To religious people - Why are we here?
 

What are your views? Why did God create us?

Buddhist answer - God didn't create us, our spirits always are and were and are bound to the physical world by karma which once extiguished, causes the soul to be released from reality and existance.

Hindu answer - We are all apart of Brahman, the ultimate reality, and our lives are a continued cycle of birth, life and death, held by the laws of karma, where the only constant is the search for truth and to become one with Brahman.
Jewish/Christian/Islam(?) answer - God created us so that we can choose Him. God made angels to worship and serve him. But angels had no free will. He made humans with free will so that they had to choice of accepting or rejecting Him.

In my opinion, there is no real answer. If you believe in an omnipotent God, that just pushes the question to God-it doesn't really answer it though.

Quite possibly man created god in his own image and likeness...the theory of evolution is just a theory, the same as the theory of creation...

"Today kids, we are going to study Biology ... Please open your books to page 1."

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Biology isn't a mandatory course, all though there are elements of biology in general science taken during earlier years. Evolution is usually in a senior high school biology course and that is only taken by those that are interested in biology.

Someone said God made angels to worship him but they didn't choose him, so he made humans to choose to worship him? I don't see how anyone can see a god like that to be "good". He is obviously vain and has no self-esteem. He needs people to worship him to feel good.

Please, he asked for religious responses. This is not the thread to push evolution, science and atheism, there are plenty of other threads for that.

hmm, I'd have to say, as a whatever religion i am, not quite sure, that the greater conciousness needed a vessel to interact with on this level of existance, so it created "life" as we know it on this physical plane.

OK, but why does God need people to worship him?

no idea... sometimes i don't think we'll ever truly know his reasons until after we die.

God created Man with Free Will, to have a sentient creature that could choose to worship Him. I could see Man as the ultimate experiment in psychology, free will, and choice, with Angels as the Control Group.

I call it the "God as Researcher" Model.

- Undecided Atheist

No proof that there isn't a god therfore I believe, in the possbilty.

Enough of that since that wasn't your question assuming that there is a god and he created the human race, and angels for some purpose.

The angels are obiously a servent class for the almighty himself.

The human race is a grand experiment for the almighty.

We have a few things that are very significant such as free will.

We may be no more than entertainment for the immortal beings of a higher plane of existence.

Personally I believe that god wanted to see how much free choice would courrupt a society, or if they would naturally fourm a prosperous society in which the community strives to better itself through the asistance of "all for one one for all"

Needless to say it didn't so he decided to all that stuff that happend in the bible flood the world start over with the looming motivation of staying out of hell and making it into heave to see if that would prevail.

If you havn't noticed the bibles teachings are the guidelines for how to make a society run smoothly.

I'm not sure what is is about human nature that makes us such poor social creatures. Selfishness in itself ruins the world. If everybody was out for one another the world would be a much better place.

Then again if we wern't so "human" communism would work, but thats a whole nother thread.

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It's not a matter of God needing mankind, but that "creation", in and of itself is good. In the Christian worldview (Similar in Judiasm, but i don't presume to speak for them...) to be is good, to live is good, existance, by it's very nature is a good that reflect the glory of God. I tend to agree...

Now, i'm quite agnostic about conclusion some draw, that since being is good, God is the source of being. It makes sense on many levels...why wouldn't God create, perhaps working through the event we know as the Big Bang. But i can't prove that, nor do i have a lot of faith experience that leads me in to that conclusion. I am content to explore that question, even if i don't have much of a hard answer.

Why we are here becomes less of a question in my mind than:what can we do with being here?