An Ideal God

Inuzuka Skysword · 07-01-2009, 07:38 PM

Lately I have been wondering what faith-based beliefs would actually do good for a person. These days we have a choice of gods who all say that we must do this to become happy. In other words, they require us to forget about our thinking and instead make us strive to lose our rational mind. There are also gods that make us feel as if we don't have control of our own existence. I feel like that is a problem to.

What I was thinking about was, is there are type of god that would actually motivate a human to pursue happiness stronger without making him feel as if he has lost control? Could we use religion to benefit our lives. It would probably have to be a deist god of some sort. I was thinking concepts related to animism, pantheism, and such would be more attractive to this type of thought.

See, Nietzsche presented the conflict of pursuing happiness and truth. We must pursue both, but one's answer is dependent on the other. We can pursue happiness in truth or pursue truth in happiness. In other words, one has to come before the other and the fact that one does changes our possible answer on the other.

So whether or not god is real is not the question we should be asking. Whether believing in a spiritual entity is beneficial to humans is what we should be asking. My question is, what entity would benefit a human who is pursuing individual happiness? Is there even an entity besides himself? Must an individualist view himself as a god?

Also, if this idea has been discussed before in other writings please give me some references.

07-01-2009, 07:38 PM	#1 (permalink)
Inuzuka Skysword Existential Egoist Join Date: Jan 2007 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 1,468	An Ideal God Lately I have been wondering what faith-based beliefs would actually do good for a person. These days we have a choice of gods who all say that we must do this to become happy. In other words, they require us to forget about our thinking and instead make us strive to lose our rational mind. There are also gods that make us feel as if we don't have control of our own existence. I feel like that is a problem to. What I was thinking about was, is there are type of god that would actually motivate a human to pursue happiness stronger without making him feel as if he has lost control? Could we use religion to benefit our lives. It would probably have to be a deist god of some sort. I was thinking concepts related to animism, pantheism, and such would be more attractive to this type of thought. See, Nietzsche presented the conflict of pursuing happiness and truth. We must pursue both, but one's answer is dependent on the other. We can pursue happiness in truth or pursue truth in happiness. In other words, one has to come before the other and the fact that one does changes our possible answer on the other. So whether or not god is real is not the question we should be asking. Whether believing in a spiritual entity is beneficial to humans is what we should be asking. My question is, what entity would benefit a human who is pursuing individual happiness? Is there even an entity besides himself? Must an individualist view himself as a god? Also, if this idea has been discussed before in other writings please give me some references.