Is it normal to think "god" is an extension of the self?
I first heard this theory from one of my friends a few years ago. The idea is that God is actually a manifestation of the believer's ego. It stuck with me after I heard it and it did start to make a lot of sense. It would explain why there are so many interpretations of what God is. It explains why the same God is sometimes is a peaceful being of love and other times is violent and orders believers to kill others just for being different, depending on the group. More importantly, it would explain why believers are often driven to uncontrollable anger at the mere mention of atheists, with even being reminded that people who don't believe in God are out there making them claim they are being oppressed or made fun of no matter how self-evident it is that these things aren't happening. How many times have you seen someone merely attempt to discuss atheism, only for believers to shut them down with claims that atheism is being forced upon them? My friend's idea had explained the source of this anger trigger and subsequent irrationality. The idea fascinated me for a bit because of how much sense it made but it eventually slipped my mind. But I recently found a video of someone who seems to have independently come up with the same idea my friend had and explained it. He's kind of creepy, but he reminded me of what my friend had said. (If you want to see it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j8ZMMuu7MU&feature=related) It got me thinking about this again. It doesn't seem like many people have the same idea. So I talked about it with a few people, and most of them didn't think there was anything to it. Is there something inherently wrong in this I'm not seeing?