Did We Invent God?

[really?]

I've watched some of it. Much to think about.

From the documentary series "Through the Wormhole"


Through the Wormhole's Season 2 finale explores another potentially explosive topic when it asks the question 'Did We Invent God?' (Season 2, Episode 10) on Aug. 8. The episode explores where our belief in a higher power originates, what environmental factors might strengthen religious faith and whether our brains are the source of our supernatural experience.

The first set of experiments tests when children develop an awareness in the supernatural. One set of children were given a game where they had to throw a ball and hit a bulls eye target. When left alone, some of these children cheated, but when the researcher told the children an invisible princess was always watching, the children cheated rarely. Researchers also tested at what age the children attributed random events as supernatural signs.

The children were to choose which box a ball was hidden in. The same invisible princess would give "signs" in the form a flickering lamp. Children by age 7-8 could interpret this electrical interference as the work of a supernatural being while children younger than that age didn't make the connection.

More http://www.examiner.com/article/through ... invent-god
Show S03E10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vm971ltF44A

[ProfWag]

That'll be a good one to watch. Thanks really?!

By the way, I believe I've said it on here before that I believe that God was invented as a way to cope with the loss of a family member. But that's just me.

[NinjaPuppy]

I've gotten the feeling that God was invented to put fear into the masses as a way to control them.

[Craig Browning]

It really depends on how you define "God"

People forget that G*O*D is a title, not a name; it is what something is equated to. For thousands of years it referred to human beings that had reached a particular level of accomplishment, rather parallel to the Catholic rites of Sainthood not to mention how Nobility was recognized from as far back as Babylon if not further back. Even today when we see an exceptionally attractive and graceful individual, male or female, we refer to them as a God or Goddess. So on the more intellectual front, gods do exist.

According the the Kabalah, physics has proven the existence of the more metaphysical idea of God (the divine) by way of the phenomena we all know as "Light" -- it is a concept that much of mysticism agrees with and which places said omnipresence into a far more pragmatic sense of being. This is especially true when you consider how light can be used for storing information; while "new" to us in present time the ancients gave frequent inference about all truth and wisdom being sat upon the ethers -- the essence of our environment. Lie THE FORCE, it surrounds us and permeates all things.

The "Biblical" idea of God DOES NOT exist, it was in fact created in the image and likeness of man and ironically, the original monotheistic side of this entity had nothing to do with the Hebrews or Jesus for that matter, it is the blending of the Zoroastrian idea with the older Aten of Egypt, the One God worshiped by King Aknauten & Co. In fact, most of the New Testament dogma stems from the Zoroastrian philosophy though it took a couple of centuries of evolution for it to get there; the biggest ear mark is the famed one-way ticket to Heaven or Hell. Prior to the third Counsel of Constantinople in the latter 5th century, reincarnation was an accepted aspect of the gospel; especially in that it was the more common tradition throughout the region INCLUDING early Judaism.

What confounds the whole biblical deity issue is the fact that there were several Gods and even a Goddess or two, that can be found in Genesis but not after Exodus because of "the deal" Moses made with Yahweh. If one were to take a look at Leviticus and the arrangements tied to the "Covenant" made with Israel, you'd think it were Daniel Webster conversing with old Scratch himself; Moses sold the soul of a people to a deity that most ancient texts classify as being a Bastard Child and more closely associated with Lucifer and Satan than some kind of benevolent, all loving entity.

The Metaphysical/Hermetic idea of "The Divine" is a consciousness and not a physical entity. Some would say that it is more the culmination of awareness and understanding shared by all sentient beings throughout the cosmos, which is why certain disciplined minds are able to literally tune-in to particular transmissions or files and from such, bring about certain forms of evolution, be it in the form of technology, the sciences, the arts or the auspices of human spiritual ambition. This is a very Gnostic form of perspective in that KNOWLEDGE IS SALVATION, a pragmatic and debatablely "Buddhist" mind-set which, in my personal experience and opinion, is far closer to the proverbial "truth" than all the rhetoric spewed from the bowels of most organized religious elements.

I believe that science has given to the world the method by which "the creator" made things happen. Granted, this suggests that something exists in addition to what I've intimated up to this point. While I can't explain this side of things, I do believe that there is something far greater than us that helped pull things together. I believe that there is a cyclic nature and set of "laws" that make such things unfold, but I am compelled to see a "master hand" behind it all. Maybe it's just the fact that I'm a recovering Baptist

[really?]

Before you started wagging your tongue and eliciting this opinion of yours did you watch the video? I'm just wondering ?

[Craig Browning]

Admittedly "NO". . . I went from the topic and offered a theological perspective that could be applicable to the question. That's it.

[really?]

[Twain Shakespeare]

I watched the some of the video. I enjoyed the data on the development of cognition. I regard virtually all statements about "God" as being unfalsifiable. This one borders on it. It is not discussing , so far as I watched, the invention of God. It was discussing perception of the other as an accomplishment of infants which apes do not seem capable of achieving, and then the emergence of the ability to perceive intentionality behind patterns, which they posited requiring a previos ability to perceive another as an intentional actor. I saw the flaw that the writers were discussing a false belief in the cause of the pattern (the invisible individual they were told of) which they equated with falsely ascribing intentionality to patterns..

Humans are evolved to assign patterns to intentionality. It is safer to falsely assume a lion is moving the grass nine times than it is to not ascribe it to the real lion the tenth time.

"Invent" is the wrong word for how such perception of (falsely perceived) patterns could involve into a belief in unseen "spirits". Evolution is a better word

Last, an agnostic point. If humans have evolved the means of perceiving intentional patterns where they do not exist, it does not mean intentional patterns do not exist. Humans also mispercieve things in other ways. Hallucinations do not prove the non-existence of light, and religion does not disprove the unknown.

I hope this reply is applicable

[ProfWag]

I finally got to see the entire video last night. Very interesting stuff but as usual, it can't prove or disprove anything. There appears to be many experimental studies going on that supports the "effects" of God, if you will, stemming from one's one brain than anything supernatural. I don't believe it will change anyone's belief system, but it did help reinforce my atheistic belief a bit.