Craig,
I don't have much time for the view that religion is merely a sociological phenomena, emerging from the human condition. If this is your view, then I fear we'll find little common ground to share. I don't believe man created God. I believe God is the creator of man, and everything else. This is the perspective from which I view any notion of faith.

For one example, while Yuyutsu claims that the Sabbath is merely a human construct or a good or useful idea, I see it totally the other way. The Sabbath was never someone's good idea. It is a gift of God to mankind. It came from God as a blessing.

Faith itself doesn't derive from our cleverness, or someone's good idea. It is itself a gift from God.

Dear Dan,

I have not claimed as if the Sabbath is a human construct or that it is not a gift from God, which it is. We can of course discuss the subtleties of the origin of the Sabbath, if you wish, but that was not my point at all.

Agreeing that the Sabbath is a wonderful thing and God's blessed gift, what I wrote instead related to the role of the clergy - how to explain it to simple-minded lay people and encourage them to practice it.

I believe that the creation story in Genesis 1 and the first 3 verses of Genesis 2, is a hymn in praise of the Sabbath, thus was never intended to recount the early history of this world. It also promotes religion by inspiring awe towards God. For me this is more than enough to consider it sacred - the concept of scientific history was not yet invented at the time and is really unnecessary for the faithful even today. Judging the ancient scriptures by today's modern expectations for scientific accuracy is inappropriate.

Yuyutsu,
I was only going by what you said. You said it was helpful for the clergy to tell the ordinary folk some story to encourage them to rest once in a while. For it was advantageous for them to have regular times of rest and reflection.

So, let me see if I can follow your logic. God wants us to have the blessing of a rest. So to encourage us, he creates an elaborate creation tale/myth/hymn, all for reflecting the idea that he once took a rest one day out of seven.

If he is God, wouldn't it have been easier just give us a straight commandment, something like: 'Make sure you rest, one day out of seven.'? That was the tone he took for the other commandments: Do not murder; Do not steal; Do not take another man's wife; etc. No explanation required. He's God; he sets the required standard. Why not just give us another commandment?

No, for this commandment concerning rest, just to keep is in a regular weekly cycle, he wants to encourage us with an elaborate hymn, placed squarely and integrally at the beginning of the nation's foundational document, while knowing all along it doesn't relate to any temporal reality.

Is this what God did? What motivation is there to obey a God who manufactures such reasons to secure our obedience?

Dear Dan,

I do not believe that God is a person, thus writing or wanting anything (that would have rendered Him limited, thus not God, perhaps just one god of many, which is not who we worship): it is people which are in varying degrees close to God who become inspired, through the Holy Spirit if that's the terminology you use - in that state they receive His gifts, then they seek to serve and guide others so they can benefit as well. In doing so, they adjust their teachings to the methods and presentations which their students at the time are able to absorb and benefit most from.

Regarding the "nation's foundational document", this hymn and others were collected over a thousand years later, essentially for national rather than religious interests. The collectors were politicians, not men of God: their aim was to unite and prosper the nation, regarding God only as instrumental for this process. Otherwise, if you believe this document to be in one piece, you would wonder why God needed to write His book in so many different and conflicting styles rather than leave clear and concise instructions.

Hi Dan, do I believe that religion is a sociological phenomenon? Yes
Do I believe it is "just" a sociological phenomenon? No

If you would like to know about my views, then have a look at a couple of Peter's threads that I've contributed to.

I am sympathetic to your view, even if I don't share it. You might be surprised to find how much common ground we do share.

Hi Craig,
This is what I saw you wrote, and what I based my comment on, Maybe I missed the thrust of it.
- " ... it will become obvious that what has been called 'divine' is an emergent property of the interactions between the things that make up the self-organising 'system of the world'."

Yuyutsu,
I find it difficult to discuss the Christian God while putting aside the Christian Scriptures. Though rich in style, its message is not conflicting. The description there is tremendously clear. God is presented as personal, from cover to cover, including creating people 'in his image', through to revealing himself in the person of Christ, etc.

If you want to discuss the Christian God, then we are talking about a personality. It's this God that interests me, the God who communicates intelligently in and through the Scriptures. If you want to talk about some other god, then that will likely fall outside my interest.