Why humans as "Divine"

[gruber]

Why is it that most religions see humans as some sort of divine creature and not just a tool using animal that has a higher intelligence? Is it just plain arrogance or some kind of faint hope to make us seem abit larger then a speck of dust on a pimple on the arse of the Universe

[Loki]

Vanity and insecurity. They can't bear to not be the most important thing in the universe. A bit like Robert Mugabe.

[NakedApe]

Why is it that most religions see humans as some sort of divine creature and not just a tool using animal that has a higher intelligence? Is it just plain arrogance or some kind of faint hope to make us seem abit larger then a speck of dust on a pimple on the arse of the Universe

Yeah, we're so divine and so special that we must spend our lives on our knees begging forgiveness for imaginary wrong-doings and apologising for our existence :D

[nari]

The Creator made animals and man, then forgot that man would die out without a woman, so he fished around and used a rib to create a procreatoress. From a shaky recollection, animals were invented to be of use to mankind, so it follows that animals were subservient and therefore of a lower order.
In the same way, different-skinned people were savages and also belonged to a lower order. Getting complicated...

No wonder people came to believe, that until recently, white man was supreme on earth and by deduction, probably in the universe.

But the myth lives on that although we (or not, according to the Creationists) are descended from apes, we are privileged and have to bow and scrape and be 'umble to the bringer of this great privilege.

nari

[Caio]

Because we're the ones who invented it? Why would we invent a system only to put us on par or beneath all other organisms?
If you think about it from the perspective of people living thousands of years ago, its easy to imagine that us humans we're superior to all others, we can farm, we have culture, we can control the land and animals around us, we are very different to the other animals on this planet, so i guess that this view of superiority would be ingrained into any religion that was created.

[SchizoDeluxe]

My cat thinks she's a god around our house, oh the arrogance! :D

Speaking of that, if aliens came along and saw a human walking a dog down the park and then picked up the dog's shit as the dog dumped them on the ground, as is the norm for dog owners, would the alien really see us as the superior species on this planet? :p

[Brad]

Prior to Copernicus, there seemed to me to be a general acceptance of Man as the centre of the universe, master of all he surveys. We were pretty fucking important, don't ya know. Let's face it, the only reason for existance itself is us. God is supposed to have made everything so that we'd have somewhere to hang out while we praised his almightiness.

Since then, as we know more about ourselves and the universe, we have had to come to terms with the fact that we're not so special after all. We're just another piece of animated meat wandering around a planet in an obscure part of a minor galaxy.

But it now seems par for the course that any given Christian can post a piccie of deep space, wonder about the marvels of God's creation and then disclaim about how insignificant we all are in the grand scheme of things.

Hang about - that's my fucking argument! I feel like I've had the rug pulled out from under me. It's my job to point out the complete insignificance of mankind and question the requirement of a cosmos so freaking large that we'll never even be able to even see the parts of it that are already moving away from us faster than the speed of light.

So just what the hell is all of it for! The majority of it does not need to exist at all as far as we are concerned. Why did He make it all?

I posted that question in my usual Christian forum and the only reply so far is from someone taking umbrage at my supercillious tone. He seems to think that if I question the purpose of worlds that will for ever be unknown to us, that I am taking the piss out of faith and of the faithfull.

I think that there's a general uneasiness that Christians have about admitting that some things literally have no purpose. If God made it, then there must be some reason for it.

[atheist_angel]

Yes we are the most divine thing in the universe. So what if we are no 'better' than animals. If we believe in a g-d, he will make up the difference later.

(Supposedly.)

[Caio]

Interesting though how on the one hand religion likes to say how precious human life is to god, yet this supposed god allows us to kill each other over the very question of his existence without apparently giving a dam...hmmm :rolleyes:

[Godless Ray]

once again it is an inability to comprehend the science. Its not reading the right books. Its not deep thinking and observation. Its the answer you get when your both under educated and give it 3 seconds of shallow thinking

[atheist_angel]

@ GRay: Intelligent enough to ask the question
..but too lazy to research the question?

I think you're on to something...
Divinity seems like such a lazy answer.

[Godless Ray]

AA I remember Dawkins telling the story about some religious man could not explain something about evolution and dissed out the concept. Dawkins said he (the man) just wasn't able to think of an alternate answer right then and there, this of course didn't equate that there was no answer.

Stuff like evolution and divinity are all bits of this non thinking.

When you do read up on it it is impossible to then coceptualise how people could cling to this stone age thinking that is religion.

[atheist_angel]

@ Plastic: A tree exists, as it does, so we can make paper airplanes?

hmmm...