God

[maverik149]

Would someone who, in all their life, had never heard of God or religion, believe in an omnipotent being to justify human existence?

[incitatus]

Doubt it. I don't, and Ive had to put up with religious dogma most of my life. The one thing they would be likely to have is a creation myth, but these dont have to include omnipotent beings. Norse gods were far from omnipotent, in the greek and roman mythologies the creator of the universe was actually killed off by his family, many others have creation as an accident. The omnipotence of god is really a product of the Abrahamic religions.

[dinire]

I don't think that the last answer really makes sense in their own explanation of their "non-belief". The fact that they don't believe in God even when they've been influenced by religion is a matter of their own free will choice, not a fact. Their argument is that because a person has never heard of God, they can't believe in an omnipotent creator. That makes their own view irrational: surely then if all people heard of God, then the writer & everyone else would believe in God? As we can see, that is not true, as there are many atheists like that guy. I think it's foolish to discount the spiritual longing in every person's life. There always is one, but the difference comes in how people try to fill it, whether by organised religion, or by putting their faith in other gods, which is anything from their career, their money, their own limited perception of life and the universe. We can only ever know so much, individually or corporately, but there is no way we can ever know everything, despite our best intentions. And just for the record, I am a Christian, so I guess you could argue I'm biased, but I figure that I'm just open to discovering what this life is all about, and being a Christian is the only way I've found of getting some semblance of truth about anything! I guess some people would argue against that viewpoint, but I'm used to people saying there's no such thing as absolute truth & right or wrong, but fight you when you say they're wrong.....oh well, that's something for them to chin-stroke about! :-)

[Lonnie]

Humankind, right from the beginning, has always looked for a reason for everything, and being inherently supersticious, would always attribute something they don't understand as being miraculous.

The big question they would ask themselves is 'Why', and look for an answer.