The arrogance of Man
“For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity.” - Ecclesiastes 3:19
Homocentric thought
Life did what it did and only humans strove to impose a meaning where no meaning is needed.
Homocentricity means: Based around the species Homo sapien sapien. A homocentric cosmology is one that holds that the Universe was created and fine tuned in particular for the creation of our species. These homocentric assumptions are wrong, and the idea that the Universe was designed in order to create life is unfounded and unnecessary to explain the existence of life. A God with Human characteristics is an error, a projection of our ego.
The two major blows to homocentric believe
We are not the centre of the Universe. Evolution creates all life; there is nothing special about our species.
The first blow to the homocentricity of classical religion came with the realisation that the Universe did not revolve around the Earth. After a while this ungodly belief was eventually accepted as the evidence was so far in its favour, and theologians could cede the point without changing much of their theology. Organized religion, always the most prominent adversary to modern scientific discovery, could actually accept this one in its stride. Other similar blows included the realisation that the orbits of the planets were not circular, but elliptical, and that the Earth was not a sphere, but more egg-shaped. Theologians approved the circular and spherical designs because they were seen as perfect shapes, and God's creation is perfect. However, such beliefs were not essential parts of theistic beliefs and the more scientific theories came to be accepted.
The second blow was evolution. That it appears that life and consciousness can be described and explained using laws of nature, statistics and cause and affect without the need for special creation. Eventually, too, this point was accepted by Western and modern religion. However, the theists then arrived at a much more modern theology: That God planned the path of evolution precisely in order to produce the Human species. This theory is called argument by the anthropic coincidences, which is also the belief that the Universe is fine-tuned to produce us. The response to this is statistical: In any universe, of any time, with any fundamental laws, it is likely that over a vast period of time the particles of that Universe would combine in a self-duplicating manner and evolve into life forms. Every Universe would create different life, it happens that on this planet the life we know is the life that evolved. On other planets and in different Universes, the natural laws would have resulted in different life, which had evolved to be suitable for that Universe; such is the nature of evolution, biology, chemistry and statistics. Without God being required to explain life, homocentric religion is committing an egotistic error.
The Basic Homocentric Assumption Is Unfounded
The basic homocentric assumption is that we are the point of the Universe but this is not a rational belief, God could have created it for Peanut Butter, using us as a tool to make it. We could be the tool it is using to produce a Super Computer with which God wants to play chess, and we are merely one of a set of disposable tools created along the way, soon to be discarded like the dinosaurs.
Other species
If the dinosaurs had such thoughts then maybe they too thought that the Universe was fine-tuned for them! The evidence would have been convincing, for them. The dinosaurs could have followed the same logical arguments as the theists and said; that we exist, against all the odds, is proof that the Earth and Universe was fine-tuned for us. How wrong the dinosaurs were!
It seems logical that all living beings could equally hold that their own species is the point of the Universe; egocentrism would probably be the primitive belief of all species throughout the Universe, until such a time as their science reveals its error.
"Given the egocentrism that seems to characterize the human race, convincing people that the universe was designed with them in mind is as easy as convincing a child that candy is good for him"
Inelegant Design
If we look at the situation of life on Earth, we can easily see that the Earth is more fine tuned to ants, insects and reptiles than Human life. As a result, it seems more logical for us to revere these creatures as our superiors than to presume that we will outlive them. The basic assumption that the Universe was fine-tuned for us, rather than something else, is unfounded. We could be an irrelevant part of the Universe and given the scale and size of the Universe, it certainly would not surprise me if this were so!
The Ego
If Christianity is true, mankind are not such pitiful worms as they seem to be; they are of interest to the Creator of the universe, who takes the trouble to be pleased with them when they behave well and displeased when they behave badly. This is a great compliment. It is an even pleasanter compliment if He awards to the good among us everlasting happiness in heaven.
Others qualified in psychology and psychiatry such as Sigmund Freud, R.D. Laing, etc, have testified that God is a projection of the ego. Our ego makes us want to feel special, wanted, watched and observed. We want to be punished when we do wrong, because we like to feel that our actions count. God provides an imaginary fulfilment of the role required by our ego; the position of a being that ratifies our importance in the world. The less important we feel ourselves to be, the more this God can assert itself. In angst and powerlessness, people find comfort in a personal "realisation" that actually everything is ok; they are not worthless, because God cares for them. Our ego can only suffer so much, through societal guilt or insecurity, before we make ourselves feel important no matter the reality of the situation.
Extra terrestrial Intelligence
The discovery of ETI would show that life forms, such as us, do not require special creation, that our religions are at best localized misunderstandings of a greater scheme. If aliens exist, then theism may well still be true. However, would aliens need to repent, pray to a Human shaped God and follow the rules of our religions? Of course not. Our cultural religious rules simply would not apply. The particulars of our religions such as Islam, Christianity, and Judaism would be reduced to symbolism and relative truths that apply only in some parts of the Universe, to some species.
Most religions explanation of suffering (their theodicies) is homocentric, with the Earth being the battleground between good and evil. This symbolism breaks down in the face of E.T.I.; new universe-wide symbols would be required. Whole new religions would be required, and our old ones would either be outright falsified or need to adapt to new truths. In either case, our homocentric religions as they presently stand cannot be true.
Homocentric gods are a mistake
Xenophanes, Greek philosopher, 535-435 BCE. "[Xenophanes wrote:] 'Human beings think of the gods as having been born, wearing clothes, speaking, and having bodies like their own. Ethiopians say the gods are black with snub noses. Thracians say they have blue eyes and red hair. If cows and horses [could] they would draw pictures of the gods looking like cows and horses'".
The satirist Lucian has his fictional character Momus complains to Zeus about all the bizarre representations of the gods with animal heads. In reply Zeus acknowledges, 'These things are unseemly,' but explains that 'Most of them are a matter of symbolism'. Celsus likewise explains that the Pagan representation of the gods is understood by the initiated as having symbolic meaning and should not be taken literally, since they are 'symbols of invisible ideas and not objects of worship in themselves'. Ironically, many Pagan philosophers thought it was the Christian conception of God, which was primitive. Whilst it was all right to personify aspects of God as the 'gods', they regarded it as impossible to portray the ineffable nature of the supreme God in human terms as the Christians did. Celsus, finding such anthropomorphism ridiculous writes, 'The Christians say that God has hands, a mouth, and a voice; they are always proclaiming, "God said this" or "God spoke". "The heavens declare the work of his hands," they say. I can only comment that such a God is no God at all, for God has neither hands, mouth nor voice, nor any characteristics of which we know. Their absurd doctrines even contain reference to God walking about in the garden he created for man and they speak of him being angry, jealous, moved to repentance, sorry, sleepy"
Given that success of insects and other species, it is actually more likely that the Earth was built for them, not us, any anthropomorphic god is a mistake, a projection of our ego rather than a humble admission that we (as individuals and a species) are relatively unimportant when we consider our place in the Universe.
Thankfully, modern liberal religions will accept that God is not likely to be anthropomorphic, but would say that it has merely appeared to us in Human form with Human traits so that we would more readily understand it. This is a return to the original Pagan ideas about the gods, where they understood that all we can do is use symbolism to view the divine, rather than actually, that God(s) can somehow be viewed directly, or really.
Creating God
People create gods in their own image according to their own desires. Gods are our creations. Within organized religion, people's opinion on their "god" is always individual and subjective but merely uses the terminology of their religion to describe their own god.
Outside of religion, people come up with their own terminology to describe "Gaia", Pantheism, Paganism, monotheism... depending on a person's will and need they search out gods that closely match what they themselves want. Gods are created according to our needs.
If a real God does exist, then we cannot perceive it. We can only perceive ourselves and our own expectations projected into the heavens. It is our own sense of ego that we feel from god. Our own pride makes us think we know the truth. God is the individual, and each individual may as well be his own god."
Each individual has created their own god, in accordance with their own imagination and experience, and such a god is purely a projection of the ego. "Man has always created his gods, rather than his gods creating him". The logical philosophy of god is that it is only ever a reflection of the self: That there is no universal god, that each of us is both his own god and redeemer.
