starvation and then- eternal torment. Just and anything else that satan accused God of but is false. we are made in God's image and that is one reason why satan hates us. who's image are angels made in? Jesus said he was a murderer from the very beginning and the father of all lies. actually, no he didn't. i looked. i can't find anything like that. satan in the Hebrew language in hebrew means "accuser"

TwinklingofanEye is a little more insightful than most: I've thought of that too. Or maybe since He was "love" ..love needs to give, because the nature of love is giving. that's actually beautiful. i like it. i still don't believe in god, but it's nice, and well reasoned. So maybe God needed someone to give his love to. In fact He wanted to share His love with many, so He made man in His image. ..and well..you know the rest of the story.But i was thinking, since we are made in His image, does that mean God is both male and female? oh, dear, you're seriously overthinking "in his own image". we don't all look the same, right?

Meeker apparently doesn't like to think, ever: Do we really need to know this? isn't "why are we here?" the most basic of questions? the most central thought to the nature of existence, the purpose of it all? the very reason gods were created in the first place . . . oh, maybe meeker's got a point.

TallTimbers also confuses Paradise Lost with the bible: 1/3 of the angels rebelled against a wonderful perfect God while living in His presence.Millions of humans created in the image of God, surrounded by evil, tried daily, surrender their lives to Jesus by faith through grace.There is something big there... I don't think I'll understand it until I'm in heaven, but there is something quite beautiful and meaningful about the whole human experience, and the multitudes that turn to God in faith. i'm not sure what the first part of that has to do with the second, or how that answers the question.

Howdy has swallowed the koolaid: I don't know if this is the "right" answer. But first he created the earth and the whole universe. I believe he created humans to inhabit the earth and have dominion over it, like the angels were created for the spiritual realm. We, humans, make all the mistakes, not God. if something good happens it's god; if something bad happens, that's free will. a necessary belief considering there are only two people in this particular equation: god and man. atheists have a much easier time with the question of why do bad things happen to good people. cause bad things happen, that's why.

anyway, that was fun. this does provide further proof to my belief that before you witness to anyone, you should probably figure out what you believe.

*btw, "adam" is a hebrew word meaning "mankind". kinda puts a spoke in the wheels of the theory that only two people were in the garden of eden.

7 comments:

  1. I've always been a fan of the concept in some mythologies that the Gods created earth and human's by accident. They were off doing god things, getting eaten by their fathers, waging wars against giants, etc, and oops, create earth and people as a result of killing some older god. Then, after the basics are created, the gods decide to run with the idea and finish off earth and people and then screw arounf with them for a while. It creates the impression that we are not in fact all that important, we're an afterthought in a grand scheme we don't understand. I think that those mythologies might have been closest to an important truth, that we are just not that important, sorry folks. We were created thanks to a fluke of evolution and we are not the grand plan, we're just part of something really big. And no one is looking out for us, ancient Gods kind of wandered off occassionally to do other things, allowing bad things to happen to good people. A neat way of explaining that whole concept really. It's not God punishing you, it's ust something that happens.

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  2. I like that one! "Whoops- what is that? I don't know, it's kinda cute, should we keep it?"

    I hate this extremely humancentric "we're the most important thing evah!" view of creation. I kinda want there to be an afterlife, so when every human goes to hell, we learn that wombats were actually god's favorite creation. everything else was just incidental.

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  3. hey, no fair twinklingofaneye is cribbing off of my test answers!

    but then again, those pagan i know don't think that mankind is more loved than anything else. smarter, maybe. also maybe *less* loved, to have to live with intelligence. i don't believe the less love idea, just fyi.

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  4. i really like twinklingofaneye's response. i lurk those boards a lot more than is reasonable, and (s)he is so rational and nice that i wonder if (s)he actually believes all that stuff.

    i actually kinda get the less loved thing: my dog is the happiest person in the world. he's happy 99% of the time. and, when he's not happy, it lasts for less than a minute. he's happy because he's too stupid to understand what's going on. (i love him, but he's stupid. last night, he walked up to the front door, licked it, and then walked away.)

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  5. i really have to work hard to reject the whole "we are intelligent so are less loved" idea. because i know how smart i am, and i know how depressed i am - and a lot of my depression comes because i understand just exactly how fucked up everything is.

    BUT: i am mostly sure i wouldn't trade it. mostly.
    i am, however, jealous of your dog. sigh.

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  6. i wouldn't trade my intelligence for anything, but my dog . . . i was having a terrible day yesterday (weather, shoveling, middle of winter SAD) and when i got home from work, my dog first tried making me feel better through his usual "pet the dog" method, then he ran off, got his favorite toy and dumped it in my lap.

    i think my dog knows all the important stuff better than most humans.

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  7. God made us to enjoy life. The meaning of life is to enjoy it! Unfortunately, some people got selfish and caused fear and pain and death, so God had to come up with a plan that was merciful and just towards those who wanted to remain in his kingdom of peace and joy. He had to satisfy the justice of his kingdom, but wanted to be merciful to the repentant. The gavel is down, and the punishment phase is coming. The righteous will inherit eternal life in paradise, the wicked will perish in hellfire and cease to exist. (There is no eternal hell in the Bible. God destroys sin. He doesn't let it exist forever. See John 3:16. ;-) )

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