A case for a man made god
 

This was taken from a livejournal community called girls_of_faith, where we discuss and debate different aspects of spirituality. Here's my take on a belief system I invented, currently named Pantheonism

Hello there, I'm Fortuna and here's the long and short of my thought process:
Religion has always facinated me, but I never felt that there was anything I could actually believe in. With the advancement of humankind in the age of technology and science, I feel that religion cannot hold the same place in society it once did. While religion used to give us the structure and stability to exist as a society, it is my belief that the religions of old time are no longer needed as they were back in the ages of ignorance and barbarism. We do not need superstitions to protect us from illnesses when we have medicine, we do not need to believe in an outdated fairytale of the world's creation by some omnipotent power when we have the theory of evolution (and I confess to waving the Darwinian flag, I adore the theory of evolution). We see the foolishness of punishing people for small misdemeanors and have adapted to a logical sense of morality. Our old gods cannot serve us as they did before, and yes I mean serve, which brings me to my first point:

God did not create humankind, humankind created God.

Think about it. Hundreds of cultures all over the world have established omnipotent deities to which they must pledge their allegiance or suffer horrible conequences. Every one of these religions have devout followers, some of which experience moments they believe they come into some sort of contact with their gods. The faithful of these religions pray to their deities and believe their prayers can be answered by their deities. And every one of these religions (to my knowledge) has a set of beliefs that can be refuted by science: this is because the religions were founded before science became such a large part of human life. During this time of ignorance, people were very afraid of the world around them- I'm sure our ancestors felt very alone in the wide universe and needed something to explain why water fell from the clouds or why seemingly healthy people suddenly dropped dead, or what kept the stars from falling down on us- what kept us from hurtling aimlessly through space. So the ancient people all across the world took their fears and made something greater than their fears: their gods.

But now we do not need these gods to protect us. We do not need to fear their wrath and beg their clemency. Today's people are filled with the wisdom of the ages; we need only read it, interpret it, and put it to good use. But the gods remain, challenging our logic with time-worn superstition and the threat of eternal damnation or other unpleasant fates. But these old gods, and the 'new gods' which I shall explain in a moment, are subject to the mind of their followers. Anyone can learn to abandon the gods of old, and it is my belief that they ought to be abandoned- they have served their purposes in our world.

Now, about the 'new gods' I alluded to. Tying back to my first point, if humans created their gods, then it is possible for any human to create their own god. Creating one's own god, to serve their individual needs and help them to reach a higher purpose. Perhaps, out of context, this seems a little arrogant, but let me explain in terms of how I go through my life with these 'personal deities'.

I am an imaginative person- so creating a few dozen little characters for this purpose was not particularly difficult for me. I have characters that I refer to as my 'Muses' that assist me in different aspects of my life.
There is one group of Muses in charage of making sure I live my life as morally as possible. They embody ideals like Courage and Honor and Kindness. If I feel that I need a point in the right direction I talk (not pray and this distinction is important) to them and get some advice. The actual morality comes from within me, but these Muses help to remind me of that morality (ex: I am tempted to cheat on a test. The Muse Ahner will metaphorically smack me upside the head with a rolled up newspaper and remind me that obeying my honor code is more important than getting a few more points on the test. Besides, it's my own fault for not studying. I am reminded of what I believe is right and resist cheating, taking the consequences of getting a lower grade).
Another group, which I affectionately nick-named 'the Sins' are Muses that are in charge of dealing with worldy affairs. Ominous as the name sounds, they're hardly terrifying and help me to cope with things like food intake, monetary affairs, procrastination, self-grooming, anger issues, my crippling inferiority complex, and my sexuality (I admitt, the Muse in charge of that last domain is rather annoyed with me for taking serious consideration to a lifetime of celibacy, though I haven't yet decided where I stand on that matter).
The last group deals with a wide variety of subjects- mostly the actual workings of my mind in regards to my studies, my subconscious, and my writing. I call upon them to help me stay focused in my studies, and assign myself specific 'tutors' from this group to help me work through challenging information (i.e. anything math/science-related).
There also exists such a thing as an 'Anti-Muse', which is tantamount to a 'demon' or 'devil'. I had a rather nasty one not too long ago, the manifestation of all my self-hatred. It would take another entry by itself to explain the concept of the 'Anti-Muse', but you could call it one's inner demon that exsists to knock its host down. I've found that my own Anti-Muse, who I had named Raven, was very much like a Buddhist demon named Mara, and I recommend Living with the Devil by Stephen Batchelor for further information on this topic.

I believe that, with one's own personal gods, one can feel the support of benevolent, inhuman entities without the associated dogma or constricting faith-systems. How can we expect to grow any wiser while we stick to outdated beliefs that scientific evidence proves to be false? The old gods are rigid and uncompromising- they refuse to let science have a hold of humanity because, as far as the old gods are concerned, they had the prior claim. My Muses are not affected by science because they do not refute it and they do not ask that I refute science to believe in them. The old gods created to protect humankind from the world only cripples our understanding of it; gods created with the purpose of serving and helping humanity will only serve to benefit us on both an individual level and as a whole.

You make an interesting case. Did you intend this to be a discussion or are you just expressing your views on the subject of religion?
If the latter is true, I will hold back any comments, but I'm curious- You say religions fascinate you- how many did you look at before arriving at your conclusions?

I actually did intend this to be a discussion- I just wanted to put down all of my views in a somewhat coherrent essay-type thing so that people could ask questions or make their opinions on my views with a large chunck of my reasoning to look at >.>

I have studied a variety of the more 'mainstream' religions- I was brought up in a Catholic Church and got a lot of inside information about that, but I've looked at various other methods of Christianity through friends and good ol' research, I once went into Wicca, and then Taoism, then dabbled in Buddhism, got a length of information about the Jewish religion through a girl I once dated, and had a friend explain the main concepts behind Levay Satanism. Apart from that, I have studied a variety of ancient religions and their gods- Greek/Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Native American, Mayan, and Aztec primarily. Like I said, I am truly facinated and hope to take college courses to get an even more indepth look.

If that is so, then my muses blur the line between muse and anti-muse.

Poison pretty much gives me my confidence, but also makes me kind of a jerk sometimes. Like... Say... Trolling the bookstore. And I have pretty bad impulse control.

I guess there always are those shades of gray? ^_^U

Ancient reloigion started as a way to explian the world and make sense of it. This is why the modern day church and most other orthatdoxies dislike science, as it is dangerious.