At what point...

[ISGC]

do the achievements of man exceed the achievements of god?

This shouldn't be a thread to discuss the plausibility of religion, we should assume that the judeo-christian god exists, and all his achievements happened. I want to know at what point do our achievements (the human race) make the worship of god obsolete?

[Doom Shepherd]

For the sake of being argumentative, if you're assuming that ALL of God's attributes are "just so," I would suggest that Humans have already achieved something that God can not -- they can love unconditionally, and not punish the object of their love if that person does not love them in return.

[nomogoodnames]

For the sake of being argumentative, if you're assuming that ALL of God's attributes are "just so," I would suggest that Humans have already achieved something that God can not -- they can love unconditionally, and not punish the object of their love if that person does not love them in return.

 

 

Holy crap you're right! I never even thought of it like that!

[ISGC]

For the sake of being argumentative, if you're assuming that ALL of God's attributes are "just so," I would suggest that Humans have already achieved something that God can not -- they can love unconditionally, and not punish the object of their love if that person does not love them in return.

If a child is never chastised, he will grow up believing he is invincible. I think you are confusing teaching and loving; God can love through punishment. But does he not love those who do not pay him mind? Does the church going man receive any favor in life?

(also, I have no religious affiliations, simply arguing for the sake of argument)

[Doom Shepherd]

I'm not talking about chastizement for harm-doing. Believe me, I have no problem with THAT sort of punishment.

I'm talking about punishment for doing no harm whatsoever.

 

But does he not love those who do not pay him mind?

 

Not enough to not send them to Hell when they die. No matter how good they've been otherwise.

 

"I love you! Love ME, or burn in Hell forever!"

 

I knew a guy once who treated his girlfriend that way. He was put away for a long time, and good riddance.

[ISGC]

I'm not talking about chastizement for harm-doing. Believe me, I have no problem with THAT sort of punishment.

I'm talking about punishment for doing no harm whatsoever.

 

Not enough to not send them to Hell when they die. No matter how good they've been otherwise.

 

"I love you! Love ME, or burn in Hell forever!"

 

I knew a guy once who treated his girlfriend that way. He was put away for a long time, and good riddance.

Faith is not the sole determinant for your fate in the afterlife (well, it depends on which God you're talking about, really). If you read Dante's The Inferno, Dante depicts many popes and cardinals and prominent religious figures stuck in the bowels of hell being blown about by wind for eternity, or any number of other tortures. It's not "I love you, love ME" but "I know what's best for you, listen to me."

If one is unfaithful, but upholds the ideals of religion, he still gets placed in limbo anyway (technically not in hell).

[Snowflake]

To love God is to exercise his Will. You make praises to him for giving you life and a soul, yet if you do not treat others with love and forgiveness then no amount of praise to God will undo that. The point of prayer is to enlighten you to be a good person. Rejecting Gods love is basically defiling his will and creation, (doing things in excess, abusing, killing... etc).

As for surpassing God well... we haven't been able to create life yet, only manipulate it, even then we're only figuring out a few of the many biological systems around us. Or turn energy into matter, so we still have a loong way to go to surpass what he has done This is keeping in mind that he created the universe and everything we have on this planet, then programmed it to be self sustaining and adaptive.

[ISGC]

When will we become god, then?

when we engineer the fate of our own species (we're partially doing that) or that of others (done)?

The hottest and coldest places in the universe, if only for a brief moment, were on earth at one point.

However, here's a second question. Is it possible to achieve more than god?

would it only be possible to become his equal, and nothing more?

[Waldo_II]

When man dictates the laws of physics, and creates something from nothing, then he has exceeded the capabilities of Yahweh.

[ISGC]

interesting...

Are we capable of exceeding our creator?

[beefman62]

Watching the history channel often and looking it up, it says Atlantians were able to control the earth, so in a way they had the power of god. But than something happed and they all disspeared. this is a theory but i see it as a warning. That much power will corrupt a man and with that power they will make a mistake and that will be there ultimate downfall. Can man succeed god? We might think that we can or even compare our selves to gods, but man will never be. Simply because Man makes mistakes and god dose not. "the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe" that is the definition for god, how i see it we are far from perfect and even further from creating life from nothing. I believe in "nothing is impossible" but sometimes we have to shoot for a lower goal before we aim for the perfect game.

[Waldo_II]

But Atlantis didn't exist.

[Axeldeath]

Watching the history channel often and looking it up, it says Atlantians were able to control the earth, so in a way they had the power of god. But than something happed and they all disspeared. this is a theory but i see it as a warning. That much power will corrupt a man and with that power they will make a mistake and that will be there ultimate downfall. Can man succeed god? We might think that we can or even compare our selves to gods, but man will never be. Simply because Man makes mistakes and god dose not. "the supernatural being conceived as the perfect and omnipotent and omniscient originator and ruler of the universe" that is the definition for god, how i see it we are far from perfect and even further from creating life from nothing. I believe in "nothing is impossible" but sometimes we have to shoot for a lower goal before we aim for the perfect game.

 

Lolwat, implying Atlantis was real XD

[Doom Shepherd]

Faith is not the sole determinant for your fate in the afterlife (well, it depends on which God you're talking about, really).

"No one comes to the father but through me." While faith may not be the ONLY determinant, you can't get to any of the nice places without it.

 

If you read Dante's The Inferno, Dante depicts many popes and cardinals and prominent religious figures stuck in the bowels of hell being blown about by wind for eternity, or any number of other tortures. It's not "I love you, love ME" but "I know what's best for you, listen to me."

 

I have read. You DO know it's non-canon, right?

The "faithful" you see in the Inferno betrayed their faith in some manner.

 

In ny case, Niven and Pournelle's Inferno and sequel Escape from Hell are good analyses of Dante.

 

If one is unfaithful, but upholds the ideals of religion, he still gets placed in limbo anyway (technically not in hell).

The only church I know of that actually recognized Limbo as a place did away with it.

Limbo = still not Heaven, or anywhere nearby.

[ISGC]

This is a tough topic, I suppose, because it's hard to define "god" and write out his achievements. Also, it is not exactly a problem with civilization, so I propose we no longer reply to this thread, for the sake of this new born board.

maybe one day there will be a philosophy board, but this is not the place.

[Blue]

When Man exceeds God is when the day Man creates something from nothing.

 

Viz. Take the substance of the abyss and bring something into being from it. Eg deliberately Violate the Laws of Conservation of Mass and Energy.

 

I am a Christian and would postulate that we cannot hope to come anywhere near the realm of Omniscience, even if we were as cool as Sovereign from Mass Effect.

You, reading this right now, your body has a hard time surviving beyond 40 G-forces for longer than 20 milliseconds and can only last without constant exposure to 14PSI for about 50 seconds. It needs a highly specialized combination of gasses in order to operate, and without replenishment of such will cause it to expire in less than three minutes. It can only last four days without fresh water and fifty without food. Even thought that's the short list, its quite a number of constraints to overcome in order to pass beyond the realm of Mortal, let alone Omniscience. Moreover, that's only the Physical, let alone the Emotional or Logical constraints of our frail fleshbags. We have a hard time understanding what are the fundaments of consciousness, the precepts of relationships, the realms beyond the fourth dimension, the particle operands below the quark. So many things we don't even know how they work like Light, Gravity, Kidneys, Magnets

So many things that are unknown like what makes the Hexagonal storm on the top of Saturn, why Bacteria thrive in acidic basins on the bottom of the Ocean, what will War look like in 100 years or how will the economy be doing in 7 hours.

To say that we are anywhere near the level of God is not only to presume that we understand and comprehend these ideas in entirety in not only all realizable methods, conventions and dimensions, but also the rudiments of their construction and why.

Edited April 18, 2011 by Guest (see edit history)

[Ross Scott]

This sounds more like a philosophical / religious debate rather than addressing a concrete issue. I'm going to move this to the "General" section. Nice ICP messiah pic btw.

[J.C.]

This thread should go the the serious topic discussion.

[ProHypster]

1. This should move to the serious topic discussion.

 

Now to the philosophical part: There is a theory that humans time travelled to the past and created this world, proposing an infinite amount of humans. Thus we are our own creators. Impossible? With time and thinking comes intelligence and power and we have both these factors so why is that not possible. This would mean we are actually our own gods in some way.

 

But still, what created this circle even then? The answer of all theories always comes to only one God aka mysterious power we don't understand. Even in atheism, said in truth the world was made with a "mysterious drive". We don't know what it was, we just know it exists.

 

And this just brings the question back, to what created this God or mysterious power if you are atheist??

 

The only logical explanation is that our world was made not linear like we think, but something that goes against our understanding of physics must have happened. This brings many theories...

Or could it have been the last generation of humans that creates the beginning of the world every cycle? Sounds like something fantastical but in this case, indeed we develop into god every cycle.

 

I have this thought that as much as we think about what really happened, the answer to life, something is always stopping us just before we get the answer... it's like we were made so that we don't understand this part. Like our own logic is corrupted.

[Dr. Derpy Hooves Ph.D]

Why bring up a 3-4 month old topic?