Philosophy Now Forum

God and Religion are creations of human imagination.

Siddhartha: You seem to suggest that God and religion are man’s creations. I can understand that religion to a large extent is man’s creation but how about “God”? How can you deny the existence of God?

Nagardharma: I wouldn’t deny the existence of God nor would I affirm his existence. I would certainly say that the concepts that we have of God and the qualities we have given him are all from our imagination. Let’s first take the concept of God or creator. We see the universe, nature and ourselves and conclude that there is a God who has created all this. This is obviously a logical conclusion because if anything exists it has to be caused by something/somebody.

Siddhartha: I think this is part of Aristotle’s proofs of God. That he is the prime cause or the unmoved mover or the uncaused cause who has caused everything else. Yes, it seems logical to trace everything back to a source.

Nagardharma: True. However, the difficulty arises in two ways. First, that we are using logic or rational thinking which is too limited a way of thinking when it comes to comprehending and describing the boundless universe with its mysteries and complexities and we are all the more limited when we talk about the creator of such a universe.


Siddhartha: I can certainly understand our inability to comprehend the vast, boundless universe. I remember even now what I’d learnt at school about the closest star to the earth. It is the Proxima Centauri and it is 4.2 light-years away. One light year is the distance traveled by light in a year. Light travels at 300,000 kilometers per second. If we were to travel at the speed of light, we would go round the earth seven times a second. You can’t imagine the speed.


Nagardharma: So you can imagine how mind boggling it is to comprehend 4.2 light years. This is the distance of the closest star in our galaxy. What about the farthest stars in the outermost galaxies if there is something called ‘outermost’? Our brain cannot even comprehend let alone imagine such distances. In fact, the universe seems without a boundary. Yet our mind, due to our daily experience, can’t think of something without a boundary. We can only comprehend indirectly through mathematical calculations.

Siddhartha: Mind’s limitations can be seen in understanding relativity theory. It is almost unbelievable for logic to accept that time and space can be relative. We know time as linear – past, present, future and time as same for everyone i.e. absolute. Relativity theory says that time can be different or can dilate depending on the frame of reference or as we approach the speed of light and space bends. The often quoted example is a person leaving earth travelling close to the speed of light and returning after 50 earth years. While everything on earth has become 50 years older the person who came back could be just 5 years older. One cannot understand how this can be. Yet the theory has been backed by calculations and experiments and no experiment has proved the contrary.

Nagardharma: That’s right. Great distances across the universe also affect our perception. Our logical perceptions make us think that everything is happening at the same time. This isn’t true of events separated by huge distances. A star may exist for us because we see it but the star in actuality could be dead, the light from it still travelling and reaching us causing the illusion that it is alive now. So a past event in some part of the universe can be present or a future event in some other part of the universe separated by a huge distance.

Siddhartha: Physicists and astronomers have posited theories extremely impossible to comprehend with our usual logical/rational way of thinking based on our everyday perception. Our brain is tuned to make sense of reality through rationality so that we can go on with life. So there seems to be a limitation with our usual way of perceiving and thinking.

Nagardharma: So when we say that God is ‘limitless, all present, all knowing’ we are using language or words/concepts that are derived from words that we can comprehend i.e. we can understand words like ‘limit’, ‘present’ and ‘knowing’. In actuality, the words ‘limitless, ‘all present’ and ‘all knowing’ aren’t something we experience in daily life but we have posited these words because they are opposites of words we can comprehend and experience. Logic/rational thinking operates in duality or opposites or with similarities and differences. Now to the second point. While it sounds fine to say that God is ‘limitless, all present, all knowing’, to say that God is good, merciful, loving, just etc would be qualities that we humans experience in our life and a projection of these on to a being that we have created. Let’s take an example. The qualities of God like loving, merciful and just are rubbished in the case of a natural calamity like a tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruptions or floods. Why does a loving, merciful and just God allow such a catastrophe to happen in which good and bad, old and young, believers and no-believers, babies and unborn babies perish? Are we just puppets in the hands of a master puppeteer? Or are we slaves of a master who can dictate our destiny according to his whim and fancy?

Siddhartha: Believers would say that it is God’s will. But when somebody survives we say God has been merciful to that person. I guess it is better to say nothing.

Nagardharma: I would say that it is meaningless to give these qualities to God but I wouldn’t say that it is foolish. The reason why we give these qualities to him is because we experience limitedness, helplessness, injustice, hate and pain in our life. So we create a God who is ‘almighty, all knowing, loving, merciful and just’ as a kind of psychological buffer.

Siddhartha: So, you are arguing that it is impossible to describe God and meaningless to attribute qualities to him.

Nagardharma: Yes. That is why one stream of Indian thought would like to negate all qualities of God so that we realize that it is highly impossible to speak about God and meaningless too and the best thing to do would be to be silent. Ludwig Wittgenstein had this to say about the neumena “Where one cannot speak, there one must be silent.” It makes a lot of sense in this regard.

Siddhartha: So God is unknowable and indescribable.

Nagardharma: Yes, in a sense. Our attempt to do so makes God appear limited, ridiculous, silly and fanatical. That doesn’t mean we cannot attribute qualities to God. There is no harm in it as long as we realize that we are doing so with our limited human thinking and these are human qualities we experience in our life.

Siddhartha: In this connection, don’t you think the idea advocated by most religions that God who made this inexplicable limitless universe demands us to pray to him, praise him, worship him with rituals, follow his commandments etc. is rather silly? Why would he need us to do any of these?

Nagardharma: Precisely. Paying homage and obeying his commands are creations of religions. Religions are creations of man. They evolved primarily modeled on organization of early societies and how they dealt with nature. Most early societies had a king, tribal leader or a clan head whom every body appeased and obeyed. This was need for the external order of society/community. This became the model for most religions. God is the king or tribal leader. Also, the early experience of man tended to be one of fear and awe regarding his existence in relation to phenomena or nature. Nature threatened his existence. The greatest threat was death. I think these same fears haunt us today, but with the promises of after-life, heaven and hell, and materialistic and technological advances, it has been blunted a bit.

Siddhartha: So to face nature, to deal with fear, death and uncertainty, to deal with the complexity of life, he began to invent a being/creator/force/god that made everything and would save him but also threatened him with hell if he wasn’t obeyed and pleased. Along with this came the appeasement of God through prayers, carrying out rituals and obeying rules and laws hoping that these would expiate his faults and mollify nature or God. The whole thing got refined into pleasing God, obeying his commands and living a good life.

Nagardharma: That’s succinctly put. I feel that another reason why religions evolved is the preoccupation with morality. Individuals and society would obey the teachings of a religion because they are sanctioned by God. This would ensure morality and goodness in society. If one doesn’t obey God and live a good life, then one would be damned. Fear propelled people towards good deeds. Another interesting fact about religion is postponement of a good life here one earth to an after life with God where one would enjoy eternal life. This argument was often used by the priests of different religions to explain away and placate the suffering of man in the present life especially the poor, the person facing injustice etc.

Siddhartha: No wonder Karl Marx felt that religion is the opiate of the masses.

Nagardharma: In another discussion I would like to show the inconsistencies of monotheism.

Spinoza (paraphrased by Strand): With respect, Siddhartha and Nagardharma, consider that "God" is "Nature". Therefore, God exists, unless you insist we and the universe don't exist -- nonsense, wouldn't you agree? Thus, God is the very Ground of Being, immanent, has tremendous power, is deeply mysterious, and is the force behind all existing things and phenomena attached thereto. Power? Human beings have very little ability to control nature and thus remain at nature's "mercy". Mystery? Human beings know something about nature, but don't be fooled -- human knowledge of nature is minuscule, and homo sapiens may well become extinct before increasing this tiny bit of knowledge by another bit.

What more can you look for in a God? Look around you with attention, and be humbled, and experience awe!

First of all, I was questioning the concept of God that numerous philosophies hold, especially monotheism (which holds a transcendent view of God) and the usual concepts of religion that people hold.

Spinoza started with an interesting first premise. We exist and we exist in nature. This is something we can perceive and experience for ourselves. And as you have stated Nature (which includes the universe) can be equated to God. This nature then is the very Ground of Being, immanent, has tremendous power etc. Certainly, an immanent view of Nature/God is a more meaningful view than a transcendent view.

However, there could be a contradiction in this view too. For instance, when we say Ground of Being, it means everything arises from it, subsist in it etc. How can this Ground of Being appear powerful, mysterious, knowable etc? For it to appear that way there should be something outside it to comprehend or experience it. In that case, it is no more The Ground of Being as something (Phenomena) experiences it from the outside. Something seems to have an independent existence outside of the Ground of Being. We can not call it the Ground of Being then.

Your last line is intriguing. “Looking around with attention” is very good advice, for one can then see that most things follow nature’s instincts, or follow their nature and man can follow his nature. But the words “be humbled and experience awe” sounds ominous and very much the tone of the transcendental religions.

Thanks, abepat, for your interesting post and comment.

To me, Nature by itself appears powerful, mysterious, and to an extent knowable. And I'm part of it. They say consciousness is matter in nature becoming aware of its own existence.

I didn't intend to suggest anything transcendental by "being humbled, and experience awe." When I pay attention to nature or get caught in a blizzard or hurricane, I can be struck by how little I know, thus leading to humility and awe. This may happen also with a sunrise over the ocean, or a view of the Grand Canyon, or a photo of Earth from the moon, or the photos from the Hubble telescope.

Outside of nature? If we define nature as everything that exists that is detectable by human beings (at least in theory), then anything that might "exist" outside of nature would be undetectable by humans and thus have no effect on humans. (If it did, it would fall within nature by definition).

Mike Strand wrote:Spinoza (paraphrased by Strand): With respect, Siddhartha and Nagardharma, consider that "God" is "Nature". Therefore, God exists, unless you insist we and the universe don't exist -- nonsense, wouldn't you agree? Thus, God is the very Ground of Being, immanent, has tremendous power, is deeply mysterious, and is the force behind all existing things and phenomena attached thereto. Power? Human beings have very little ability to control nature and thus remain at nature's "mercy". Mystery? Human beings know something about nature, but don't be fooled -- human knowledge of nature is minuscule, and homo sapiens may well become extinct before increasing this tiny bit of knowledge by another bit.

What more can you look for in a God? Look around you with attention, and be humbled, and experience awe!

The thing about Spinoza is that he was without a doubt, an atheist. If you put up any standard notion of God against his 'proof' of god, then that is the only conclusion. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but what he liked to call god to preserve his own neck, was actually nothing more than nature; unconscious, cold, without purpose or intentionality. It is unbounded, and desirous of nothing.
Spinoza's philosophy was keen to lay the ground for a naturalistic understanding of the world, whilst preserving some of the better aspects of Christian morality. This is a humanistic project and NOT a religious one.

Mike Strand wrote:Thanks, abepat, for your interesting post and comment.

To me, Nature by itself appears powerful, mysterious, and to an extent knowable. And I'm part of it. They say consciousness is matter in nature becoming aware of its own existence.

But this is limited to living things, humans in particular. You cannot derive a knowing nature from this, only a partially and partial reflectiveness; as you say 'top an extent knowable'.
God cannot be derived from this.
Deus sive Natura is a demand for clarity, not a plea for the existence of an ineffable being.

Thanks, chaz, for your insights!

I agree with you that Spinoza was an atheist relative to the prevailing notions of God as a self-conscious, supernatural and purposeful Being. To me, nature is an adequate object of wonder and study, if not the loving super-parent of many peoples' dreams. For most folks of my acquaintance, equating God with nature is silly or blasphemous. They're still hoping and waiting ..... but go on living as if they knew better; i.e., that nature "rules".

Thanks for responding Mike. Your comment “They say consciousness is matter in nature becoming aware of its own existence.” is interesting. The word ‘consciousness’ is probably a key word. Physicists and biologists tell us that all matter, even inanimate, has an intelligence/consciousness of their own. So everything seems to be partaking in intelligence/consciousness. Another thing that researches show is that everything seems to be interconnected with everything else. This of course is very clear when we talk about ecology. Both animate and inanimate are interconnected and influence each other.

But ‘what is consciousness’ is itself a big debate. There seems to be different levels of consciousness (rudimentary that of a baby, animals, plants, dream consciousness, subconscious etc. ) In this context the eastern philosophies of Advaitha (non-duality) and Zen Buddhism offer an insight I would like to share. Of course there is no scientific evidence for what they say. In a nutshell, they would say that rational thinking (which is dualistic thinking of subject-object) is what prevents us from knowing our true nature or our identities. Mind you, they do not denounce rationality. In fact it helps us to get on with our day to day life. They say it merely hinders. So they recommend transcending or going beyond rationality. The consciousness that transcends rationality can not be described since we use language to describe and language belongs to the realm of duality or is a product of rationality. Still we could call this state of consciousness as breaking duality i.e. not seeing oneself as a separate self. Instead one sees oneself as connected with everything else, as part of a web. All dualities break down even Creator-created and Nature-species. One is pure consciousness-in-matter. This doesn’t imply that such a person (an enlightened person) is a demi-god. He goes about life like a normal person but with a transformed consciousness or his ‘natural self’.

Probably their theory is balderdash. But I haven’t found a more meaningful way of looking at life/reality. There are no divisions of race, religion, language, human and non-human, no rituals or worship etc. (all duality of thought is broken) Religion or spirituality is nothing but knowing your true identity. What if you don’t find it? There is no hell, heaven, reward or punishment. In short there is no fear because nothing is lost as everything/ everybody is already consciousness. Probably sounds like the catholic theologian, Teilhard de Chardin.

I think I have sounded too fanciful but as I have said I haven’t found a more meaningful way of looking at life than this and a close observation of our minds reveal that we are trapped in thought/rationality.

Thanks Chaz for your inputs too.

From next week I have busy schedule as teaching begins at college. I don't think I'll be able to log in to the forum regularly.

I am coming out with Arguments of an Agnostic, Dialogues 2 and 3.