I was raised Hindu and omg this is so evident. Dharma and karma are essential in the faith. Dharma outlines your roles and responsibilities in life. Basically, you're born poor because of your past karma. You deserve to be poor. So don't overstep your boundaries and stay in your lane. And let the rich and powerful walk all over you because they are more deserving.
God has emotions because it is created in man's image. It's pure projection sold through propaganda to keep the weak, scared, and stupid under the thumb of the kind of men who wish to rule.
Less cynically, I believe the argument in scripture is the inverse. Man was created in god's image therefore we probably inherited a lot of properties of the devine.
Well, that’s what a rhetorical question is. You’re making a statement, not a query, but the best way to couch your statement happens to be with a question mark at the end of it. I’m not sure this is the best example of one, but at least they made an attempt to label it as such.
So first, asking religious questions on the Fediverse is a fool's errand, but that aside: Why not? Hell, if anything it'd be the other way around: An all-powerful being without emotion wouldn't create anything, because they wouldn't gain anything from doing so. Any creation by an omnipotent being would have to be an emotional affair.
Because nobody actually answers the question. "Because it's bullshit" is the least interesting, least informative answer you can give to a question like this, and it does nothing except make the commenter feel clever. It gets especially annoying when legitimate answers are buried under dozens of "because God doesn't exist I'm so smart." Now an answer could reject the premise that a creator exists and still be interesting, but it'd have to do better than the armchair anthropology everyone here seems so fond of.
I hope you have the same opinion regarding philosophy, pure math and string theory, but also: Then don't fucking answer the question. Clearly some people, including the OP, see value in discussing beings whose existence cannot be verified in reality.
I hope you have the same opinion regarding philosophy,
I don't care a iota about philosophy, in fact.
pure math
Pure math is a self-contained system that only occasionally is useful in reality
and string theory
String theory has no full international scientific consensus, so for now is just a possible model of reality. Does it bother you?
Then don’t fucking answer the question.
You seem to think I recognize your authority to give me orders. I don't.
Clearly some people, including the OP, see value in discussing beings whose existence cannot be verified in reality.
As long as they postulate it as fiction, I don't have an issue with that. The moment they posit they ideas are real, they're exposed to scrutiny to those among us who care about what's real and what's not.
As a final note, your tantrum is somewhat amusing, but in a different sense is somewhat sad. Make of that what you want.
You seem to think I recognize your authority to give me orders. I don't.
No, he's giving you free advice on how not to be an insufferable dickhead in public; advice that you seem to desperately need, and this is coming from an atheist, before you think I am playing team sports.
It's a very simple concept: if all you're contributing to a conversation is the equivalent of coming into the room and violently jerking yourself off while going "hurrrr look how big my dick is" you're being actively detrimental to the conversation no matter if you're right or wrong.
You can engage with the conversation while disagreeing with the premise, that is not what you're doing. You are just being a smug teenage dickhead who needs to butt into every conversation to, if nothing else, reinforce the idea that there should be harsher barriers to being on the internet in the mind of everyone looking at your "contributions."
All written accounts of God are produced by humans for an audience of other humans.
In the same way that we might describe a storm cloud as "angry" or a sunny day as "cheerful", one might apply emotional descriptors to an omnipotent divine force in order to personify an impersonal and abstract entity.
Past that, assuming you believe that a divine being is above humanity, why wouldn't they have emotions? Emotions are a feature of sentience and God is supposed to be a super-sentient creature. If anything, it would experience these emotions more intensely and intricately than its creations. The human rage of a shout or the despair of a cry becomes the earth-splitting eruption of a volcano or the suffocating deluge of a flood.
At the same time, it is the overwhelming longing for companionship that drives a God to form life from the void of space. The intense joy in the creative act leads this fundamental superhuman force to tirelessly build an entire universe. The deep and profound pride and love which brings them among their creations clothed in their own form, willing to endure the humiliation of this avatar form in order to enlighten and elevate their divine progeny to their own level.
Absent these primal emotional urges, why would a God choose to be a God at all, and not simply languish within the darkness for eternity, content to the echoing silence of dead space?
If a deity like the Judeo Christian god is real, the reason they have emotion is we have emotion so early people would tie their emotions to them and think they have it as well. Something bad happens and it has to be god being angry and punishing them, because that was the only explanation they had.
Having power over somebody does not exclude you from having emotions. Superman is nearly invincible and a great guy who always does the right thing; but his feelings can still get hurt if people are mean to him, and he still gets angry when people are cruel to each other, such as a human murdering another human. God would be above a superhero, but the same principle applies.
If you are God, the point of creating humanity is because you're alone, and want to love and be loved. If you spent a lot of time and effort to raise your kids and they grew up to hate you for no discernible reason and did terrible things just to act the opposite of how you raised them to be, you'd be pissed too. Do I have "power" over my kids? I guess. I'm bigger than them and even if they're adults, you can always pull out a .22 and shoot them if they don't obey. But that doesn't solve anything and it's not very loving is it? I want to raise my kids to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because it benefits us all to act that way reliably, and makes us all happier.
If everyone obeys God just because they have to fall in line or die/be directly punished every time, that defeats the point of making humanity because they won't love you. Yet maybe it would be necessary to step in if they're harmful enough to the rest of humanity, hence the smiting. But most religions have an idea that God is trying to move us past the point where he has to step in, or has already stepped back permanently. Maybe God punishes evil after death to facilitate us getting our act together. Or perhaps he simply rewards the good and doesn't reward the evil.
Maybe he experimented a little in the past as to what actually works. Maybe he knew he was justified to punish evil, but didn't realize the toll it would take on him by hurting your own children until it happened, and that's why he doesn't do it anymore.
Don't @ me in the comments criticizing some specific version of God you have in your head. There's a million different religions that say a million different things. This is theoretical, answering OP's question.
Humans really want to have a reason for things. Any reason, even one that's wrong, is better than no reason. Some things have reasons that are only discoverable after centuries of investigation, but we demands reasons now.
The main idea is that books like Bible and Quran were sent to humanity so they are made for humans of the time.
The "anger" isn't supposed to be a literal anger, just how humans identify what happened.
For example most verses about wrath follow with curse or punishment etc, so maybe "wrath" is just what humans call it when God curses or punishes people; and it's not a literal feeling of anger.
There was a similar debate with how some verses say God heard/saw "humans were doing [insert thing]..." etc in the books.
::: spoiler Less relevant info.
Also in the case of Islam for example, different branches and even sects have different popular interpretations.
I know one Sufi theologist saying "All creatures were made to reflect God's light" so they might call it "What our own emotions were modeled after, and are distorted versions of?"
Then there is Ahl al-Ra'y (Mainly followers of Maturidism today) who see Hadith as "uncredible" so they usually have slightly different views on most stuff. But I am not religious enough to learn theology that far.
:::
I know one Sufi theologist saying "All creatures were made to reflect God's light" so they might call it "What our own emotions were modeled after, and are distorted versions of?"
This is (unsurprisingly, since Islam is an Abramic faith, also further descended from ancient Sumerian religion) very similar to "the shattering of the vessels" in certain sects of Judaism. And incidentally, I agree with it.
Well, the obvious answer is: if God is so much greater than humans, how would we know? If you’re talking about the Hebrew god from the Christian Bible / Jewish Scriptures, you’re seeing the depiction of God as told through the lens of humans, who often try to be telling other humans about god using the limited vocabulary and imagery available.
God is depicted as being powerful enough that a human not being fully aligned with God but being in God’s presence would lead to annihilation, just like a human approaching the sun would be destroyed — not because the sun was angry, just because of its nature compared to ours.
On the flip side of that, for the biblical God, humans are made in God’s image, which means the species as a whole would reflect God’s character (including the bit about wanting to be the ones fully in control).
Within the context of a story understood to be fiction:
Smiting and wrath are actions. They don't require emotions exactly. Break the rules, get punished. Fork around on a ladder, find out how fast the ground moves. Not because the ladder is angry, but because you forked up.
Being "upset" could simply be people writing about their own understanding of God. Remember it was all written by people. And not like they were copying words as God literally dictated them. But through "revelation". They were "given" "understanding". As in the ideas kind of miraculously kind of popped onto their heads. So it's all limited to what they could comprehend.
Because the bible was written by humans. Just like how most aliens in movies have humanoid characteristics, people usually create things in their image.
Aren’t we as humans proving every year that goes by, that no matter how much power and knowledge you amass, you can still be an evil, childish, asshole? God is just a little further along that dotted line. He’s got all the power and knowledge. This doesn’t make him mature or good.
Because it’s God’s nature? Sorry, but this seems like a pretty weak gotcha. The “Can God create a stone that he himself cannot lift?” is much better. This one is like asking “Why, if electrons present particle characteristics, do we don’t know (precisely) where an electron is at any given time?”. It’s just their nature, there is no reason behind it.
Omnipotence implies the ability to control emotions (along with everything else). Were God only framed as being omniscient, then your answer could explain it. It's a bit harder to ignore the gap for omnipotence.
OP's question is a version of the classic Omnipotence Paradox: "Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?", which has had a good couple of thousand years worth of discussion, but no particularly satisfying answers. I doubt lemmy will have a breakthrough, but no harm in trying.
Controlling your emotions simply means that you do not immediately react the way your emotions would take you, and that instead you act appropriately to the situation. It doesn't mean that you don't have emotions, or that those emotions cannotir should not influence your resolve towards the line of action you decide to take.
I also don't see how it is related to the rock question (or my favorite alternate, could God microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cannot eat it). There is not a paradox between being powerful and having emotions.
Just for fun, as a stab at the paradox: yes, God can limit his own power or prevent himself from doing stuff because he said he would. Like for example in the Christian religion Jesus came as a human and that severely limited himself. At one point he really wanted to not die but couldn't do anything about it because that was the path he set for himself and he can't lie. Same principle applies even if Christianity isn't "the one".
I think where people tend to get tripped up with this paradox is that things cannot be simultaneously true. God could make the sky totally purple, but he didn't, so we're here with the sky being totally blue during the day. He could make it half purple and half blue, but didn't do that either. That's not proof of a lack of power. He could make the rock too heavy, and then he could make the rock not too heavy later, kr himself stronger. This doesn't disprove anything about theoretical omnipotence. And lastly, presumably things are explained to us in a way we understand. Perhaps God does have some sort of hard limits to power, but as far as we are concerned it may as well be infinite. There's not much of a point in semantics. The very question betrays our human way of seeing things, God probably does not usually have a body to lift things. Does levitating it "count"? Does moving the earth down count? Does asking someone or something else to do it count? It's an interesting question that has persisted for a long time, I just don't think it ultimately means much once you break it down.
OP specifically mentioned smiting and wrath, which is often considered violent and destructive anger, so I interpreted the question to include acting based on emotion. If we assume that this is about the Abrahamic religions, we've got some examples to consider where God may not have acted proportionally or appropriately.
That's where the paradox kicks in. Can God feel anger so strong he cannot control his actions? If God is omnipotent and therefore capable of acting appropriately despite emotions, or, because of omnipotence he is capable of not having those emotions at all, then why the carnage?
One example could be the Noahic Covenant, where it was somehow necessary to kill all animals (except two of each species) because of disappointment in human wickedness. Another might be the Ten Plagues of Egypt and ensuing Deuteronomy Covenant where the punishment for one person's disobedience requires the punishment of others, including children, future wives and livestock. It doesn't seem at all clear why all the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth had it coming, when omnipotence allows for simply fixing the problem.
Humans anthropomorphize pretty much everything around us with varying levels of accuracy. I'm fairly certain that my dog and cat feel anger and love in a very similar way to the way I do. I'm pretty sure plants really don't, but they might a little bit more than a storm cloud. However you apply that to your spirituality or your perception of that of others is going to be a highly personal experience for you.
Because we apply human traits to God, and because being emotionless doesn't necessarily indicate being higher than someone else.
In most traditions, God is incomprehensible to humans. Polytheistic religions break God down into multiple Gods or Goddesses with different characteristics, which is how they explain all of the events assigned to God. Lightning happens because of Zeus, etc.
For religions that don't break God down into different aspects, it's one of those things that kinda justifies itself. Bad things are happening so God is mad, if God is mad he has to have a good reason because he's omnipotent. That's where the faith part comes in.
Abrahamic religions especially have a father/child or teacher/student dynamic between God and humans. A major negative of the Fall of Man was that we had separated ourselves from God and could no longer could wander the Garden of Eden.
The implication is that God knows more than us, and to have faith that he acts for the good of humanity even if we don't understand in our limited knowledge.
God can't be described in the terms of man so they give him human like traits to try and understand him. That would be my logical take if I believed in magical sky daddies.
Who told you God is omnipotent and above humans? Who told you he or she has emotions, or smites or becomes upset or wrathful?
Any God worth naming as such is so beyond such concepts as to be entirely inscrutable. It's people that ascribe such characteristics, usually to influence other people. In any case, it comes from an inclination to anthropomorphize the unknown, to rationalize non-human phenomena through a familiar human lens. The conflict isn't in God, it's in God's self-appointed biographers.
Because many people would rather believe that someone is in charge of natural disasters and suffering. Some take it further as a pretense for convincing their peers to remove competitors for resources.
Religion is a primitive means of governance. Check out the Books of Laws in the Old Testament. This is literal civil code for the time lightly veiled as something mystical.
The problem is, the bigger a population becomes, the less wieldy religion becomes as a means of governance. It’s why cults work but the state of Iran (as one example) is rife with dissension and horrible enforcement laws. Too many people for stable governance via religion. Factions, insurgents, defectors will abound.
Sounds like you want God how they're portrayed in Druze: The Druze conception of the deity is declared by them to be one of strict and uncompromising unity. The main Druze doctrine states that God is both transcendent and immanent, in which he is above all attributes, but at the same time, he is present.[188]
In their desire to maintain a rigid confession of unity, they stripped from God all attributes (tanzīh). In God, there are no attributes distinct from his essence. He is wise, mighty, and just, not by wisdom, might, and justice, but by his own essence. God is "the whole of existence", rather than merely "above existence" or on his throne, which would make him "limited". There is neither "how", "when", nor "where" about him; in this way, he is incomprehensible.
People who believe in God have failed to adequately reflect on their beliefs. Religion is fairy tales for adults. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Your question is simply a step on the staircase of rationality.
80 Comments
RoddyStiggs@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 49 pts · 138d
Because god is a delusion used as a means of social control and as an excuse for violence.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world · 30 pts · 138d
I was raised Hindu and omg this is so evident. Dharma and karma are essential in the faith. Dharma outlines your roles and responsibilities in life. Basically, you're born poor because of your past karma. You deserve to be poor. So don't overstep your boundaries and stay in your lane. And let the rich and powerful walk all over you because they are more deserving.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 138d
Man, amazing how a lot of religions align with letting the rich be douchebags.
Pat_Riot@lemmy.today · 48 pts · 139d
God has emotions because it is created in man's image. It's pure projection sold through propaganda to keep the weak, scared, and stupid under the thumb of the kind of men who wish to rule.
Dran_Arcana@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 138d
Less cynically, I believe the argument in scripture is the inverse. Man was created in god's image therefore we probably inherited a lot of properties of the devine.
myrmidex@belgae.social · 1 pts · 138d
StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 138d
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 26 pts · 139d
Starts with:
"Not to get into a debate."
Continues with:
" If God is so omnipotent"...
🤪
scarabic@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 138d
Well, that’s what a rhetorical question is. You’re making a statement, not a query, but the best way to couch your statement happens to be with a question mark at the end of it. I’m not sure this is the best example of one, but at least they made an attempt to label it as such.
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 139d
Because it's nonsense created by humans. Humans came up with these stories, of course they anthropomorphized their deity.
StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 138d
nutbutter@discuss.tchncs.de · 20 pts · 139d
There is no god.
Sv443@sh.itjust.works · -6 pts · 139d
not what was asked
Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.de · 25 pts · 139d
But it is a possible solution to the postulated contradiction and thereby a valid answer.
snooggums@piefed.world · 3 pts · 138d
There is no god so it doesn't have feelings. Our fictional stories about god project human things like feelings onto that fictional character.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 20 pts · 138d
So first, asking religious questions on the Fediverse is a fool's errand, but that aside: Why not? Hell, if anything it'd be the other way around: An all-powerful being without emotion wouldn't create anything, because they wouldn't gain anything from doing so. Any creation by an omnipotent being would have to be an emotional affair.
StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 138d
riskable@programming.dev · 7 pts · 138d
Boredom is an emotion. As is hunger.
richieadler@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 138d
Why? Because believers don't like the answers?
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 4 pts · 138d
Because nobody actually answers the question. "Because it's bullshit" is the least interesting, least informative answer you can give to a question like this, and it does nothing except make the commenter feel clever. It gets especially annoying when legitimate answers are buried under dozens of "because God doesn't exist I'm so smart." Now an answer could reject the premise that a creator exists and still be interesting, but it'd have to do better than the armchair anthropology everyone here seems so fond of.
richieadler@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 138d
Discussing about a being whose existence cannot be verified in reality is an exercise in futility.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 3 pts · 138d
I hope you have the same opinion regarding philosophy, pure math and string theory, but also: Then don't fucking answer the question. Clearly some people, including the OP, see value in discussing beings whose existence cannot be verified in reality.
richieadler@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 137d
I don't care a iota about philosophy, in fact.
Pure math is a self-contained system that only occasionally is useful in reality
String theory has no full international scientific consensus, so for now is just a possible model of reality. Does it bother you?
You seem to think I recognize your authority to give me orders. I don't.
As long as they postulate it as fiction, I don't have an issue with that. The moment they posit they ideas are real, they're exposed to scrutiny to those among us who care about what's real and what's not.
As a final note, your tantrum is somewhat amusing, but in a different sense is somewhat sad. Make of that what you want.
NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io · 3 pts · 137d
... Wow. I'm going to hope for the sake of everyone you'll ever meet that you're just 14 or something.
richieadler@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 137d
I hope you don't procreate until you get rid of your religious delusion.
MolochAlter@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 137d
No, he's giving you free advice on how not to be an insufferable dickhead in public; advice that you seem to desperately need, and this is coming from an atheist, before you think I am playing team sports.
It's a very simple concept: if all you're contributing to a conversation is the equivalent of coming into the room and violently jerking yourself off while going "hurrrr look how big my dick is" you're being actively detrimental to the conversation no matter if you're right or wrong.
You can engage with the conversation while disagreeing with the premise, that is not what you're doing. You are just being a smug teenage dickhead who needs to butt into every conversation to, if nothing else, reinforce the idea that there should be harsher barriers to being on the internet in the mind of everyone looking at your "contributions."
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 139d
All written accounts of God are produced by humans for an audience of other humans.
In the same way that we might describe a storm cloud as "angry" or a sunny day as "cheerful", one might apply emotional descriptors to an omnipotent divine force in order to personify an impersonal and abstract entity.
Past that, assuming you believe that a divine being is above humanity, why wouldn't they have emotions? Emotions are a feature of sentience and God is supposed to be a super-sentient creature. If anything, it would experience these emotions more intensely and intricately than its creations. The human rage of a shout or the despair of a cry becomes the earth-splitting eruption of a volcano or the suffocating deluge of a flood.
At the same time, it is the overwhelming longing for companionship that drives a God to form life from the void of space. The intense joy in the creative act leads this fundamental superhuman force to tirelessly build an entire universe. The deep and profound pride and love which brings them among their creations clothed in their own form, willing to endure the humiliation of this avatar form in order to enlighten and elevate their divine progeny to their own level.
Absent these primal emotional urges, why would a God choose to be a God at all, and not simply languish within the darkness for eternity, content to the echoing silence of dead space?
Atomic@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 137d
I'm not religious. But I'm pretty sure they would say that we are created in his image.
So, if we have emotions. I don't think it's beyond reason that god might have them as well.
And holy shit these comments are insufferable. This isnt about your personal vendetta against religion, just answer the god damn question.
LapGoat@pawb.social · 5 pts · 137d
tbf in most cases with personal vendettas against religion, the religion started it...
Atomic@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 137d
Maybe, I don't know. But that doesn't excuse people taking it out on this guy for just asking a simple question.
It's called "no stupid questions". I always thought that also means "no stupid answers"
LapGoat@pawb.social · 2 pts · 136d
idk if we can expect people to not be stupid sometimes, thats just how we are.
thats why we get our lil votes and such, yes?
mech@feddit.org · 11 pts · 138d
Any omnipotent being must be capable of feeling emotions, otherwise that would be a thing they can't do, making them not omnipotent.
Rivermoonwolf@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 139d
As St George the Carlin asked, if God is all powerful, why does he need money?
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 138d
Because the shit that makes you feel all powerful doesn't come cheap!
AngryRedHerring@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 137d
"If God is all-powerful, can he make a rock so heavy even he can't lift it?"
The Class Clown album was the beginning of the end of my Catholicism
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 137d
G-d doesn't. G-d's creatures do. This is a means of distribution.
BeardededSquidward@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 10 pts · 138d
If a deity like the Judeo Christian god is real, the reason they have emotion is we have emotion so early people would tie their emotions to them and think they have it as well. Something bad happens and it has to be god being angry and punishing them, because that was the only explanation they had.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 9 pts · 139d
Or maybe it's the other way round: We have emotions because God has emotions (not to get into a debate)
etherphon@piefed.world · 4 pts · 138d
StoneyPicton@lemmy.ca · 3 pts · 138d
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 2 pts · 138d
Humans are created in his image. Morons aren't.
/s
StillAlive@piefed.world · 1 pts · 137d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IjBxitielk
richieadler@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 138d
You posit an unproven and unprovable character as fact and then retreat? Not very fair on your part.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 3 pts · 138d
So how do you want to define 'fact'?
richieadler@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 138d
Something verifiable which comports with reality.
Present evidence of your god in a way that satisfies the conditions in https://tiny.cc/SD_proof and I will probably believe it.
Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org · 4 pts · 137d
So this has no relation to what I have written before.
So you now have permission to leave.
richieadler@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 134d
No arguments like all believers. Go cry to church, then.
BladeFederation@piefed.social · 7 pts · 138d
Having power over somebody does not exclude you from having emotions. Superman is nearly invincible and a great guy who always does the right thing; but his feelings can still get hurt if people are mean to him, and he still gets angry when people are cruel to each other, such as a human murdering another human. God would be above a superhero, but the same principle applies.
If you are God, the point of creating humanity is because you're alone, and want to love and be loved. If you spent a lot of time and effort to raise your kids and they grew up to hate you for no discernible reason and did terrible things just to act the opposite of how you raised them to be, you'd be pissed too. Do I have "power" over my kids? I guess. I'm bigger than them and even if they're adults, you can always pull out a .22 and shoot them if they don't obey. But that doesn't solve anything and it's not very loving is it? I want to raise my kids to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because it benefits us all to act that way reliably, and makes us all happier.
If everyone obeys God just because they have to fall in line or die/be directly punished every time, that defeats the point of making humanity because they won't love you. Yet maybe it would be necessary to step in if they're harmful enough to the rest of humanity, hence the smiting. But most religions have an idea that God is trying to move us past the point where he has to step in, or has already stepped back permanently. Maybe God punishes evil after death to facilitate us getting our act together. Or perhaps he simply rewards the good and doesn't reward the evil. Maybe he experimented a little in the past as to what actually works. Maybe he knew he was justified to punish evil, but didn't realize the toll it would take on him by hurting your own children until it happened, and that's why he doesn't do it anymore.
Don't @ me in the comments criticizing some specific version of God you have in your head. There's a million different religions that say a million different things. This is theoretical, answering OP's question.
bufalo1973@piefed.social · 7 pts · 138d
Which of the 3000 gods are you referring to?
Triumph@fedia.io · 6 pts · 138d
Humans really want to have a reason for things. Any reason, even one that's wrong, is better than no reason. Some things have reasons that are only discoverable after centuries of investigation, but we demands reasons now.
Jankatarch@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 137d
The main idea is that books like Bible and Quran were sent to humanity so they are made for humans of the time.
The "anger" isn't supposed to be a literal anger, just how humans identify what happened.
For example most verses about wrath follow with curse or punishment etc, so maybe "wrath" is just what humans call it when God curses or punishes people; and it's not a literal feeling of anger.
There was a similar debate with how some verses say God heard/saw "humans were doing [insert thing]..." etc in the books.
::: spoiler Less relevant info. Also in the case of Islam for example, different branches and even sects have different popular interpretations.
I know one Sufi theologist saying "All creatures were made to reflect God's light" so they might call it "What our own emotions were modeled after, and are distorted versions of?"
Then there is Ahl al-Ra'y (Mainly followers of Maturidism today) who see Hadith as "uncredible" so they usually have slightly different views on most stuff. But I am not religious enough to learn theology that far. :::
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 137d
This is (unsurprisingly, since Islam is an Abramic faith, also further descended from ancient Sumerian religion) very similar to "the shattering of the vessels" in certain sects of Judaism. And incidentally, I agree with it.
AngryRedHerring@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 137d
Or vanity. "I'm gonna need y'all to show up once a week to tell me how awesome I am"
adespoton@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 139d
Well, the obvious answer is: if God is so much greater than humans, how would we know? If you’re talking about the Hebrew god from the Christian Bible / Jewish Scriptures, you’re seeing the depiction of God as told through the lens of humans, who often try to be telling other humans about god using the limited vocabulary and imagery available.
God is depicted as being powerful enough that a human not being fully aligned with God but being in God’s presence would lead to annihilation, just like a human approaching the sun would be destroyed — not because the sun was angry, just because of its nature compared to ours.
On the flip side of that, for the biblical God, humans are made in God’s image, which means the species as a whole would reflect God’s character (including the bit about wanting to be the ones fully in control).
Steve@communick.news · 4 pts · 138d
Within the context of a story understood to be fiction:
Smiting and wrath are actions. They don't require emotions exactly. Break the rules, get punished. Fork around on a ladder, find out how fast the ground moves. Not because the ladder is angry, but because you forked up.
Being "upset" could simply be people writing about their own understanding of God. Remember it was all written by people. And not like they were copying words as God literally dictated them. But through "revelation". They were "given" "understanding". As in the ideas kind of miraculously kind of popped onto their heads. So it's all limited to what they could comprehend.
Karmanopoly@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 139d
Also why did he choose to be a doctor of all jobs?
Apepollo11@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 138d
I mean, the red robes and glowing orb do have a certain appeal.
scytale@piefed.zip · 4 pts · 138d
Because the bible was written by humans. Just like how most aliens in movies have humanoid characteristics, people usually create things in their image.
scarabic@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 138d
Aren’t we as humans proving every year that goes by, that no matter how much power and knowledge you amass, you can still be an evil, childish, asshole? God is just a little further along that dotted line. He’s got all the power and knowledge. This doesn’t make him mature or good.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 138d
Because it’s God’s nature? Sorry, but this seems like a pretty weak gotcha. The “Can God create a stone that he himself cannot lift?” is much better. This one is like asking “Why, if electrons present particle characteristics, do we don’t know (precisely) where an electron is at any given time?”. It’s just their nature, there is no reason behind it.
yellerbadger@piefed.social · 4 pts · 138d
I don't think it necessarily follows that omnipotence necessitates lack of emotion.
DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 139d
IQ =/= EQ
fiat_lux@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 139d
Omnipotence implies the ability to control emotions (along with everything else). Were God only framed as being omniscient, then your answer could explain it. It's a bit harder to ignore the gap for omnipotence.
OP's question is a version of the classic Omnipotence Paradox: "Can God make a rock so heavy he can't lift it?", which has had a good couple of thousand years worth of discussion, but no particularly satisfying answers. I doubt lemmy will have a breakthrough, but no harm in trying.
BladeFederation@piefed.social · 1 pts · 138d
Controlling your emotions simply means that you do not immediately react the way your emotions would take you, and that instead you act appropriately to the situation. It doesn't mean that you don't have emotions, or that those emotions cannotir should not influence your resolve towards the line of action you decide to take.
I also don't see how it is related to the rock question (or my favorite alternate, could God microwave a burrito so hot that he himself cannot eat it). There is not a paradox between being powerful and having emotions.
Just for fun, as a stab at the paradox: yes, God can limit his own power or prevent himself from doing stuff because he said he would. Like for example in the Christian religion Jesus came as a human and that severely limited himself. At one point he really wanted to not die but couldn't do anything about it because that was the path he set for himself and he can't lie. Same principle applies even if Christianity isn't "the one".
I think where people tend to get tripped up with this paradox is that things cannot be simultaneously true. God could make the sky totally purple, but he didn't, so we're here with the sky being totally blue during the day. He could make it half purple and half blue, but didn't do that either. That's not proof of a lack of power. He could make the rock too heavy, and then he could make the rock not too heavy later, kr himself stronger. This doesn't disprove anything about theoretical omnipotence. And lastly, presumably things are explained to us in a way we understand. Perhaps God does have some sort of hard limits to power, but as far as we are concerned it may as well be infinite. There's not much of a point in semantics. The very question betrays our human way of seeing things, God probably does not usually have a body to lift things. Does levitating it "count"? Does moving the earth down count? Does asking someone or something else to do it count? It's an interesting question that has persisted for a long time, I just don't think it ultimately means much once you break it down.
fiat_lux@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 138d
OP specifically mentioned smiting and wrath, which is often considered violent and destructive anger, so I interpreted the question to include acting based on emotion. If we assume that this is about the Abrahamic religions, we've got some examples to consider where God may not have acted proportionally or appropriately.
That's where the paradox kicks in. Can God feel anger so strong he cannot control his actions? If God is omnipotent and therefore capable of acting appropriately despite emotions, or, because of omnipotence he is capable of not having those emotions at all, then why the carnage?
One example could be the Noahic Covenant, where it was somehow necessary to kill all animals (except two of each species) because of disappointment in human wickedness. Another might be the Ten Plagues of Egypt and ensuing Deuteronomy Covenant where the punishment for one person's disobedience requires the punishment of others, including children, future wives and livestock. It doesn't seem at all clear why all the creeping things that creepeth upon the Earth had it coming, when omnipotence allows for simply fixing the problem.
Apytele@sh.itjust.works · 3 pts · 138d
Humans anthropomorphize pretty much everything around us with varying levels of accuracy. I'm fairly certain that my dog and cat feel anger and love in a very similar way to the way I do. I'm pretty sure plants really don't, but they might a little bit more than a storm cloud. However you apply that to your spirituality or your perception of that of others is going to be a highly personal experience for you.
Cornpop@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 137d
Because we created god in our image
Strider@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 138d
Religion does not and never made any logical sense.
(this does not mean it does not have any / also positive use for societies)
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 138d
Don't forget jealousy!
VerilyFemme@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 138d
Because we apply human traits to God, and because being emotionless doesn't necessarily indicate being higher than someone else.
In most traditions, God is incomprehensible to humans. Polytheistic religions break God down into multiple Gods or Goddesses with different characteristics, which is how they explain all of the events assigned to God. Lightning happens because of Zeus, etc.
For religions that don't break God down into different aspects, it's one of those things that kinda justifies itself. Bad things are happening so God is mad, if God is mad he has to have a good reason because he's omnipotent. That's where the faith part comes in.
Abrahamic religions especially have a father/child or teacher/student dynamic between God and humans. A major negative of the Fall of Man was that we had separated ourselves from God and could no longer could wander the Garden of Eden.
The implication is that God knows more than us, and to have faith that he acts for the good of humanity even if we don't understand in our limited knowledge.
We like to think God cares about us.
IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.wtf · 3 pts · 138d
It's a little like when a mediocre screenwriter tries to write a character who is supposedly a genius.
zuckey78@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 138d
Who can personify the ultimate? Be wary of those who claim the authority to describe it as such…
Doomsider@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 138d
God can't be described in the terms of man so they give him human like traits to try and understand him. That would be my logical take if I believed in magical sky daddies.
itisileclerk@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 137d
To be omnipotent first need to exist. If don't exist then anything after is nonsense, therefore can be portrayed as wild as author's imagination is.
agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 138d
Who told you God is omnipotent and above humans? Who told you he or she has emotions, or smites or becomes upset or wrathful?
Any God worth naming as such is so beyond such concepts as to be entirely inscrutable. It's people that ascribe such characteristics, usually to influence other people. In any case, it comes from an inclination to anthropomorphize the unknown, to rationalize non-human phenomena through a familiar human lens. The conflict isn't in God, it's in God's self-appointed biographers.
BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz · 2 pts · 138d
Genesis 1:27
“So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.“
muse@piefed.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 138d
Because many people would rather believe that someone is in charge of natural disasters and suffering. Some take it further as a pretense for convincing their peers to remove competitors for resources.
thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 138d
It's all fictional, it can be whatever you want
Zephorah@discuss.online · 2 pts · 138d
Religion is a primitive means of governance. Check out the Books of Laws in the Old Testament. This is literal civil code for the time lightly veiled as something mystical.
The problem is, the bigger a population becomes, the less wieldy religion becomes as a means of governance. It’s why cults work but the state of Iran (as one example) is rife with dissension and horrible enforcement laws. Too many people for stable governance via religion. Factions, insurgents, defectors will abound.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 137d
It's how cults such as Zionism work. Ismael was also blessed by G-d but people who have a narrative conveniently leave that part out.
RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 137d
Why do you think emotions make you inferior?
That sounds like insane cult shit TBH
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 136d
God does not exist - and even if they do exist, they have about as much consideration for the human race as we as a species have for paramecium
Stamau123@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 136d
Sounds like you want God how they're portrayed in Druze: The Druze conception of the deity is declared by them to be one of strict and uncompromising unity. The main Druze doctrine states that God is both transcendent and immanent, in which he is above all attributes, but at the same time, he is present.[188]
In their desire to maintain a rigid confession of unity, they stripped from God all attributes (tanzīh). In God, there are no attributes distinct from his essence. He is wise, mighty, and just, not by wisdom, might, and justice, but by his own essence. God is "the whole of existence", rather than merely "above existence" or on his throne, which would make him "limited". There is neither "how", "when", nor "where" about him; in this way, he is incomprehensible.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 0 pts · 138d
If god is Jewish what did he use to circumcise himself?
Tedesche@lemmy.world · 0 pts · 137d
People who believe in God have failed to adequately reflect on their beliefs. Religion is fairy tales for adults. Sorry, but that’s the truth. Your question is simply a step on the staircase of rationality.