[IATESOTK]

The debate to prove/disprove God will go on forever. If you are open minded, then the debate should be fun/interesting regardless what side you take! However, let's take God out of the equation for a second and just talk about hope--in a very broad sense. Where does it come from? Without any hope, we would take our own lives (as many people do, unfortunately).

If we aren't born with some hidden "spiritual knowledge" that God does indeed exist, and that we have a purpose, then how are we all still here? How do we wake up in the morning and get the motivation to do--well--anything?

Thoughts from all angles are greatly respected and appreciated. . .

[tmaromine]

Hm... Interesting.

Well, with purposes: they're not required by life, and aren't guaranteed. The only purpose one has is that which one gives theirself. 'Technically', the only real purpose I have in life is reproduction, to keep this giant race going. Considering I'm homosexual, that won't be happening without science' help. That's the only purpose from a scientific point of view.

Emotionally, we create purpose. . .or feel/think we've been given one. Maybe I could elaborate on this, but I think it might lead to some offtopicness, so I'll move on to hope for now.

Before gods had any existence in humans' daily lives, they still had 'hope', in the form of actually getting up and living. Maybe a simple example would be: a 'cave'man getting up, sharpening his tools, to find an animal, to cure his hunger. Getting full, and thus rid of hunger, creates hope, to get rid of that hunger when it comes again. Death (as in suicide, as in those who are 'without any hope') would 1: be an unknown experience, and some caveman wouldn't have ever experienced it before, then wake up alive and feel like being dead again, and have the hope of killing himself, and 2: – while I'm not a cavemansociologist – I'd say that some form of 'attachment' must've existed among a group of cavepeople, and death would give some negative emotion to those who have to live through some one's death. So hope in this case would be surviving, as to not have to experience that. That would basically be their lives' purpose too, no?

Now, personally: as an atheist, I do just fine without 'destined hope', or 'meaning'. Of course, the argument could be made that a god does exist, and so my 'just fineness' is merely due to me being blinded to my real 'destiny' and 'purpose', but that just seems like a circular endless philosophical argument, and I wouldn't know where else to go with it. But yes, I do fine. The only hope I have is to enjoy the next day – have a day that pleases me.

From seeing a nice sunrise in the morning, to a glowing moon at night that makes me think of how we're a sphere orbited by a sphere orbiting a sphere amid a disk of spheres orbiting spheres, is the only 'hope' I need to continue living – the hope that I can just sit and stare and ponder. I hope the weather will be something that I like. I hope I hear about something heartwarming on the news, amid all the bad stuff. I hope I have a good laugh with my friends. I hope to hear a magnificent piece of music that catches my attention. I hope to eventually lead up to the end of my life with that perfect guy. I hope to just enjoy life. I don't hope that there's someOne watching over me giving some meaning and purpose, because I merely don't need it. A god who's actually caring and hasn't already ditched me to its hell because I didn't believe in it would only be a bonus.

And even if not one of those things I mentioned ever turn out true, the stars and planets will still be above, and if they're not, the thought of them will still persist, and that's really all I need... Astronomy is my 'thing', where everything else I could go without. It doesn't speak, and really it doesn't give hope. It just makes me want to continue living, without hope and for no real reason or purpose.

And as an atheist, I can't wait to die. It's that one 'life' experience that I'll put off till the literal end. If I knew I'd have an hour or more until I actually died, but couldn't actually die until then, I'd want to be lying on an iceberg in the middle of a freezing ocean under a cloudless sky (but hopefully wellclothed or I'd freeze before an hour's end). I don't know why it is that the freezing part affects me so, but it just seems surreally serene beneath specks of light.

For me, seeing and knowing of 'that world up there' gives me some 'hope' to continue living. Maybe it's because it shows just how small and petty we are, and when there's a picture without us, it's just greater... At least, that applies to me. Acknowledging our pathetic scale on the largest scale we can measure reässures me emotionally, somehow.

And just to put some personal god-vs-nogod opinion: I don't completely deny that a god could exist. Simply, I don't think any of these pathetic Earth gods exist. Partly because they're so flawed from a realistically logical standpoint (for one example, they're more arrogant than many humans are – "Do my deeds or I send you to Hell !"), and partly because there really isn't any of that holy evidence on this planet. But as you've stated, the debate of a god's proof or nonproof could go on forever. . .though perhaps not logically !

[REASON]

I think the first thing you might do is set your parameters. What do you think hope means? In what way do you feel hope emanates from god, as opposed to from within you?

To me, hope is closely related to want of pleasure or happiness. People hope for good things primarily, and even if someone hopes for something bad to happen, it's most likely because they believe they will get some sort of pleasure out of it. Hope is more than just wishing to me. It has some intention to it, or expectation. "I hope Santa brings me what I want for Christmas." Generally, it's a way in which we orient ourselves toward positive thinking, often during times of despair. Feelings of despair are not pleasurable, so we initiate a sense of hope with a goal of improving our mood. To me there's nothing particularly amazing about expressing hope. If losing all hope leads to self destruction, than it makes sense from a survival standpoint that it has evolved and been retained as part of our emotional make-up.

The same question could be asked of any human emotion.

[InfiniteNow]

Hope comes from the smile and a wink from an attractive female sitting across the room.

Hope comes from a wafted scent of food when your stomach is empty.

Hope comes from the sound of trickling water when you are completely dehydrated.

Hope comes from the glimpse of a safe cave when trying to escape poor weather conditions or an approaching predator.

God is not required for any of this.

[HydrogenBond]

If you look at hope it is connected to a projection to a future time, where a positive outcome could appear. Often strong emotions place one in the immediate present, where one can lose a sense of perspective. Hope opens up the element of time, wider, so there is a counter point of view that has a better emotional valance or feeling.

For example, someone thinking about suicide might be feeling overwhelmed by their emotional pain. Pain focuses us into real time so we can deal with it. But in real time one may not be able to see the bigger picture. Hope expands the time element. One may see a brighter future to help soften the pain of the immediate present. With hope one sort of separates the brain into two subroutines, one in the immediate present and the other more in the hopeful future. Once the short term time perception expands, one is back to normal moving forward.

Where God comes in, is God represents eternity, so God is about the longest term time projection generated by the human mind. At times, looking to tomorrow can't give the proper perspective when the mind is strongly focused by the biased data of the instant. One may have to time project hope as far as possible to create enough potential in the mind to be able to shift the mind from instantaneous focus back to reality.

[CraigD]

The idea that hope is an mental or emotional state gifted to humans from a divinity is an old, and, I think, fairly central theological idea.

Though I’m confident precedent and antecedent sources exists, one of the best known examples of this idea is found in Hesiod’s 8th century BC poetry recording the “Pandora’s box” story. In this, the curiosity of the first human woman, Pandora, results in the release of all the emotional ills existent into the world, but her virtuous reaction to this catastrophe results in her gaining possession of the one positive emotion contained in the box: hope.

The Pandora’s box myth parallels the Holy Bible:Genesis 3 “Eve, the serpent, and the fall from grace” story in several ways:

• The first woman commits a grave error;
• The world is free from ill emotions prior to her error;
• The released ills were created by a divinity

But differ significantly in several others:

• In the Genesis story, hope is not present. The LORD bestows only ills, offering at best some practical advice on how to endure them;
• Pandora is not tempted by a supernatural agent (eg: Genesis’s serpent). Her own curiosity causes her error;
• Eve doesn’t make the “redeeming save” of salvaging something beneficial from her error.

The two stories are roughtly contemporary: Although Genesis is believed to have been written about 450 BC, vs. Hesiod’s “Works and Days” in about 700 BC, both are believed to be retellings of earlier writings or unwritten traditional stories.

From this, I gather that the idea that “hope comes from God (or the gods)” is an ancient one, but so is the idea that “misery (the need for hope) comes from God (or the gods)”.

In objective, non-metaphorical terms, I believe all of these stories are attempts by pre-scientific people to explain the complexities of human emotions, which, subjectively, feel very much as if they originate outside of our psyches. I believe, however, this feeling, and these stories, are inaccurate, and that human emotions, misery and hope included, originate within the human psyche, as a result of neurobiological processes.

[Brinnie]

maybe hope was engineered by humans and is a misinterpretation?

[REASON]

Originally Posted by Brinnie

maybe hope was engineered by humans and is a misinterpretation?

Yeah, maybe not.

Trust me, your statement is not provocative, even in pink.

[Galapagos]

This is how I'm reading this:

"Is the most reasonable or logical explanation for the intangible experience or feeling associated by most with the word 'hope', intervention by a supernatural being or force?"

My answer to this would be no. I would say that the possessing/feeling of hope probably aided our early ancestors in a way similar to the aid provided by ascribing supernatural origin to misunderstood or recondite phenomena in the physical world. If it didn't pose a direct benefit, some would argue it was incidental as part of subjective consciousness, or accompanying something else beneficial; a by product.
As far as people lacking hope killing themselves, maybe that was part of our natural selection as humans. Maybe every early human(or pre-man hominid) who didn't have a predisposition to 'hope' against bleak odds just removed themselves from the gene pool through suicide.
If you are wondering about it's origin in you personally, I would say it is the result of complex interrelationships in the general congeries of the brain organ, as is consciousness as a whole.

[jedaisoul]

IMHO, hope comes from belief. Generally, hope comes from the belief in something better than is experienced at the time, even if that belief is falacial. So belief in the resurection may give a person hope of a better life after death, but that does not depend upon the resurection being true. It depends solely on the belief that it is true.

So for hope to come from God, our capacity to believe must also come from God. What reason is there to acribe our capacity for belief to an act of God?

I would suggest that our capacity for belief is a deeply founded constituent of the way we comprehend the universe. To comprehend we must group things into categories. That requires belief. So belief is fundamental to our intellectual lives. That does not mean that it is not due to an act of God. if you chose to believe that God created everything, then He/She also created hope and belief. But not believing in God does not render one unable to believe or feel hope.

So basically there is no reason to attribute hope and belief to an act of God. It's a matter of personal choice.