RavenWings,

Just for the record, it was not Pratchett who first postulated the idea that man created God but it has been around for a very long time. The concept really came to the public notice in the late sixties when the then Bishop of Winchester was misquoted as saying 'God is merely an idea in the mind of man'.

However, one thing which he did say was 'if God did not exist then Man would have to invent him'.

My own feeling on this is that humankind invented God many at about the same time that it came down from the trees.

The concept is re-invented by each successive generation. However, what has happened is that the idea has become bigger than the people who were originally involved and has become almost a force in itself.

Personally, I do not believe but respect those that do.

LOL

Dear Colin,

I did not think that Pratchett came up with the idea. I think I had heard a lot of the idea before that, just that he is the only source that I can point directly towards.

I have looked at a lot of the basic cores of many religions and found a lot of the same things expressed. Even Islam has, at its core, the idea of kindness and generosity towards other. Many of the problems in the world seem to stem from those who read but do not spend the time pondering the core of their religion.

One gospel left out of the Bible states that Christ said 'go into the woods to pray, for there you shall find me, go into your heart and you shall find me there.' This is a very transendental mode of thought. There is a lot more to the quote, but I can't remember it all off the top of my head. We also forget the ideas of the Good Samaritan, or the Muslim idea of the People of the Book.

A major proponant of each of the major religions (Islam, Christianity {Anglican}, and Buddhism) have stated that each religion is but a reflection of the Greater Truth.

At the heart of it, I cannot say with certainty what I directly beleive, only that I beleive in a lot of things. One day, I looked at Genisis, Chapter One and saw that the order in which God created the animals matches the way in which Science beleives that the animals came to be. And that St. Augustine of Hippo said, basically, that God programmed the world to become what it shall become, and that a day to God may be a thousand years to us humans. If that last statement is taken to it's logical conclusion, then Armageddon will be right about when the Sun goes nova, give or take about a million years.

That which is, that which will be, and that which has been, who is to say?