Would the Idea of God still exist.

Heres something I thought of.

- Would the Idea of God still exist, if humans didn't know they were going die and didn't get the idea from their parents, grandparents, family.

Imagine this, a very unethical program and unlikely program which raises several children in a "laboratory" in a very censored type of enivorment. Which censors the idea of death and god. Do the kids question why they are here?

Something like that would def, be able to solve if the idea of God/s is just because of fear of the unknown I.E death. Now I'm not saying we should do that, would def be unfair to the kids, but would the program pave the way for God to be "proven" or "unproven". Because if the kids do come to the conclusion of a higher being, or don't ever think of it, wouldn't that become proof we need to answer the question "Does God/s exist?"

 

Personally I don't think the kids would come up with the idea of a supreme being or beings. I think the idea of God is in relation to knowing that we as human beings die. And not knowing of what happens after we die, creates the idea of something after.

 

It's an interesting and still hotly debated question. Religion in general is presumably as old as humanity itself. Humans have always believed in something out there and the question is if that is a result of the fear (as well mysteriousness) of death or something else.

 

I think they would quickly develop a strong belief in God(s). So much would be unexplained, so they'd have to develop a mythology to provide meaning to their world.

 

I'm not saying the kids would grow up in an unmodern world. They would be taught, science, biology(excluding the idea of death), chemistry. A lot of things are known now, We now why the wind blows, we know why theres tides. We know why animals are the way they are. So what would be unexplained.

 

I fail to see how the thoughts of the ignorant prove or disprove that a god exists.

 

It would be extremely difficult to skip death in any lesson about life... And even "knowing" all those things, we still wonder "why?" I do, anyhow.

 

There is a theory out there concerning whether or not the belief in a higher power is innate within the human brain or not. It's a very intruiging question.

 

Donno. Quite possibly though, death isn't the direct formation of God for many. I think creation is at the end of the day. They might question, who put me here, who created me.

Though, the absence of "death" would be impossible to conceal from them if they were being educated. Death as we call it is part of the cycle of exsistence. Everything degrades and decays, you couldn't teach any form of science or explain anything in any form of the truths we know of today to them. In effect you would be creating puppets, and restricting their thinking. I still think if they had the ability of being self aware they'd contemplate something greater than themselves, unless the greater being to them are the ones doing the experiments on them.

 

I wouldn't say it would nessacary prove or disprove that god acutally exists or not, but it would pave the way to proving that god is just out of fear of death.

 

Well, creation and death have something in common. When someone goes "who put me here" another question they usually ask is "we are just gonna die anyways so why am I here?" You can't really seperate the two.

And yes concealing death from them would be hard, but it may very well be possible. What about instead of hidding death you give the kids an explanation of what happens after we die. But you reference no god, higher being.

 

god is created by man
man explained unexplainable things like tides and lightnings by gods actions
if those kids will know what tides are, or what lightnings are,
then they wont associated it with god or anything spiritual or unnatural.
History showed us that people tend to associate unexplained things with "god"
so once long time ago there was a god of the sun, a god of the sea (storms),
god of the wind, and so on...
same thing goes with death, people cant explain what happening after we die
so they naturally come up with god...

the end!

 

That's just your opinion. You can't prove it.

 

I thought we had seperated it though. Ok, I guess you can't seperate it easily for us, because of the connection between creation and death, but to them you could make out that they were created and tha...

sorry just a thought, how are you going to explain time then? You'd have to relinquish the concept of beginning and end, of a moment or instance of anything and everything. Eventually they'd notice that things would begin and end, which could very well lead to a timeline for events and things, which is a basic concept for birth and death, which touches on the basic concept of creation.

Well, if we accept the birth and death of our bodies and work off what you said will happen to us after we die, .. wouldn't that suggest something more than they can touch and feel. I mean like they are alive here, and when their bodies die they're going somewhere else, but while they are alive they have no direct connection to where they are going, but some do. Wouldn't that impose a certain superior/inferiority complex where some can and some can't for them? I mean like, you're telling them about this place, but they have absolutly no concept of it besides from what you've told them. So in effect you are more knowledgable then them in this aspect.

 

I don't believe so. Religion is the only way that people can see any positive side to dying. In my opinion they use it as an excuse to shine a light on such a terrible subject. I'm sure there are studies on how religion coordinates with grave burials in early human history but I'm not willing to look into that right now so I won't discuss it.

I'd say that most people who believe in God do it for no other reason rather than the after-life. What other reason would there be to it for? Maybe somebody would attempt to use God as a passage way to happiness in life but I'd think that they'd soon figure out that God won't do sht to help you in life.

 

Well I've thought about this, maybe a false future. What I mean, is there would be this huge fake outline, that they are taught everyone learns when they are young. It tells them that when we die, we enter another dimension or something along those lines. So life is contiuned. I def, don't think making up a elaborate event which happens after we die is any different than what religion does, but this elaborate even would be backed up by bullshit science, so it gives them the illusion that its concrete proof.

Also another thing a few people who had religion shoved down their throats willingly or not, do have no other concept of it than what has been told their many years. Of course that is because they ignore other opionions. So they(the kids in this madeup experiment) would be the same as those sorts of people, but it would be because of the system they are in, they wouldn't be taught any religion, or anything that relates to a certain religion. That would def be key to this experiment.

 

GREAT THREAD!

I've often thought of this in a similar manner.

I believe that eventually (assuming that the kids are there indefinitely) based on how much info. the kids are given, questions will arise that lead to the discussion as to where they came from etc. Especially if one were to die from a disease, etc...

I think you (or we in the forum) need to work out more details before coming to any specific conclusion. I'm sure initially, all they would care about is food, then as pre-adults, sexual issues would arise and if there were a birth and/or a death...well, then the questions really start.

 

they would question how they came to be with what ever knowledge they had and may develop inclinations so to speak of something greater than themselves..unless they were somehow led to believe they were created in a lab then they would think the scientists were their god or "creators".But you cannot take the inclination of something greater out there out of the mental equation of even a reclusive sheltered mind in my opinion.There would probably a stirring...albeit a mysterious one?Just my very biased opinion lol

 

This still doesn't take into account the possibility that God does exist. In that case, it wouldn't matter if we live forever, we would have the idea because it would still be instilled in us.

 

its not an opinion, its a fact!
many years ago, when the world worshiped idols and multiple gods
like Apollo the god of sun or whatever, one small nation was born
they called themselves Israelis, and they come up with Judaism
the very first religion in human history that had 1 god
its an historical fact (I watched a show on National Geographic about it)
from Judaism came Christianity and Islam