Sunday, August 12, 2007
God or Not...
Last week in class I brought up the issue of whether belief in a "higher being" is universal across different cultures, and some of my classmates correctly pointed out that this is not the case. However, what I had really intended that to say was that perhaps belief in a "higher reality" is universal. Every culture has sought to construct a higher reality that can explain the source (and purpose), not only of our existence, but of all existence. This construct, depending on the culture and the zeitgeist, varied in its level of sentience, ranging from a conscious entity imbued with intent and will, to a mechanical device following deterministic laws modulated by mild uncertainty.
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7 comments:
I also think that's true. Also, if you look at society and history it seems that it is only relatively recently (since the enlightenment or so, i think --at least for the western world) that a large proportion of people have stopped believing in a higher power or some sort of organized religion/cult. Religion has changed over time, but if you look back at the beginnings of culture and society a few thousand years ago, some sort of spiritual and/or religious belief was present in essentially every culture. There is definitely something to the idea that belief in a higher power is universal to the human condition.
I think everyone believes in a higher power, whether it is a religion or not
Well by universal do you mean that most people believe in a higher power or that every single person believes in a higher power? If you mean every single person, then I disagree with what you are saying, because I do not believe in a higher power and I know many other people that do not.
I think even more general than what Deep is saying is that all societies have tried to answer the question "Why are we here?" with something that exists that is bigger than us. Whether it is a bearded figure on a cross or an 8-armed being or just something that is responsible for nature, the stars, storms, etc.
Along the lines of the point that I-Chant brought up, I find that it would be safe to say that if a culture doesn't believe in a higher being, it is because they have posed such a question. It is the asking of such a complex, philosophical question that is uniform across all cultures and through humanity. It is this sort of thinking that tends to set the brain of human beings apart from the brains of animals...
i think that is true as well. there are more people in the world that believe in something, such as a higher power, than not. which i think has to count for someting.
i think at this point we have to define god and "higher-being", is the big bang a higher force? at this point we need to start defining terms before we can investigate this further
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