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Just finished reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman.

In the story, all the Old World Gods still exist, walking amongst us, but since their stories, the oral traditions, are no longer passed on, their powers have dimished (somewhat).

He writes this re. a minor god:

"You take a baby and you bring it up in darkness, letting it see no one, touch no one, and you feed it well . . . better than any of the village's other children, and then, five winters on, when the night is at its longest, you drag the terrified child out of its hut and into the circle of bonfires, and you pierce it with blades of iron and of bronze. Then you smoke the small body over charcoal fires until it is properly dried, and you wrap it in furs and carry it with you from encampment to encampment, deep in the Black Forest, sacrificing animals and children to it, making it the luck of the tribe.

When . . . it falls apart from age, you place its fragile bones in a box, and you worship the box. . . "

Presumably, stories are told about the "luck" and the God's power grows in the minds of the storytellers and their audience, and are passed on through the millennnia.

This sounds to me as plausible a way as any for myths to be born, some of which have to do with a God or Gods.

How do you think Gods are created?

Maybe from inspiration to fear.....and pretty well everything inbetween.

However would they be false Gods ?....I guess that would depend on the who and why.

Well from this I gather 2 things.

1) The idea of a god serving as a god

2) A god

If one has an idea of a god, thinks bones for example are a god or trees or animals etc. then all you have created is an idea, a thought. The only power it has is that which you allow it to have. In my opinion thats far from being a god and more like a pet to humans.

If gods are powerful, superhuman beings then I don't see how we could create them at all.

I believe in God and gods they exist in a world that relies little on human thought or actions, we however rely on them (to a point). Thus we don't make gods just ideas.

i dont think God can be made or created.the almighty is there from time immemorial . noone can find the begining of god nor there will be any end to it .

I think the idea of gods are to explain things people couldn't explain any other way. How earth was created. why the sun come around the world. People use gods to explain why bad and good things happen. It is both a excuse for our nature and a reason to behave. The god of war explains why we kill each other. The God of love why people act stupid when they fall in love with one another. It is an easy was to explain human nature and to try to control it.

Having spent about 4-years, 6 to 7 days per week and several hours each of those days dedicating my time to discussions about God/gods, I have to absolutely agree with sweetblooded.

Gods are created to provide answers when man is lacking the ability to find the real answers. Little by little they take on other duties such as to promote one idea over another, to vindicate prejudice against certain people or to justify a war. It's one thing to assert your opinion and quite another to proclaim that you're delivering God's word. People might doubt other people but they're taught never to question a god.

Aside from man's imagination, gods don't exist and they never have. They didn't exist when people were tossing their children into volcanoes and they didn't exist during The Crusades or The Inquisition. Gods are a purely human concept, manufactured out of the imaginations of men, a degree of ignorance and the desire to control others.

The most popular method for creating any god is to write your own ideas, beliefs, cultural standards and stories and then proclaim they're the message of the chosen god. Of course since this has been done throughout man's history and none of these gods has shown the slightest hint of being real, the last way any real god (assuming any god ever existed), would want to make his presence known is by inspiring people to write his message and pass it to other men. Such a tactic instantly labels him as a fraud and gods would have no need of such easily faked means of recording a message. Omnipotence gives one any means they choose to make their presence and their message known and writing things down with ordinary parchment and ink is probably among the absolute worst of choices, especially when you don't even use your own hand.

And yet this is exactly what Muslims expect us to believe, what Mormons expect us to believe, what Faithists expect us to believe and what Christians expect us to believe. And not one of those books provides any evidence that it was other than the writing of men. In many cases, superstitious, relatively ignorant, intellectually-ancient, men.

How is a God made? Talk about it now, pass it on, in a few years it becomes truth. Only this is supposed to be a good lie..for most people.

I like to keep things simple, and I agree with sweetblooded. The God, the bible, and all things alike are just there for the moral. For the lost to find their path, for the rebels to find a fear and live "properly".

Uh well.. I don't know but that story is kind of messed up .... lol..

There's probably a more positive spin to put on faith in one God, savageant. I don't think everyone who believes that way is a loser. Losers follow the bell curve in belief.

Plus, I don't want to slam any particular belief. I want to explore myth. We talk about how vampires are made in here, and blood ritual, and cross-currents in supernatural belief.

God is supernatural so we should be able to discuss this without trouble.

This is rather an iffy subject as each religion or creed has it's own cosmogeny!

Actually what was posted by Bloodmother in the first post, quoting Neil Gaiman, sounds like as good an answer as I could come up with creating a god.

I don't believe God to be supernatural, it's something much more. You can make a vampire a lot easier than you can make a God.

Real gods or the ones that people know of?
There are indeed gods. Kingdom of Heaven has many beings with titles that we know of, "gods" is one them. Their presence past down to some of the stories that many or some know of. Their nature is their own. Our understanding of them is much different that was really is. For example, "Gaia" was known here as a god. She is also known as a concept of Earth. But, to some, in reality, she is one of the main beings that focuses energy to this planet. Far different meaning from either of the previous two stories. Gods with the little "g" are many. You can't make them by pasting down stories. Its the other way around.

I'm not sure there's much in the way of compelling value behind a list of blind-assertions. Anyone can proclaim anything to exist, not exist, be true, be false, be able to fly... whatever.

The key seems to be providing something more than statements, some of which, are demonstrably false. Claiming to "know" things when you can't demonstrate them to be true only tells us of the level of personal certainty. Were personal certainty (lack of doubt), any kind of measure of accuracy perhaps that might be compelling. But history shows us that simply lacking doubt is often the breeding ground of embellishment for falsehoods and not at all indicative of accuracy.

When you can demonstrate something to be true, then you have a credible claim to "know". If you simply lack doubt, it's still just belief.

So I guess the question becomes, can you demonstrate that gods really do exist or are we simply supposed to take your personal certainty as evidence?

The gods of the Ancient Civilizations were created to give credit, explanation and reason for the creation of the world as well as the things and creatures within it and the events that occured. Whether Civilizations are/were polytheistic or monotheistic, there is a higher being (or beings) that is/are given credit to how the world began.

I would not say that stories of the gods are not still handed down--besides the gods/or one God that are still a part of Modern religions, most people know of many of the many gods from Egyptian, Greek, Celtic, Roman, Norse and other Civilizations and Cultures.

Praying, serving and performing sacrifice to the gods were a way of life and survival in the mind of the people. It gave them courage and strength the same way the God/Gods of any religion today do. The Mythological gods are not forgotten, or any less important (in a cultural sense), they are just not honoured and revered in the same way.

i believe you could take a rock off the ground and call it bippity boo and make up what powers bittity boo would have and if you believe hard enough these powers will come to pass because with most things where there is a belief there is power ... i have a friend who worships a piece of string he calls fred and thoe i dont believe in freds abilitys that my friend gave to it seeing the positive results fred has in my friends life is very remarkable

Ah, American Gods, a great book by one of my favorite authors. Neil Gaiman has a great deal of knowledge on ancient culture and religions and refers to them quite a lot in his writings, as well as that system for "creating" a god.
He used a relatively similar mechanism when he wrote the comic book "The Sandman" for DC. In that comic, all gods started as dreams. If someone dreamt of a god and inspired others to dream of that god, then that god could gather power to themself and walk out of dreams and into the world of man, but they need to continue to draw power into themselves, thus the need for worship, and as the worship diminishes so does their power. And like in American Gods, these gods do not fade away, they carry on, but maybe they start to age, and they grab bits of worship here and there as they can find it in order to survive. The goddess Astarte (fertility/sexuality/war) was found to be a dancer in a strip club gathering up small amounts of worship to sustain herself. But gods could indeed die, but no one could say what happened to them after that....

A similar concept could be found in some of the works of Terry Pratchett as well, such as the novels Small Gods and Pyramids. But these books sort of poke fun at how organized religions are set up. Small Gods made an excellent point in that most people stopped worshipping their god and actually started worshipping The Church without realizing it (causing their god to actually not be as great and powerful as they thought due to lack of actual worship).

I always found this concept to be rather intriguing. I mean, according to this idea, gods are an invention of man, but they are also real because of it. I agree with a previous poster (to a point) that worshipping something, anything, in essence turning it into a god of sorts does give it power, at least over you, because you let it. If you have chosen a shoe to be your god and you think that putting a green jelly bean in it once a week will give you good luck and you really honestly believe that if you don't something bad will happen, then you are now a slave to that shoe and his green jelly bean sacrifice.

How about how to make a brand spanking new modern God ?

How would that God and what is now known about science etc get along ?

i suppose that you could make some people believe that any person or animal or thing is god if you told the story good enough....its all in the faith

well I would think you could make anyone or anything a god, it would be of how one believes and what has shown them something to make them believe they or it is a GOD, just an opinion is all I mean... some believe the universe soem believe in all the mythology gods etc. etc. So in theory we can make anything a god. or I would / could.

I think that people only believe in gods and the heavens as a hope that there is something after death. people are affraid of death, they want to live forever. Thus they make rumors and myths about the afterlife, and if you do the proper things in this life, you will live in eternal happiness with the gods.

very good point XTCraver (sp) I think that is it we want to believe in gods in order to have that immortal after life that is always told to us... very interesting.

Well first you get 12 of your friends together. You get really reallydrunk and hang out in the dessert and do some drugs. Then you right down all of your ideas into a book of how you what things to be. then you bury the book and walk back to town tell everyone that you are the son of god and you have a ll the answers. Then drunkenly destroy temples because you feel taht paying tribute to the curretn gods disturbing. Then you create a couple of miracles like walking on water(ICE) and tada............ wait someone did that already. Damn I'm out of ideas.

I know I have an odd out look on religion and related matters. I didn't create my GOD, my GOD created me. I don't have any problem in excepting that there is/were/maybe more than one God, there's many religions. I think all of us were created by our own Gods & Goddesses. That is why we believe how and what we believe. That is why I don't tell people they are wrong for believing what they do....actions on the other hand I feel completely comfortable having an opinion on. For example, the excerpt from the book Bloodmother used.....I think if that were to happen, they didn't create a god. They tortured a child and would receive vengeance from every higher being. I guess I don't really have an answer for this question. But I have tried to find any answer to my own similar questions that have had no answers except for other people saying religion is a fairy tale...which I don't except. Some questions don't have answers.

VioletDreams,

RE: "I didn't create my GOD, my GOD created me."

How did you first hear of your God? Were you told about him by other people? Did you read about him? Or did he first come to you himself?

Gods almost always share one trait; they're invisible, silent, without specific form and totally unconfirmable. Why?

If you were an omnipotent being who created other beings, would you then find the need to hide from them? Why do gods always hide? Why do we only learn about them from other people or from the writings of other people?

I think there is but one answer which appropriately satisfies all of these questions.

well god is the creater of this whole universe . we have been created by god . we cannot create or find the evolution of god.

I think of this as a kind of "chicken-egg" question because most religions say that their god or gods created the world. So how would you create what created you? I have no idea, but faith is probably the answer.

The fragment is a metaphor, I think.Well it reminds me of Plato`s cave.

How do we "make" a god?
You have the most relevant example in the vampire modern myth:
DRACULA.

I guess that in US is called "urban legend". BUt it seems that is not only a mere legend:
there is even a vampire temple now who tries to found a ... "religion"!

I dont actually think you can make a god. you can make an idol and worship it. but there is only one God and he's in heaven. He created the earth and the sun and the planets. and everything else on this earth. so you can make an idol like money for example. you can be obbessed with it and stuff, and you would be worshiping that instead of God in heaven. :) i guess idols are called gods. so i guess you can obsess over it and worship it. so that's how you make gods. be obbessed with it and worship it.

Roll up a bunch of energy put in a fancy box shake, hug & wait for it to explode then comes a god. lol But really there is no way us little minded people could make one. Unless its a "false" god. One who walks the earth stating they are. Me a god do as I say attitude.

You can not create God, for the reason that is impossible.

Also, in my humble opinion, sometimes people make a "God" to absolve themselves from responsibility.

"Give your problems to God". Or, "If I do what God wants, it's not my fault". Or even, "I don't have to care about the environment, this is only a temporary world anyway".

How to make a god?

oh the ways us humans could.....

but to some, it is just that, a faults god.

and to others it is easyer to believe in some thing to explain the world around us.

Stories make gods. And then belief in those stories make them exist and then make them powerful.

When a baby died for what seemed no reason, it was a demon.

When a Volcano erupted it was the wrath of a god.

A god is really just a manifestation of power or perceived power. To obtain power, ie over people, all one has to do is persuade those people to think that one indeed does have that power. A show of intelligence or ancestry is usually the most common way of doing this.

Called "The Place Where Men Become Gods" by the Aztecs who believed it was a divine site.

Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities.

The soaring Teotihuacan stone pyramids, now a major tourist site about an hour outside Mexico City, were discovered by the ancient Aztecs around 1500 AD, not long before the arrival of Spanish explorers to Mexico.

But little is known about the civilization that built the immense city, with its ceremonial architecture and geometric temples, and then torched and abandoned it around 700 AD.

Archeologists are now revisiting a cave system that is buried 20 feet beneath the towering Pyramid of the Sun and extends into a tunnel stretching for some 295 feet (90 meters) with a height of 8 feet.

They say new excavations begun this month could be the key to unlocking information about the sacred rituals of the people who inhabited the city, later dubbed "The Place Where Men Become Gods" by the Aztecs who believed it was a divine site.

"We think it had a ritual purpose. Offerings were placed at the very end of the tunnel as part of the pyramid's construction process," Mexican archeologist Alejandro Sarabia told Reuters.

"We want to find out why the Teotihuacan people sealed it and when," he said.

Sarabia said the tunnel was first discovered in the early 1970s but it was closed soon afterward, and most of the information about it was lost when the archeologist who found it died.

Teotihuacan is Mexico's oldest major archeological site and during its heyday in 500 AD, the city was home to some 200,000 people, rivaling the size of ancient Rome at that time, according to archeologists.

Today, it is surrounded by encroaching slums spilling over from the outskirts of Mexico City, but swarms of tourists still visit the giant 212-foot (65-meter) sun pyramid each year to celebrate the spring equinox festival marking the sun's return to the northern hemisphere.

(Writing by Mica Rosenberg; Editing by Eric Beech)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/mexico_pyramid_dc Sent by John Inclan fromgalveston@yahoo.com

"...pierce it with blades of iron and of bronze:...the gruesomeness of the story caught my attention. To me, it seems that a god - in particular an important god - has to die in some horrible way, then be resurrected, with more power and an understanding of life and death ( well - not in this case of the poor kid from the cave), but anyway...what came to my mind was the following:

The Egyptian god Osiris: cut into small pieces, then put back together and brought back to life
the Norse god Odin: hangs himself from a tree and brings himself back
Jesus Christ: crucified, then resurrected in three days

Besides being a venerated relic of some sort, it would appear that a god would have to go through some sort of transformation to prove his divinity...my take on it anyway.

Isis101: You're right, especially for a major deity. In the book, he does come back. They all do. Or, more accurately, they never ceased to exist, except in the minds of most New World humans.

Interesting how some gods started as humans. I mean, in their stories they are clearly identifiable as humans.

Whereas Odin and others, Osirus, never had the meat (for me, anyway) --- the blood suffering --- of say, Jesus.

Imagine that gods have already been made, to mans specification, some get more routine mantainance then others.

True, like Jeff the God of Bicuits. ;)

I do find it interesting that society changes religion to conform to society, rather than the opposite.

"I do find it interesting that society changes religion to conform to society, rather than the opposite."

I have problems with that statement. Unclear to me which came first, our God(s) coming out of our minds and needs or the other way around.

Clearly, at this point Christianity is pervasive in Western society, but when it started, it was a rebellion against the Hebrew establishment.

Makes me wonder what was going on societally to engender the Osirus and Isis story, or the Odin story.

The adaptation of Myth is much more accepted in those cultures then it is in the West. Their text is accepted as a grand fable.

I think Gods were mainly created to explain things that the humans couldn't. Like, why is there thunder and lightning? Because there's an angry mightier being up there, that's why! So, it's made just by the belief in it I think.

Gods are made to Transfer Fear, and to bolster the people that make them.. example.. "God intervened, because we are a blessed people."

Or "Gods wraith is on us, because we are sinning people." It is not a faulty civilization that causes their trouble, it is their "favor" with God that caused it. It is then the priests that one needs to interceed between the people and gods.

""How do you think Gods are created?""

use of imagination..

We are all "GODS", it just takes and event to make others believe with contemplation and devout desire.

I'm with RavenEyes on this one; Gods are created out of Mans lack of knowledge or need to rationalise everything. The Hogfather had it right...WHy NOT a creature which always eats one sock from a washing machine, or a fairy which plucks the hair from balding men?

Well, for example, Bloodmother, in Deut. it tells Christians to find all the non-believers, take them out in the street, kill them and burn the town. Does society conform to that, or do we "change the rules" so to speak. We change the rules, call it old testament, not literal, etc.

Bloodmother,

Re: "Unclear to me which came first, our God(s) coming out of our minds and needs or the other way around."

If you're unclear in this simply take a hard look at the history of Christianity. In the Old Testament (written as the oldest part of the Bible), God is a vengeful, wrathful, angry and jealous God who enjoys burnt offerings and ritualistic sacrificial killings. As man emerged from complete barbarity into something a bit more civilized, so does man's "unchanging" God. He turns to a God of love, kindness, caring and compassion.

If you look to the newest Bibles being produced, you'll even find that God has now been relinquished of the task of creating evil. In the King James Version it states;

Isaiah 45:7 "I form the light, and create darkness. I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things."

In the newest versions of the Bible, the word "evil" is being replaced with either "disasters" or "calamities" to relieve God of the task of creating evil. And few who subscribe to these edits to the verses care at all that this undermines the older assertion that God created Earth to be a paradise, and that through The Fall, man created disasters and calamities. Many people seem to be happier created yet another contradiction to govern their God than to accept the claim that their God created evil.

This is one small example of how people create their gods, then change them to suit the ideas, concepts and ideals of the people. Of course they still have the problem of a God who promotes infanticide, genocide, rape, kidnapping and slavery, among a culture who now finds all of those things to be highly immoral. The cultures who wrote such things of their God saw nothing wrong with such behaviors. As the people grow more civilized, they have need to have their God match their accepted level of civility so they simply change their God (as we find in the New Testament), to suit their needs, desires and ideals.

All religions are man made that is why they are imperfect, it is up to the individual to apply what was taught no matter the creed

Well what puzzles me is why the Old Testament gets cited as Christian. They tacked it on but it is Judaism. They started with El and then because of need in their time period they went to Yahweh who was a God of War and part of a group of gods and he proclaimed he was the only one to be worshipped. You can find out this information if you research. There was a change in view...still One but not exactly the same one. The Christians were trying to go back to the more loving original concept.

I think they are created for a societal need and in some cases they were actually people that lived hundreds of years or more prior that got immortalized and worshipped. This enters an area of belief and people can say this doesn't exist and that does, etc but no one can actually proove that either...it again is another belief. After all doesn't magick work by thought and if enough people believe something they become creators. This of course is metaphysical thought but something I think happens. The energy goes out and something happens, it is creating an egregore and we give it energy because enough of us believe it.

I just need to say that Amarican Gods is one of my favorite books. Neil is a genious! I beleive that any being can be created if enough power is given to an idea. If enough people believe in it, on some level it does exsist.

well all you really need to make a god is a beleaveable story of a god you deem worthy of a god some people to praise that god and a whole backlog story about the gods life and the people who serve him or her. really its easy to make a god and easy to get people to praise it and do as it's religion commands you too. this is that easy because most people know or days long for a purpose and whant to belong so its easy to bring up a random new god that attracts their intrest thus making a new god to this world.

beastt17: Thanks for the info on changes in the interpretation of the Bible.

With that in mind, does this mean that preachers, priests and ministers are now teaching a "non-literal" interpretation of what God is (in Christianity)? That is, if we can modify God's story, does that make God less the other? Less the almighty?

As always, history gets written by the victors...

In our recent history, the victors (and the educated) have been the christians... therefore our common cultural base opinions and rooted in christian philosophy

One thing to consider when you lay the mold for your deity is to account for the opposite of your deity, as well as the consequences for not being in the "graces" of the deity.

Oh.. and create a morally corrupt alternative world that would exist without peoples devotion to your deity.

If we have these doubts though it is pointless to follow any religion as we will never know the full story, though you do make an excellent point.

Beastt17 --- Jesus wasn't real?

Somebody had to lead the fray in the direction of a kinder, gentler God. them was rough times for a non-blood hungry bloke to go around preaching hearts and flowers.

There are cultish aspects to every religion, but some of the people you mention bear no resemblance to Jesus, in terms of his story as passed down to us.

Even Jews consider him real, a prophet, not a messiah.

Could Jesus have been an arc-type character ?

Jesus is likely as much a myth as are earlier pagan deliverers of salvation. In fact, if you look you'll find dozens of similarities between the biblical character of Jesus and many of the pagan gods such as Horus, Dionysus, Osirus, Mithras, Attis, etc.

Among the pagan gods many are said to have been born on December 25th, to a virgin mother and a father god, under the appearance of a special star. Some were visited by three kings from the East.

Some had 12 apostles, others had 12 brothers. Most suffer some kind of betrayal, often for a specified sum of money. Jesus is not the first to have been betrayed for the precise sum of 30 pieces of silver. The miracles proclaimed of Jesus are just as generic among the pagan gods including casting out demons, raising the dead, turning water into wine and curing the blind. It should be noted that Jesus is among the most recent of these proclaimed gods. Some date back to at least 3,000 years B.C.

Even Justin Martyr, an early Christian apologist, had to admit that the tales of Jesus offered nothing not already suggested to have been of earlier pagan gods. His explanation was that the devil's foresight provided him with knowledge of the events of Jesus to come, so he simply copied them into the pagan myths before Jesus was ever born.

All of that aside, the best way to determine whether or not such a character actually existed is to look for extra-biblical support. And when it comes to Jesus, there just isn't any -- at least, none with a measure of credibility. In those days there were many people who took the responsibility of documenting the pertinent and note-worthy events and people of their day. There are dozens of such historians known to have lived in that region and that time. Among them, only four offer any hint of a character such as Jesus.

The most commonly cited is Flavius Josephus but as I pointed out earlier, this shows every sign of being a forgery perpetrated by Bishop Eusebius, possibly on the orders of Emperor Constantine, during the third century. None of the content of that forgery is mentioned in any other writings prior to the third century and yet, Josephus completed his writings in the first century.

The next three come from Seutonius, Tacitus and Pliny the Younger. All of the references are remarkably brief and refer only to a "Christ", "Chrestus" or "Christis". Each is a title only, meaning "the anointed one" and could be referring to anyone held in high esteem within the church.

If we look to the rest of the known historians such as;
Aulus Perseus (60AD)
Coumella (1st Century AD)
Dio Chrysostom (112AD)
Justus of Tiberius (80AD)
Livy (59BC - 17AD)
Lucanus (63AD)
Lucius Florus (1st-2nd cent AD)
Petronius (66 AD)
Phaedeus (15BC-50AD)
Philo Judaeus (20BC - 50AD)
Phlegon (1 cent. AD)
Pliny the Elder (23BC - 69AD)
Plutarch (119AD)
Pomponius Meta (40AD)
Rufus Curtius (1st Cent. AD)
Quintillan (100AD)
Quintus Curtlus (1st Cent. AD)
Seneca (4BC - 65AD)
Silius Italicus (25-101 AD)
Statius Caelicius (1st Cent. AD)
Theon of Smyrna (70-135AD)
Valerius Fiaccus (1st Cent. AD)
Valerius Maximus (20AD)

... we find not a single mention of anyone consistent with Jesus nor do we find any mention of any of the proclaimed events which the Bible offers as the miracles of Jesus (the same miracles proclaimed of various pagan gods long before Jesus).

One might think that if one were to take on the responsibility to document the note-worthy events and people of their time, anyone born to a virgin, under a special star, mysteriously sought out and visited by three kings who followed that star (a single point incapable of leading anyone anywhere), would more than qualify as being note-worthy. If they grew to the age of 12 and were already seen as a teacher over adults (another pagan claim), and then began performing the most amazing feats ever to greet human eyes, it would be almost beyond reason to suggest that they could escape the notice and documentation of their contemporary historians. And yet, this is exactly what we are asked to accept in the accounts of Jesus.

Even if we look to the gospels we find as much to support the idea of Jesus as just a myth as we do to suggest the character is modeled after a person. Paul is often cited as the one who really got Christianity rolling and Paul never claimed to know Jesus. He met him only as a vision (likely an epileptic vision), while traveling on the road. And if we look to Hebrews 8:4, we find;

"If Jesus had been on Earth, He would not even have been a priest"

..which many take to suggest that the character of Jesus was held to exist only in a mythical realm, like many of the pagan gods before him.

In the writings of Paul, nothing is mentioned of the miracles of Jesus other than the supposed resurrection and ascension. And only after Paul has spent decades promoting Jesus and Christianity do we find other gospel writers joining in. Mark's entry appears to come next and it makes specific mention of the fall of the Jewish temple which we date (via extra-biblical accounts), to around 70 A.D. Jesus was said to have died around 33 A.D. So we have Mark, who claims to have known Jesus and to witness the miracles, not even bothering to document any of this for almost 40-years after Jesus has died.

Matthew, Luke and John all seem to follow along the writings of Mark and they offer embellishments to the miracles proclaimed by Mark, and even account for miracles of which Mark makes no mention. So here we have four authors, all of whom claim to have known Jesus and to have been eye-witnesses to the most amazing feats ever witnessed before or since, and yet not one of them bothered to write any of it down until some 40-years after Jesus is said to have died.

Up to that point, the tales of Jesus were passed mouth-to-ear and we all (hopefully), know how that works. You tell a friend something, they tell another friend who tells a relative, who tells their barber who mentions it to a friend who repeats it to you. By the time you hear it again, it's hardly recognizable as the same story. And yet if we look to the Bible, the gospel writers claim to quote Jesus. How well could any of us actually quote something a friend said, 40-years after they said it?

There simply exists no credible evidence to suggest that Jesus was actually a real man. All of the evidence provides adequate support for the idea that he was an embellished myth, possibly connected to particular properties of one or more actual men.

An embellished myth, and an actual man, even a gang or a wild bunch works for me. The pagan holdovers that you mention (the date, the star, the resurrection of the lord who is sacrificed), and even those you don't, like the Trinity, all fall into line as useful to sell a new religion or some new ideas.

I'm having trouble with Paul being the purveyor of these new ideas, though. Doesn't strike me as a turn the other cheek kind of guy.

Thank you KDS.
And that is a very funny way to describe it reaperhunt.
I would imagine you'd have to do serious lines of something good to make people believe that the beginning of human life were people with leaves over their genitals and talking snakes :)

I wonder if the apple that Eve ate was the best damn apple ever to exist??
But, screw Eve, it was all about Adam's first wife Lilith... or at least for Vampyres and Witches it is ;-P

I'm not so sure Jesus never existed. They are uncovering things but many teachers were out and about in that time period (rabbis) of all sorts and views. Jesus was a very common name and what they think has happened is the threads were interwoven until a composite person was created from the myths concerning all of them. There was one that lived a hundred years prior to when the Christian Jesus was supposed to have lived the created "miracles" and did many similar things. Then you have Rome taking over and all the doctrine is from someone who was never a chosen apostle. There is Pauline doctrine which most look to for their tenets but there is Johannine as well. The Romans always turned Kings and looks like Kings of heaven as the perceived it as God Kings. They embellished the life of King David to say he slew Goliath but he didn't. They just attributed the act to him to elevate his stature.l So it was what prevailed on the top of the heap at the time. Most of the gospels were written about 150 years later after being told and retold. This is the way of most beliefs anyway. They get embellished but that doesn't mean much of the core isn't still in tact of whatever message any one individual was trying to espouse. Doesn't mean there is no supreme being who is entirely impersonal that creates and moves on. It is hard for me to believe there isn't some form of consciousness behind it all. I have heard the math but I don't know what to call it and if others have a name for it and a story to make it more believable who am I to disparage that. It gets them to sleep at night and gives them hope of a better world. I think the best thing to come out of all of it no matter what you believe is the "Golden Rule." If you at least go by that you can't go wrong and anything else is icing on the cake.

The thing is discussions always end up in the pros and cons of Judeo/Christianity including disbelievers...wondering if anyone noticed there are many, many other religious views besides the one and their many denominations? We make a God by belief.

Historians in those times I would think had a hatchet over their necks at all times to record popular findings only.

Perform magic, use Gadgets that levitate chariots in the temple, all to entertain and amuse followers with their "gods power". Centuries away they will still proclaim the wonders of your performance.

If the people that want to make a god are looking for a little extra conversion power.. hook-up with a governing body, and promise to .. err bless the leader of the King.

If the historians of the day all had hatchets over their necks to assure they only recorded the politically correct events and people then we'd have no idea that anyone ever had a hatchet over their neck forcing them to record only politically correct events because it would be politically incorrect to mention the hatchets.

The historians recorded many things including things about the pagan myths and they did this even through times and locations (such as Rome), when it was illegal not to be a Christian.

Conclusion: there is little cause to believe that the Jesus of the Bible ever lived, that the events recorded in the gospels were actual events or that any of the supposed supreme entities suggested by Christianity, Islam, Hindus, pagans or any of the rest are other than human fabrications.

Everything which is intended to be explained by proclamations of the supernatural are offered more credible explanations without resorting to the supernatural. There is no evidence that anything has ever been created and no evidence of a sentient force behind the universe.

XTCraver,

In my opinion one of the most interesting things about the story of Adam and Eve is that God actually puts them both into a no-win situation. He punishes them for not obeying but in order to know it's wrong to disobey, you have to understand the concept of good and evil. And that's the knowledge he was trying to prevent them from obtaining.

If you can't know it's wrong to disobey without the knowledge of good and evil and God is keeping you from possessing the knowledge of good and evil, then when you disobey God in obtaining that knowledge, you've done nothing wrong because you couldn't have known what you did was wrong until after you did it.

It's a catch-22.

You summed it up, Azuredark, "We make a God by belief." We fall back to judeo/Christian discussions because it's the overweening structure most of us have direct experience with, even if we are not Christians. It's seeped into everything, imbuing the most simplistic discussions with its logic-tight conventions.

But other religions hold their adherents in sway with their own mythologies. It's as if we need a set of rules imposed on us from outside. It does seem as if we can't stand the idea of being alone in the universe, of having no ultimate provider/protector but one another.

I often wonder what civilization(s) would be like without the myths, fables and superstitions that seem to be the supernatural glue holding the rule book together.

We're born into the world with (seemingly) all-knowing, loving, protective parents. I'm not sure we should expect other than to want that to continue, even when there is no sign that it does.

well in my opinion all gods are created and they are created in the minds of men... anything and anyone can be god if one believes it in their minds.

people by nature have to belive in something so they can explain how things happen for instance some one chould say i'm a god and people start to worship me and belive strongly in this and as time goes on even in my passing theres still worshiping me as there god because it brings them peace of mind to have that belief

The problem is that peace of mind always seem to lead to persecution, prejudice, judgment and eventually, killing. Killing doesn't bring me much peace of mind.

I believe there has always been a Universal Source. Facets of connection (gods) have been created by a group believing hard enough to invoke a godform. This is the act of creation. This godform becomes the focal point (god) through which believers of this religion or magick users contact the Universal Source for the purpose they desire through prayer or spellcasting. Once created godforms never go away. (My belief)

If this is not enough I will start quoting passages from Terry Pratchet's "Small Gods" but that will be sarcasm and not proper for this forum. :) (Humor)

Originally posted in wrong thread. Sorry. :(

Id have to say this is probably true considering this thought on gods or goddesses

take Ares Apphrodite and Hades

the rulers of war love and death
these three things over all govern our lives at this point.

Where as a god of lightning or harvesting wouldnt be so sought after with the way people harvest and dont think of lightning though we use it to run our houses

Gods are created through other Gods. Procreation.

A human can't make a god or gods in my oppinion.A god is a purely celestial body that would be impossible to make with human hands.I do believe that some humans can have god like qualities about themselves however if one were to call themselves a god it would purely be out of arrogance and being conceited.I do believe that only a god can make another god,yes i do mean procreation.

well that is a good question however it is the reverse

Don't you mean, you "believe" it is the reverse?

We created unicorns, Leprechauns, mermaids, gremlins and a whole host of other supposed entities. I fail to see how gods are any different.

There is a possibility none of those were invented by mankind.

All "Gods" are in our minds, thus, made up. We believe blindly asserting "Faith".

ForeShadow,

Would you mind expanding on that? If man didn't create the concepts of Leprechauns, mermaids, unicorns, gremlins and gods, then who (or what), did?

a good advertising campaign sells you on GOD. There are many religions because we can't agree on the ways to worship, what to worship, or who to worship. Man has fashioned religion to suit his own needs rather than the needs of God. New religions or gods are created when someone has a different idea about who to worship and why. You would just have to sucker enough people into it.

Wow that is horrible! they really used to do that so they can create "gods"?

I feel that ppl make gods up. Someone thinks that they are higher then everyone else and as such proclaims themselves as a god. They put fear into ppl and thats how they hold their position.

God is just a title anyway. There are many of them and goddesses as well Some have many and they think of them individually and others think of them as aspects of one. It is how the culture sees the world and the creation of it. All cultures have stories of man's beginnings and however that happens they have a god or many gods. What is one mans god may be someone else's demons. I always see Bible quotes everytime any religious oriented thread comes up and I think people should understand that there are MILLIONS of people who believe in other things and just as fervently. I think we should be more open to that fact and that one world view isn't the only one. Some gods from ancient times seemed to have been real people who in the end were elevated through folklore to the status of a god in a cultural group. It's just a word to describe something we don't understand and most think of it looking like a human. I personally doubt that but that's just me. I think I would rather envision a more Motherly person and I guess I could just like magickians create Servitors. My very own personal god but that doesn't mean it would be something that created everything that exists. I think man has created many personal gods through belief in them.

I agree Mollidew. Succeeding civilizations often make demons out of the conquered's god's. That's how the great goddesses were degraded.

This topic made me think of the lyrics from Living Colour's "Cult of Personality."

You gave me fortune
You gave me fame
You me power in your god’s name
I’m every person you need to be
I’m the cult of personality
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Cult of personality
I know your anger, I know your dreams
I’ve been everything you want to be
I’m the cult of personality
Like mussolini and kennedy
I’m the cult of personality

Some "gods" are created that dwell on the earth by the people that follow them (sometimes blindly) - giving them the power of gods (so to speak).

Men made gods. before science, before logic -- when it was easier to explain things by referring to them as unexplainable; gods, demons, bogeymen were created.
there is a fantastic movie called "The Gods Must be Crazy" It has to do with an African tribe living their day to day lives when a pilot flying overhead drops an empty bottle of Coke which lands on the tribes property. The tribe thinks it's from the "Gods" and try to figure out what to make of its meaning, etc.

My point, people find comfort in structure and ritual. It doesn't even have to make sense, as long as it is something to hold on to as an explanation for what doesn't have a nice neat reason for it's happening.

If we all get together once a week and talk sports ect. then that is a lose church.. if one person preferes to talk about a set team each time, they may stand out.. off they go to find a group of those that share there take on that team.

If someone want to start a clinic but need an added boost, they are likely to put a religious slant on it, they can then catch people that had it with the strictness of churches, and get a clinical application as well. The founder.. they get tax exemption here in the United States at least.


So what a god does for people, and how good you can make it appear that a god.. or force is doing for someone sets the success rate for your gods likely turn out of Followers.

You need some wood, nails, clay, shiny paint, glitter & some tools!

Instructions to follow...................

gods are created by faith, worship wheather they exisit or not anyone who believes them to be a god is a god in thier eyes they aren't right and they aren't wrong.

the only differece I can tell u between the christian god and his word promises and has forfilled many of it's promises based on it's recoded evidence that many archeolgists have dicovered.

what did buddah do?
or the gods of eygypt?
what about the gods of ancient roman times?
any one?

A) they all had NAMES
B) none of them did anything they were just their they didn't preform miricles forgive and love they didn't prove their true power
c) and they all had a face, a structure astatuary a picture of somesort which means people had to see them to believe what ever happend to acting on faith?

how could gods be seen?

they where Flesh???

Lets not forget that my team is the tops, and all other teams could learn a few things from my team.. lol..

ask the scinetolagest and there god Zenew

what about zolatn?

mysticism is the key,,,,,,,,

gods are created when a mummy god and a daddy god do rumpy pumpy?????

Son of Loki and PIerced: Do you have any info on these "Z" named gods? How were they created?

How are gods created?

There are different means for different settings. Most have likely been created by popular vote while in search of answers. He with the "best" story asserts truth and when that supposed truth asserts a god, a god is born. Of course at a time before the advent of science, "best" simply meant that with the greatest appeal to those casting the votes.

Asserted authority always seems to be a factor in creating a god. All monotheistic gods are asserted to be the absolute in definitive authority.

Other times they are simply created by leading the winning army, by defeating others in physical contests or by completing levels or counting points awarded. Such micro-gods are often feeble in their abilities but no less shy to assert their proclaimed authority than are those who proclaim to be serving a supernatural god.

Despite the various methods, various levels and various degrees to which ego and lust for glory play a role, the one thing that remains true throughout is that all gods are imagined. Many are imagined within their own minds.

If it is possible to see ghosts, possible to worship nature, possible to believe in the power of yourself, possible to experience 80% or more of the things anyone claims on VR or the world for that matter, it just might be possible that God speaks to people, that in fact we don't make Him at all- and that He made us. Who's anyone to judge another, yet turn around and expect some kind of understanding for themselves?

This thread has been automatically closed for length.