http://dingo.care2.com/cards/flash/5409/galaxy.swf
The galaxy song by Monty Python tells of a huge and expanding universe. Enormous beyond imagination. Huge explosions. stars being born radiation flying about. If a god exists. Why would it want men on this tiny little flyspeck of a planet to fall down on their knees and worship it. How do we get the audacity to think we are so important and special? We are more closely related to an insect than a god in charge of all that would be to us. Do any of you ever wonder why god would care about eating meat on Friday or swearing when there is so much to do. We are so full of self importance and religion is only one manifestations.
Sounds like you need a piece of fairy cake, buddy.
Growing up Catholic, I can tell you that I personally was never coaxed nor even nudged to worship the planet. I don’t even think they mentioned the planet per se after Genesis other than to relate a spatial relationship or geographic designation (i.e.: Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob). Earth was simply not much of a player in our teachings other than a place we dwelled upon that God created. They mentioned fields as a very important thing a lot but that was more of a tending thing rather than a worship thing. Tending your fields was very important in the bible. Tending the planet was unheard of.
I was thinking for a moment that maybe you were referring to American Indians worshiping the planet but you also mention not eating meat on Fridays which is an exclusive Catholic thing as far as I know. Indians ate meat whenever. I don’t think Indians acknowledged Friday until we took over.
Who said planet. The point is that we are such an insignificant speck in an enormous universe. What makes any one think god wants to be worshipped by such rudimentary unimportant creatures. that we are. To imagine that we can communicate with this god is incredible and indefensible to me. If some priest says I know what god wants ,I run.
You did.
Your odd use of the pronoun “it” (grammatical and relatively) in your quoted sentence caught me off guard… seeing as how I am not used to a God being an “it” and I am used to a planet being an “it”.
My fault, for the most part.
Let me step up here and help out the Doper theologians:
It’s a mystery.
If the universe were somewhat less enormous, could God care about us then?
Incredible, yes. Religious people would fully agree that it is incredible. They would just add that it is, nevertheless, true.
They (or at least some of them) would add that we were made by God, in God’s image, and that God himself has told us that God cares about us.
To an unlimited God, the size of the universe, no matter how large, should pose no impediment to caring about any particular part of it.
As to whether or not we are special, we may be the only intelligent life in this enormous universe. I think that would make us pretty special. Or we may not be the only intelligent life in the universe; there are religious and irreligious people on both sides of this question.
Anyhow, I find it staggers the imagination that God could be aware of every individual here on planet Earth. If you can accept that, throwing the whole rest of the universe into the picture doesn’t seem that great an additional leap to me.
If you want to think we’re not important, you go right ahead. Let us know how that works out for you.
Some one once told another person that god talked to him and said he loved him and would send him to hell to fire bathe for an eternity if he transgressed. If god loves us he can start by getting rid of cancer and war. I have a few more loving tasks when those are done. If we are in gods image he must be one huge sob. To run around this universe taking care of all those problems and having arms and legs and feet. Quick isn’t it. I have trouble when people talk of a loving god. Would you fricassee your kids for doing wrong. ? If so do not expect to be identified as a loving father.
The reason is God has made Himself known to us. That is all that is required!
Eh. I’m sure if God exists, he’d be able to create a person with a less painful sense of grammar.
Well, my announcement must have gotten lost in the mail.
My answer to the OP is that we are big enough to understand how small we are. Of all the species on this tiny planet, we are the only ones who can look up to the stars and understand what they are. Think of all the cumulative knowledge that has occurred for us to reach that understanding. That’s no small achievement.
How does the praying and dropping on your knees benefit god. In short whats his payoff for us insects to stop .drop and pray. Ever think about it from gods side and wonder how meaningless we are in the scheme of things?
gonzomax, you’re kind of all over the place in this thread. If you really do want a great debate, or even a halfway good one, pick one point you’re trying to make or one question you want an answer to, preferably one that hasn’t been done to death in GD already.
Or maybe you just need to get some rest. You’ll feel better in the morning. Right now your coherence is about on the level of “I burning your god.”
Bull. The thread is about the ego involved in religion. I point out that we have an enormous universe and we are an incredibly small part of it. Yet somehow we are being taught not only is there a god but this god wants us to pray to it. Why? I suggest that if we think about our relevance to the big picture the only way we can get to religion is by a huge overestimation of our importance. We are less than fly specks yet some think they have telepathic pipelines with the creator.
We never ask the question ,what does this god get out of the relationship. This question can only be answered by nothing. We have nothing to offer.
If I were to draw an insignificant doodle on a piece of paper and that doodle somehow eventually rose up and launched a self-made Trident missile at my toaster then I would first be very concerned about my safety, but then my natural curiosity would take over and say “let’s see where this goes”.
Many of my days and nights would be spent observing the ways and habits of my doodle. (heh) If things started going bad then I may sent another doodle down to the paper with a tablet of rules.
What does a baby have to offer its parents?
You could even just say that it doesn’t matter we have nothing to offer - he’s accepting of us anyway. You know, the whole “love” thing.
The payoff isn’t for god, the payoff is for you. Prayer is a meditative process to help you understand and appreciate the answer to your prayer. God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no. You need to be able to cope with the disappointment inherent in this.
You can meditate without inventing a god.
God since it does not exist answers no prayers. I do admire your work around. He answers them but sometimes the answer is no. The unprovable ,data devoid belief . How can I argue with that . It is silly.
Theology originally had the Earth in the center, and humans, while not important, at least made in god’s image. So, Western religions don’t have the problem - but they’re factually incorrect, so we see a bunch of excuses.