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Why did we stop inventing gods?

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GnosticBishop
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16 Aug 2016, 7:37 am

The_Walrus wrote:
Religions have to compete with each other, and right now most of the world is dominated by a handful of belief systems.

Religions tend to rise and fall with empires. Successful new religions tend to arise through force. Despite it all, we are now living in the most stable period in history and there is less incentive to overthrow the government, so any Scientologist or Mormon who decided to violently overthrow society would struggle to attract enough followers.

A Daesh-like cult is the only chance of a new god ever rising above the fringe.


No argument.

All of Islam seeks a new Caliph and caliphate but that new god is still a man.

That seeking, in a way, is better than seeking some supernatural mythical god.

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DL



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16 Aug 2016, 7:41 am

Barchan wrote:
Because we discovered the real one.

I wouldn't say paganism/polytheism is dead, though. With the big pagan revival in the early 20th century (Thelema, Wicca, etc.) and the popularity of writers such as Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison, paganism is trendier now than it has been in the last thousand years.


Where did we discover this real god?

I do not see him. Do you?

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16 Aug 2016, 7:44 am

sonicallysensitive wrote:
Why did we stop inventing gods?

Media/TV providing a constant distraction from 'thinking for oneself'. And, for many, acting as the moral compass - which religion once provided (i.e. principles on how to live etc).


The 'God of the West' is now product consumption.

Almost everyone on this forum will likely be addicted to the news (try one month without it).



Media influence can easily be seen in this section of the forum with the recent prevalence of threads regarding race.

Which is ironic, given most like to believe they think for themselves.


The media and the rules and secular laws they promote are a damned sight better than what Yahweh and Allah promote.

Right?

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DL



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16 Aug 2016, 7:45 am

Misslizard wrote:
All the good ones are already taken.


??

Do you see Allah and Yahweh as good gods?

I see them as quite immoral.

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DL



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16 Aug 2016, 7:50 am

Misslizard wrote:
My mistake,there is a new one.The Great,All Seeing,All Knowing.....Google.


Given that it is the greatest learning tool that man has yet to invent, I see google as a fitting god, as described as the best rules and laws to live by, as a worthy god to learn from. It helps lead us to the greatest minds to date.

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16 Aug 2016, 7:53 am

Because of creeping globalisation. Of the last 3,000 years, that is... Here's a horribly generalised scenario.

Earlier in human history, we were divided into many small tribes, each with its own particular spiritual beliefs. As human numbers increased, so did the number of tribes, and the number of these micro-religeons. While not all religeons have beings exactly equivalent to our concept of "a God," the number of Gods steadily increased. (There was probably a spectrum shading from Animist beliefs to a pantheon of Gods, with most cultures moving towards the "God" end as they became more complex.)

Then civilisation got started. Groups of people grew larger, and absorbed their neighbours peacefully or by conquest. Each time one culture conquered another, religous diversity shrank. Sometimes, people forgot their own gods and worshipped those of the dominant culture. Other times, the dominant culture absorbed the gods of subject peoples into its own pantheon. Redundant gods were often merged together- if you have a fertility goddess and your conquerors also have a fertility goddess, you might be persuaded that praying to her is the same thing. This went on in the Roman Empire. Amitav Ghosh wrote about how Hinduism is currently co-opting the Bhuta gods of the Tulus.

...and then you get the Abrahamic religeons, all of which believe in one God (essentially the same one, at that). Originally just another local belief, these actually started spreading faster than empires, and have pretty much steamrollered over small tribal religeons across the world. Ditto for Buddhism, only that faith isn't really about Gods at all! When Buddhists have Gods, they are drawn from older pantheons. (Atheism and agnositicism seem mainly to "prey on" the established world religeons.)

So not only are there few new Gods conceived of, the number of distinct, surviving Gods has been decreasing rapidly for a few thousand years. As Gnostic Bishop said, people don't conciously "make up" a God and then manage to believe in Him. The only way I can see that happening is if some rare, isolated animist culture began to develop its spirit world into a new pantheon.


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GnosticBishop
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16 Aug 2016, 8:16 am

PhosphorusDecree wrote:
Because of creeping globalisation. Of the last 3,000 years, that is... Here's a horribly generalised scenario.

Earlier in human history, we were divided into many small tribes, each with its own particular spiritual beliefs. As human numbers increased, so did the number of tribes, and the number of these micro-religeons. While not all religeons have beings exactly equivalent to our concept of "a God," the number of Gods steadily increased. (There was probably a spectrum shading from Animist beliefs to a pantheon of Gods, with most cultures moving towards the "God" end as they became more complex.)

Then civilisation got started. Groups of people grew larger, and absorbed their neighbours peacefully or by conquest. Each time one culture conquered another, religous diversity shrank. Sometimes, people forgot their own gods and worshipped those of the dominant culture. Other times, the dominant culture absorbed the gods of subject peoples into its own pantheon. Redundant gods were often merged together- if you have a fertility goddess and your conquerors also have a fertility goddess, you might be persuaded that praying to her is the same thing. This went on in the Roman Empire. Amitav Ghosh wrote about how Hinduism is currently co-opting the Bhuta gods of the Tulus.

...and then you get the Abrahamic religeons, all of which believe in one God (essentially the same one, at that). Originally just another local belief, these actually started spreading faster than empires, and have pretty much steamrollered over small tribal religeons across the world. Ditto for Buddhism, only that faith isn't really about Gods at all! When Buddhists have Gods, they are drawn from older pantheons. (Atheism and agnositicism seem mainly to "prey on" the established world religeons.)

So not only are there few new Gods conceived of, the number of distinct, surviving Gods has been decreasing rapidly for a few thousand years. As Gnostic Bishop said, people don't conciously "make up" a God and then manage to believe in Him. The only way I can see that happening is if some rare, isolated animist culture began to develop its spirit world into a new pantheon.


Well done.

"surviving Gods has been decreasing rapidly for a few thousand years."

I see it mores as more people recognizing what Jung and Freud called the Father Complex and recognizing that they are the only gods they can ever find.

Those are the atheists and agnostic and other non-believers. They are the goats and are not sheeple.

"Atheism and agnosticism seem mainly to "prey on" the established world religions."

Prey?

You mean educate and try to make theists recognize their delusions don't?

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DL



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16 Aug 2016, 9:55 am

GnosticBishop wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
All the good ones are already taken.


??

Do you see Allah and Yahweh as good gods?

I see them as quite immoral.

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DL

It wasn't meant to be about morality,more about the ones that just seem cool.Like Thor or Shiva.Shiva just looks awesome with that big 'ol cobra draped around his neck.Allah and Yahweh just seem dull in comparison.


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16 Aug 2016, 10:04 am

GnosticBishop wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
My mistake,there is a new one.The Great,All Seeing,All Knowing.....Google.


Given that it is the greatest learning tool that man has yet to invent, I see google as a fitting god, as described as the best rules and laws to live by, as a worthy god to learn from. It helps lead us to the greatest minds to date.

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DL

Then Knowledge is the new God.Sounds good to me.


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16 Aug 2016, 1:45 pm

GnosticBishop wrote:
"surviving Gods has been decreasing rapidly for a few thousand years."

I see it mores as more people recognizing what Jung and Freud called the Father Complex and recognizing that they are the only gods they can ever find.

Those are the atheists and agnostic and other non-believers. They are the goats and are not sheeple.

"Atheism and agnosticism seem mainly to "prey on" the established world religions."

Prey?

You mean educate and try to make theists recognize their delusions don't?

Regards
DL

This is taking a step back from my own religeous position. Trying to see it as a social history of competing memes... and while atheism was known in classical Greece, it really took off when movements like the Enlightenment and Communism hit the monotheistic nations.

While my views have slowly hardened from "agnostic" to "atheist," I'm less about the "Great War Against Ignorance!" these days. I've met too many sheepley atheists and non-sheepley Christians for that, including a lay preacher with VERY sharp ideas about the history of her religeon. Mind you, this is in England, where atheism is the norm. And intectual laziness follows the norm.


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16 Aug 2016, 2:17 pm

GnosticBishop wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
From 3000 BC to 800 AD they were winnowing down the number of gods from many hundreds down to one.

From 800 AD on the argument was about how you conceptualize that same one god.It made no sense to concoct additional "new gods". Then in the last couple of centuries it became a debate over whether there is one god, or zero gods.

So inventing "new" gods has been a rather meaningless endeavor for the last 12 centuries.


I agree when speaking of the supernatural gods.

I do not think it a meaningless endeavour to seek a human god. That god is defined more as the best rules and laws to live life by that we internalize as we create our own god within us.

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DL


Well...if you're expanding the definition of "gods" to include the non supernatural then you cant assume that we even have stopped "inventing gods". The 20th Century was all about competing political ideologies (democracy, communism, nationalism, fascism, Nazism, etc,) which functioned much like religions.



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16 Aug 2016, 2:42 pm

The only God that is known to exist is the Judeo-Christian God.


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16 Aug 2016, 4:19 pm

Deltaville wrote:
The only God that is known to exist is the Judeo-Christian God.

Proof?Shiva is just as likely to exist.


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17 Aug 2016, 2:16 pm

Misslizard wrote:
Deltaville wrote:
The only God that is known to exist is the Judeo-Christian God.

Proof?Shiva is just as likely to exist.


Utter nonsense. There is a lot more miracles in Christianity then Hinduism.

We have:

The Resurrection ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... n-science/)


Marian Apparitions: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/ ... -mary-text

(Fatima, Zeitoun, Lourdes, Assiut, Knock, La Sallete... etc)


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17 Aug 2016, 9:33 pm

Deltaville wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
Deltaville wrote:
The only God that is known to exist is the Judeo-Christian God.

Proof?Shiva is just as likely to exist.


Utter nonsense. There is a lot more miracles in Christianity then Hinduism.

We have:

The Resurrection ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... n-science/)


Marian Apparitions: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/ ... -mary-text

(Fatima, Zeitoun, Lourdes, Assiut, Knock, La Sallete... etc)

Miracles can occur in any religion.Other's beleif in their God(s) is just as valid as your beleif in your single diety.You can't disprove the existence of Thor,Sobek,Danu anymore than you can prove your God exists.
Anybody could have been wrapped in the Shroud of Turin,Jesus name wasn't embroideried on it.There are Holy sites all over the world where people go for healing that aren't Christian and others have seen apparitions of their Gods.


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18 Aug 2016, 1:36 am

Misslizard wrote:
Deltaville wrote:
Misslizard wrote:
Deltaville wrote:
The only God that is known to exist is the Judeo-Christian God.

Proof?Shiva is just as likely to exist.


Utter nonsense. There is a lot more miracles in Christianity then Hinduism.

We have:

The Resurrection ( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015 ... n-science/)


Marian Apparitions: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2015/ ... -mary-text

(Fatima, Zeitoun, Lourdes, Assiut, Knock, La Sallete... etc)

Miracles can occur in any religion.Other's beleif in their God(s) is just as valid as your beleif in your single diety.You can't disprove the existence of Thor,Sobek,Danu anymore than you can prove your God exists.
Anybody could have been wrapped in the Shroud of Turin,Jesus name wasn't embroideried on it.There are Holy sites all over the world where people go for healing that aren't Christian and others have seen apparitions of their Gods.


To see where that argument fails, compare the amount of alleged miracles of the Christian deity to those with other deities.

The amount and frequency attributed miracles overwhelmingly is associated with the Christian Faith. For instance, in Zeitoun, photographs exist of the virgin Mary during a time where photo manipulation is nearly non-existent, and was seen by both believers and non-believers alike. Miraculous cures were reported.

Lourdes has about 70 recoveries that have been deemed by the LMB as 'medically inexplicable,' and perhaps many more instantaneous cures may have occurred that was not brought under the attention of the LMB. About 7,000 people applied, if I am not mistaken.

In our Lady of Kibeho and our Lady of La Salette, prophecies of genocide and famine were foretold and have occurred historically.

In our Lady of Guadelupe, the tilma has remained intact for nearly 400 years (even though cactus tilma decays normally in 20 years or less), and has virtually no visible brushwork.

In Fatima, people even miles away witnessed unusual solar activity that three shepherd children predicted, and clothes were instantly dried up. Sister Lucia predicted the Second World War too!

In our Lady of Akita, a nun recovered her hearing on the exact day and hour foretold by an angel.

Finally, in our Lady of Medjuorge, people reported sightings of the virgin Mary, and some even had their rosaries change from silver to gold, instantly.

These are just one of many Marian apparitions reported in history.


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