# Is the idea of God enough? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 9, 2009, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053 "2009-02-09T14:17:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/41 "2009-02-09T19:21:02Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > So does God really need to be any more real than Santa Claus? I tend to agree with Voltaire when he said “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him”. Now, I’m Christian myself, but I do believe that, even if he didn’t exist, humanity generally has a need to believe and he serves a purpose. However, simply imagining that he exists doesn’t work, one has to actually believe in his existence for it to be meaningful. To use your Santa Claus example, I’m sure there are some adults that are inspired by him, but they’re no more inspired by him than any other ubiquitous and altruistic character. Santa Claus has a different affect on children because they legitimately believe he exists and how he inspires them is independent of his existence. Children wouldn’t be any more or less inspired by him because they receive the same stimulus (ie, gifts for good behavior) now as they would if he actually did exist. However, I also think that Santa Claus is not a completely apt analogy. It works fine when comparing prayer and the placebo affect, for instance, but there are some things that are directly affected by the existence or non-existence of God, particularly for those who believe in an interventionist deity. So if you’re judging based upon similar criteria to Santa Claus, then no he doesn’t need to be any more real for people to be inspired by his love, or whatever other properties they believe he has. > [@](#): > > Is it important for Him to exist outside of the hearts and minds and souls and spirits of the people of Earth? This depends. If you believe in an interventionist God, then it is important that he exists because things will be different in some situations whether he exists or not. If, however, you believe in a non-interventionist God, then it doesn’t matter. Since my beliefs are closer to the latter, I can say that it really isn’t that important whether he actually exists or not because even if he doesn’t exist, as long as I believe that what I believe is how the world is, then my behavior will be unaffected regardless of whether he exists or not until and unless I run into a situation that my beliefs are directly contradicted by the cirumstances. > [@](#): > > Can we worship, cherish, be inspired by, learn from, and in all sense have a hold a God that we freely and openly admit is not “real”? I would say no. If I freely and openly believed that God did not exist, I wouldn’t believe what I believe. To return to your Santa Claus example, he wouldn’t inspire children anymore because they now know that there is no correlation between their behavior and gifts. Of course, it’s really just the parents, but if they find that out, Santa Claus is now an imaginary altruistic person, and the parents are just rewarding/punishing their children for their behavior. And what’s the point of worshipping something that we know doesn’t exist? Would anyone go to Church/Temple/etc. and worship a god that they knew didn’t exist? It seems like an exercise in futility, doesn’t it? > [@](#): > > If God exists in the hearts and minds of the people of the world, does He really need to be anywhere else? Inside of my beliefs, no. But, obviously, those with interventionist beliefs may say differently. Religion inspires people because they believe he exists; he’s an example pure love, forgiveness, and all sorts of traits that we hold dear. He can still serve the purpose of inspiring people to those ends and others whether or not he exists. However, as also demonstrated by atheism, that doesn’t mean that his non-existence means a lack of those values either, but it does mean that the inspiration for those can be found in other ways. If the idea of God exists to inspire those traits, and people know he doesn’t exist and can get that inspiration elsewhere, then he doesn’t serve a purpose So, to make a short answer to your general question, as a religious person myself, I would say it doesn’t really matter whether he exists or not, as far as inspiring moral virtues, justice, the arts, etc. as long as people believe that he does. However, the fact that he doesn’t need to exist to inspire those doesn’t actually say anything about whether he exists one way or another, doesn’t say anything about what purposes he may serve that we can’t observe (eg, origin of the universe), and is just a critique on the needs of man. ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/42 "2009-02-09T19:25:40Z")
Here is the tedious philosophically pedantic answer, conveniently put in a separate post so you can skip it. You have to distinguish between an idea (e.g., the idea of France) and the object (e.g., the country France). Sometimes, there is in idea with no corresponding object (e.g., with the idea ‘unicorn.’) But sometimes ideas themselves refer to mental objects, which can themselves be real. Consider pain. I can think about pain (an idea) or I can experience pain (which is a reality, and maybe an idea, too.) But pain is by definition a mental state, so its reality is as a mental state. It is in some sense an idea, but it is not an idea in the same sense as a unicorn is merely an idea. In the pain case, there is a corresponding reality (although this corresponding reality is another mental state), whereas in the unicorn case there is no corresponding reality. If freedom is a mental state, then you can have an idea of freedom, and (by hypothesis) the reality of freedom will be a mental state–but there will still be a corresponding reality. But God is not a mental state, and so you cannot give this same account of God. God has to exist outside of the head, if he is to bring justice to the world or in the afterlife, create an objective moral order, etc., etc. If freedom is a mental state then it can be real and still exist in the human head (just like pain, which is real but ‘only’ a state in the brain). But if God only exists in our minds, He is not real, because the reality of God is (unlike freedom or pain) supposed to be more than just a brain state. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/43 "2009-02-09T19:29:45Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > I’d hope that no one would be dumb enough to buy into something which is acknowledged as just an idea, but I rather suspect they would. Actually, it’s not as crazy as you might think. I belong to a temple with a rather large atheist contingent. They accept the idea that Jewish rituals and commandment are not divinely inspired, but still follow them because they give a pleasant and useful structure to life. A mitzvah is still a mitzvah even if there is no God. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/44 "2009-02-09T19:39:08Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > Whether I am politically free depends on whether I am allowed to vote, hold office, sit at the lunch counter, at the front of the bus, etc.–and these are entirely matters of how the external world are arranged. They are not matters of how my mind or brain is arranged. The arrangements exist independent of the human brain. But there is nothing intrinsic to those arrangements that constitute “freedom” or “non-freedom”. That is a human mental construct that we impose upon them. A dollar bill is a physical thing. It is paper and ink. It really exists. But there is nothing intrinsic to it that gives it value. A chess piece is a physical thing. It really exists. But it does not intrinsically contain the rules for chess. We take real world objects and construct meaning around them. But we should not make the mistake of then assuming that that meaning is an actual property of the object the way mass or electrical change is. We’ve merely made an arbitrary association for our own convenience. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/45 "2009-02-09T19:41:27Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > That’s Her, blasphemer. Do you mean [her](http://i.thottbot.com/ss/o/1316.jpg) or [her](http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4229/goddessej8.jpg) or possibly[her](http://www.whosoever.org/Graphics/sermononmount.jpg) or maybe even [her](http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2002/259/6783219_1032315141.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/46 "2009-02-09T19:47:04Z")
> [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](#): > > You have to distinguish between an idea (e.g., the idea of France) and the object (e.g., the country France). But objects are a human construct as well. Reality is a continuum. There is no “France object” except through human fiat. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/47 "2009-02-09T19:59:02Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Do you mean [her](http://i.thottbot.com/ss/o/1316.jpg) or [her](http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/4229/goddessej8.jpg) or possibly[her](http://www.whosoever.org/Graphics/sermononmount.jpg) or maybe even [her](http://s3.amazonaws.com/findagrave/photos/2002/259/6783219_1032315141.jpg) I was thinking of [her](http://www.elfwood.com/art/v/a/vashti/eris.jpg.html), actually. I think I’ve tried the OP’s idea, to some degree. I don’t know if it’s constructive in any way, it’s just enjoyable. But most people don’t have a lot of respect for ideas they know other humans have come up with. It’s a little like the old saying about not wanting to see how sausage is made. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/48 "2009-02-09T20:03:21Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > I am still quite amazed at the number of atheists on this board who are so firmly uninterested in understanding what “God” means to those of us who do refer to an abstraction when we use the term, and who are so universal in their condemnation of anyone who does so as deluded and so forth. Tip - if you’re not talking about a god or gods when you use the word “God”; if you’re talking about an abstraction, then you’re misusing the term. To avoid the amazing lack of acceptance, pick a different term. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/49 "2009-02-09T20:08:20Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I am not the only one who has stated that God exists. Proof is not my job, but God’s, I suggest you ask Him. The instructions on how to find Him are printed in the Bible, if you don’t follow the instructions that God provides how can you expect to find Him? You’re not the _only_ one who stated it, but you _ **did** _ state it nonetheless. Passing the buck like that is really weak. if it’s your statement, you should support it - if you’re not prepared or able to support it, you should never have asserted it. Especially here. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/50 "2009-02-09T20:50:43Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > Actually, it’s not as crazy as you might think. I belong to a temple with a rather large atheist contingent. They accept the idea that Jewish rituals and commandment are not divinely inspired, but still follow them because they give a pleasant and useful structure to life. > > A mitzvah is still a mitzvah even if there is no God. Are they doing it because of the idea of God, or out of tradition? I still light Hanukkah candles, not because I think the miracle happened but just because my ancestors have. God doesn’t exist, but tradition does. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/51 "2009-02-09T20:56:04Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Lately, I’ve been pondering whether or not it is possible to preserve God and what is good about the idea by simply divorcing God from any and all demands to be real. Get rid of all notions that there’s a real God out there somewhere, and reduce religion down to simply God the Idea. No. First, because there isn’t a worthwhile amount of good about the idea to preserve; it’s an overwhelmingly destructive force. Second, because part of the point of God and religion is believing in delusions. You might as well ask if it would preserve what’s “good about racism” by just **pretending** that we think white people are superior. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > What if it’s perfectly fine for God to be just an idea, and only exist in the hearts and minds of human beings? That’s all it is anyway. An evil, stupid idea. And one in which it’s followers have placed a great deal of investment in being real. Admitting that he’s a lie removes the point of the whole thing for most people. You can’t threaten or bribe people with a God no one actually believes in, or use him to excuse tyranny and atrocity. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Freedom is just an idea. It’s changed the world. > Love is just an idea. It means everything to us humans. > Science is just an idea. It’s unlocked the wonders of the universe to us. Freedom has already been covered. Love is an emotional state; a pattern of activity in the brain. It’s real because it is a subjective experience, unlike God which is a claim about external reality. Science is an enterprise, a technique and a body of knowledge. Not something people just made up. As for God; God is wholly fictional. A claim about objective reality that was made up out of nothing. And it’s a horrifyingly destructive fiction that the vast majority of it’s followers take dead seriously, because to them there’s no point to it if he’s not real. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Any, all, take your pick. > > Shall we say, the general idea of God that one can deduce from the natures of the three dominant global monotheisms. > > This is completely outside the words of any holy books, by the way. So don’t think this has to be seen as the God of the Bible, or the Koran, or whatnot. OK; that means a God which is a fiction created to control to the populace and encourage and excuse tyranny and oppression and slaughter. A God who’s supposed focus of “love” and “peace” has even less substance to it than Communism’s claims about Communism being for the benefit of the People. And, a God who is logically inconsistent and the enemy of everything but itself. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > I disagree. I think that there’s a great deal of what people get from religion that doesn’t require a “real”, interventionist, old-man-in-the-clouds god. One more, I refer to fictional characters. There’s people who have drawn a great deal of strength from fictional characters, from Shakespeare’s Prospero all the way down to Ash Ketcham from Pokemon. 🙂 And (apart from a few sad souls) nobody considers these characters to be “real”. They are just ideas. > > And none of them have the potential power of the idea of a God who is always with you, always understands, always sympathizes, always takes your side, and always, always, loves you. Malignant, destructive power. A God that excuses every evil or stupidity you commit because he loves you anyway, and since those people opposed such a loving being they must be evil anyway. A God that excuses denial of reality because nothing is more important than him. And because of that, you might as well believe in him anyway - those who say he isn’t real are obviously evil. Which again brings up a basic problem; most of God’s appeal rests on his existence being taken as true. Even if a society like you describe were somehow created, in a generation or so either people would abandon the idea or go right back to believing in him. > [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > You can worship a fictional God. In fact, why not? Worship all you like. God isn’t real, and therefore it can’t hurt, and might even help you through some rough patches in your life. Of course it can hurt. God ISN’T real, but the idea of God hurts people all the time. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/52 "2009-02-09T22:21:27Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > Can barely follow that, but it seems that it doesn’t matter if you believe your God exists or not. If it did not exist would you do anything differently? By which you mean if there is no meaningful intentionality in this world and I understood such to be the case, would I behave differently? Based on my understanding of myself, I would have to say that yes, such a worldview would probably affect my behavior. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/53 "2009-02-09T22:23:03Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Well we need something new. Obviously trying to preserve him in a randomly assembled anthology of myth-stories that gets translated many times between somewhat incompatible languages and then trusting all that to a firmly entrenched priest-class doesn’t work well. 😛 Agreed. Stuffing and mounting God, taxidermy-style, in a gilded casket labeled ‘Orthodoxy’, doesn’t seem to have accomplished anything positive. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/54 "2009-02-09T22:27:45Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Tip - if you’re not talking about a god or gods when you use the word “God”; if you’re talking about an abstraction, then you’re misusing the term. To avoid the amazing lack of acceptance, pick a different term. Your assumption is that “a god or gods” is one thing (perhaps a nonreal thing) and “an abstraction” is something quite different. In using the word as I do I am asserting otherwise. That however much it may be true that hordes of “true believers” have believed in a physical god closely akin to children’s beliefs about the Easter Bunny & Santa Claus, the word has been used throughout the ages by at least some people some of the time to refer to something both considerably more real and considerably more abstract than that. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/55 "2009-02-09T22:33:52Z")
> [@MichaelJohnBertrand](#): > > Necessary? That’s not easy to determine. > > Let’s talk “useful”. > > If the idea of God is useful… if it provided hope and comfort to people and gives them a sense of connection to the larger universe and to their fellow humans, and if said idea can be divorced from much of its worse aspect by simply stating, right up front, that this is just an idea, and no more real, or less real, than any other… > > … then what’s the problem? Can it be divorced from it’s worse aspects? And if it can, why bother? Why create a lie when the truth works just as well? Lots of people find comfort in lies, but that doesn’t make it good or desirable. A lie might be simpler for people to understand, but is it optimal, especially in the long run? > [@](#): > > Or do people feel the need to attack the idea of God no matter what? Even a God who is not real? I think that attacking the promotion of a lie over truth is a good thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/56 "2009-02-09T22:39:02Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I am not the only one who has stated that God exists. Proof is not my job, but God’s, I suggest you ask Him. The instructions on how to find Him are printed in the Bible, if you don’t follow the instructions that God provides how can you expect to find Him? Which set of instructions? There are so many different versions of god. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/57 "2009-02-09T22:54:26Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > I was thinking of [her](http://www.elfwood.com/art/v/a/vashti/eris.jpg.html), actually. > > I think I’ve tried the OP’s idea, to some degree. I don’t know if it’s constructive in any way, it’s just enjoyable. But most people don’t have a lot of respect for ideas they know other humans have come up with. It’s a little like the old saying about not wanting to see how sausage is made. Hey she looks [familiar](http://www.hasselblad.com/media/bc4eafd7-bfeb-4a19-a141-483a88229b67-Stuart_Weston_1_940.jpg) Hmmmmm MAybe [her](http://lmnop.blogs.com/lauren/images/2008/05/12/hellga.jpg) Ya I ban plenty omnipotent. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2009, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/58 "2009-02-09T22:55:47Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > I think that attacking the promotion of a lie over truth is a good thing. Providing you’re positive you know the truth. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/59 "2009-02-10T00:04:38Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > By which you mean if there is no meaningful intentionality in this world and I understood such to be the case, would I behave differently? > > Based on my understanding of myself, I would have to say that yes, such a worldview would probably affect my behavior. Interesting. What would you do differently? ---
**Author:** ![Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Sophistry\_and\_Illusion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sophistry_and_Illusion)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053/60 "2009-02-10T00:28:44Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > The arrangements exist independent of the human brain. But there is nothing intrinsic to those arrangements that constitute “freedom” or “non-freedom”. That is a human mental construct that we impose upon them. > > A dollar bill is a physical thing. It is paper and ink. It really exists. But there is nothing intrinsic to it that gives it value. > > A chess piece is a physical thing. It really exists. But it does not intrinsically contain the rules for chess. > > We take real world objects and construct meaning around them. But we should not make the mistake of then assuming that that meaning is an actual property of the object the way mass or electrical change is. We’ve merely made an arbitrary association for our own convenience. > [@Pochacco](#): > > But objects are a human construct as well. Reality is a continuum. There is no “France object” except through human fiat. This is all true. But the essential point is that these things have a physical reality before we impose our conventional categories upon them. That is, they exist independently of the ideas we impose on them. France, or the dollar bill, or the chess piece, or my ability to vote or sit at the lunch counter are all things that have independent existence. And so even if chess, and money, and freedom are ideas, the things they refer to are not merely ideas. So if God is \*merely \*an idea, then there is an important difference between God and these other categories of conventionally-defined objects. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-idea-of-god-enough/485053.md?page=4)