Is religion and belief in God simple or complex?

[devildavid]

Actually I was trying to speak to a larger mythic conception. There are some cosmologies where people understand that they came from some other place and either dropped down to this middle world, or in some cases crawled up into it from a lower world.

Even our modern concept that we are 'ascending apes' is, or functions as, a cosmological picture.

If I were to believe, let us say, that we were fallen angels -- that we had a privileged existence in some other sphere of being and fell from that condition -- that view would amount to a cosmology. But it would also mean that because I had fallen, that I had a personal responsibility in my present condition.

Based in obfuscation? I don't think so. I am not so much asserting any particular view of my own, but rather trying to elucidate the understanding that mythologies express.

Personally, I cannot successfully imagine a Garden of Eden and believe in it.

But this issue really revolves around the question of how we conceive of ourselves in this world, and what responsibilities and tasks we have before us.

I get the impression that you are working hard to set me up as a desired and in a sense *needed* theist against whom you can wage ideological war? You must know by now that this entire polarity is set-up because people need to engage in such battles, and often they have a personal stake in the matter.

Instead of getting all invested in polarity and the conflict that arises from it (though I would not deny that there terrestrial battles of consequence) I prefer a lighter approach.

And you must know too that one person's obfuscation is another person's 'enlightening discourse'.

So what does the mythology represent? You have not elucidated it. What does the myth of mankind's fall represent? All I can get from it is that we grow from the innocence of birth to the self awareness of adulthood. There is really nothing that mankind as a whole has gone through that makes any sense in that mythology, unless it is talking about how we evolved from less self aware life forms. But did they know that to be the case when they wrote those myths? Were they referring to the evolution of mankind? I think my former take makes more sense. But why the use of creation and a god in these myths? Seems like an awful lot to symbolize something quite common. I don't see any deep significance to the myth.

 

[Alizia Tyler]

I see. So it was all just blather and man hasn’t actually “fallen”. Well okay then.

That would be a very simplistic and reductionist way of looking at the entire question.

 

[watsup]

That would be a very simplistic and reductionist way of looking at the entire question.

All that you really did was to attempt to justify the fable of Adam and Eve as “believed” by the Christians. It’s still a myth.

 

[Daisy]

All that you really did was to attempt to justify the fable of Adam and Eve as “believed” by the Christians. It’s still a myth.

Can you prove that positive statement?

 

[Alizia Tyler]

All that you really did was to attempt to justify the fable of Adam and Eve as “believed” by the Christians. It’s still a myth.

No, what I said is that I myself have difficulty -- likely for similar reasons to you -- in believing the story of a Garden of Eden. [But I do believe in and take seriously the advent of Jesus Christ.]

So what I do is to allegorize the Garden of Eden story. But that is because I am interested in 'metaphysical essences'.

 

[watsup]

No, what I said is that I myself have difficulty -- likely for similar reasons to you -- in believing the story of a Garden of Eden. [But I do believe in and take seriously the advent of Jesus Christ.]

So what I do is to allegorize the Garden of Eden story. But that is because I am interested in 'metaphysical essences'.

There is no need for Jesus the Christ unless man has "fallen". So how exactly did that happen in your opinion?

 

[Logician Man]

For me, it was as simple as studying the data, absorbing that data, retaining that data, and assimiliating the data to discern whether or not man created God(s)/God concepts, or vice versa. My conclusion was/is it is is the former, primarily to explain the ( at the times),unexplainable. Once I became convinced it was the former, it was as simple as dismissing all God claims due to lack of proof any Gods actually exist. That said, I have no desire to convince anyone to believe as I do, nor to try and convince anyone, regardless of his/her personal beliefs, to renounce those religious beliefs, and anyone that derives solace from their respective beliefs, I consider to be a good thing, as long as they don't try to impose those beliefs unto others via public schools, government, or any other secular, tax funded institutions.

 

[watsup]

And yet they do 'derive meaning' from them. Independent of how I think about stories or mythologies, man is always imagining and trying to explain the world we live in, the reasons for being, and the ends of being. Some explanation has to be offered.

I find it really interesting when you reveal your innermost thoughts on this very subject! Who are you? Where are you? How did you arrive here? And what happens next?

I'm me. I am here in Springfield MO USA. I got here by being born. And I can only have an inkling of what happens next. Que sera sera. What's so hard about that?

 

[zyzygy]

No, what I said is that I myself have difficulty -- likely for similar reasons to you -- in believing the story of a Garden of Eden. [But I do believe in and take seriously the advent of Jesus Christ.]

So what I do is to allegorize the Garden of Eden story. But that is because I am interested in 'metaphysical essences'.

In other words, fairy stories.