Is God necessary for the Earth to exist?

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traditional tribal societies do have a belief system (animism, spiritualism) but in this pantheistic spirit world some spirits were more powerful (creator spirits) who not only created men (usually out clay) but also taught mankind the ways of fire, building huts etc...

Right, but something analogous to a fairy probably isn't quite a god unless you set the bar quite low, that's what I'm getting at. Lots of supernatural beings aren't gods.

Just as long as He doesn't look away. According to George Berkeley.

But just as the old gods elevated man....man elevated the gods...remember the Roman and Greek gods could not persist without human worship (Freud and Jung had a good explanation for the connection of god and the subconscious mind).

I'm not just focused on anyone culture and they wouldn't count as the sorts of societies I described. They had states and substantial power differentials between different castes of people. I'm suggesting that a society with very little social stratification will be more likely to focus on interactions with many smaller, often more specific supernatural entities and that emergence of something with substantially more power and more removed/less approachable/less personal depends on the emergence of a priestly class of some sort along with a social structure that isn't just centred around a big man, but instead sees the beginnings of a very simple state-like structure.

Aren't the trends to move toward and away from sky god also interchangeable and culturally dependent?

In my wife's community (hindus) people have fluid view of religion/philosophy/god. There are gurus who (like Jesus) are seen as manifestations of god. There's an interesting book by author Anuradti Roy called "God of Small things" which gives us westerners an insight into the Hindu and Buddhist mind. God is actually everywhere. Most indigenous people understand this too.

Of course! I have no other answer.

Our English professor briefly touched upon that philosophy concept once.

True things that hafta be true vs true things that dont hafta be true.

"The British Isles exist" is a true statement. But it doesnt have to be true. You can imagine a world/universe in which the British Isles dont exist.

But you cant imagine how the value of pi (the ratio of the circumference of a circle to it's diameter) could be some other value (Like just 3.0 instead of 3.1412345 etc).

God may exist, or he may not. But I for one can imagine a Universe without God. But some folks claim that they cant. So there is a dispute over which kind of true (have to be true, or not have to be true) the statement "god exists" would be in.

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"Is God Necessary For The Earth To Exist?"

Well, Considering THere is Potential For As Many
Definitions for What the Human Abstract Construct Symbol of
What The Three Letter Word 'God,' is Or Is Not As There Are Unique

Ways of 'Seeing' in Every Set of Human Eyes That Currently Exist; And For the
Records of What We Currently Have Also HiSToRiCaLLY As Such Way Back When;

It Surely Helps to Define What the Hell Or Heaven or in Between AS Such

We aRe Discussing in Setting Some Venn Diagram Parameters for What 'God' IS

Or NOT;

Another Example From 'Professors' in 'Wiki' Ways:

"Panentheism ("all in God”, from the Greek πᾶν pân, "all", ἐν en, "in" and Θεός Theós, "God")
is the belief that the divine intersects every part of the universe and also extends beyond space and times

And Yes, i Will Extend that Beyond All
Distance And Matter of Human iMaGiNaTioN

By Way of Human Consciousness and Sub-
Consciousness; Well Beyond The Discrete
So-Called Measures of Modern Science Still

Where Creativity May Spring And Bring Newer

Human Creations into Existence; Yes, Like Does God

Have to Exist For the Next Great Human Invention to come into Being Now;

Like The Next Word i Write That Cannot Possibly Be Pre-Programmed As Even

i Am Not Sure What i Will Create Next; In Other Words, in Literal Ways of i Know

Nothing Now

Until Creation
Comes to Fruition Next
NeW iN A Freest Way of Bringing
Words to A Page in Free Verse Poetry

As Such As the MuSiC Within of God Precedes the Words AS Such...

In Other Words, According to Science too; Our Feelings, Senses, Emotions

Come First Before our Reasons For Our Actions Next; and Indeed, i Mostly Stay

in that Flow of Creativity As Folks Through Human HiStory Cross-Culturally Have

Described This Autotelic Flow of Tao Reaching Divine Dao This Way Eternally Now True too...

It's True, i AM For ONE

More Interesting in the
Eternal Autotelic Flow of Now;

Much More Than Questions of What
Comes Before or After This Present Gift
of Divine Heaven Within i Am Experiencing Now,

Forevermore True As Long As Now Colors This Way of Living And Loving Life For Real New;

Yawn, Iron in Our Blood Streams Common to Core of Earth is Required For the Earth and Us
to Exist That Comes From Super Nova Explosions As We Are Currently Sentient Star DusT Breathing
ThiS WaY in Metaphor Now; It Depends on What One Considers A Venn Diagram of God to Be; More or

Less Like A God

Who Becomes

A Dude Out

of Desert
SCaRCiTiES as such;

All Tribal Still And Torturing
Foes Eternally Now Even More
Tortuous in Suffering Than Just

An Old Testament Eye for an Eye;
And Life For A Life, in Killing Rage
Ways of Tit For Tat For Foe's Actions As Well

or Not
So Well...

One Would Have Hoped
Perhaps that Story Might
Be improved; Yet That God By Story Fell
Flat on His Evil Self, Stooping Low Enough
Without the Patience to Rehabilitate Becoming
Evil Enough to Torture Foes Forever AS Such Dumping

An All Merciful, Loving, Forgiving God in Gehenna AS Such

As Corpses Rot and at Least Feed the Worms to Aerate Soils
Fertile For Crops Greening Human Life Once Again For Real...

And Then There is that Plagiarizing Most of that Story in A Cave
AS Such And MaKinG Special Rules to Gather Up More Children Wives AS Such...

Yuck,

This is the
21st Century,

Can't We Come Up

With A Greater God Than
One So Low As to Torture Parts
of Creation Forever in Suffering And Misery

For Foes SCReWinG Up;

Yep, We Already HaVE iN So Many
Ways As Thank God THere is Not Only

One God to Believe in With Evil Deeds;

THere is Separation of Church And State;

Yet Don't Forget The Iron in Our Blood Streams
is Not Separate And Part of Star Dust From Super

Nova
Explosions
Still at Core of Earth Real;

Giving All of US A Chance to Exist
NoW iN This Miracle Present Gift of Breath FOR REAL;

Yep, Just Look Up THeRE With Huge Telescopes to 'Space'

That's A Lot of Cold And Hot Rocks With No FLoWeRS to Smell...

God is Existence ALL;

Both 'Seen' And 'Unseen;'

Love it

Or Coal LumP iT
NoW iNTo Something Else...

It's What Humans Do; They Tale Stories...

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If you are a materialistic person that thinks nothing comes before matter than no.

If you have a belief in intangible things and a sort of instinct that can sense it than yes. It depends on how you think, which is right and wrong it will be made clear in the end, i think like this at least

You do realise that the only reason some people think like that, is that evolution created a little module "upgrade" (questionable) attached to the cerebral cortex to allow them to do so.

Anthropological studies are pretty convincing to me about that.

Everything is ultimately intangible.

If God created the Earth, then who created God?

isn't much different from

If the Big Bang created the Earth, where did the particles, heat and light for the Big Bang come from?

Both are equally fantastic in their own way. I find it very hard to believe that everything around me was deliberately created by one higher being, but at the same time I find it very hard to believe it all happened by complete chance.

I'm relatively scientifically and mathematically minded, but that includes being open to new ideas, and the knowledge that there are both "known unknowns" and "unknown unknowns" out there. To be analytical means accepting there are things we don't know. The two don't automatically go against each other as we're often told.

I'm interested in the intangible, but at present I don't believe in God. That doesn't mean I can be 100% confident in saying a God of some form doesn't exist, though.

^ very good post.

To me it's like this: human beings' perception and understanding will always be limited. So faith means you are skipping the "understanding" part to accept something as the truth. Because you yourself are not equipped to completely understand and analyze some truths. So you can choose to skip the understanding part or not.

What doesn't make sense to me is people's opinions that human intelligence and understanding is all encompassing and can comprehend everything with time, even prove the existence of God. I definitely don't believe in this as i see human beings as limited in their capacity for understanding. Like people who lack empathy for autistic people, and how they will never understand our way of thinking.

I agree with both of the last two posts.

Personally i can't not believe in God. Religion is a whole other thing and it has grossly been manipulated through out the centuries, but there just can't be any information in the universe without the information provider. (i.e. simulation)

Ideas about God are fascinating because it opens up broad patterns of thinking outside of oneself. I also tend to stick with Pascal's wager in that regard.