If there was darkness before light, why is God more associated with the light?

If there was darkness before light, why is God more associated with the light?

20 answers , last was 15 years ago

If there was darkness before light, why is God more associated with the light?

It has come to my conclusion that if there was darkness before the light, then it is the light that is the true illusion? Most fear the darkness and yet when we close our eyes before we go to sleep, we are able to fully comprehend and face ourselves. Many hope to die one day and find a heaven of light and gold plated roads, and in the mean time we are running away from what we have helped to create on this earth. Before we go on, we must first realize where “there is a beginning, there is an end” and at the beginning there was darkness, so will the light last forever? And is forever an understatement?

Asked by Unknown Brain in Religion & Spirituality at 12:42pm on June 8th, 2009
Aric Foster 1260
Voted for We are what the... at 4:22pm on June 17th, 2009
The Judeo-Christian God is just a myth to explain the light. That particular early society wouldn't have been comfortable worshipping something that was what they feared.
Michael Cooke 1905
Voted for There is no God at 2:18pm on June 17th, 2009
In the Christian Bible(tm), God creates the light not the darkness. If darkness might pre-date Christian God, perhaps it's the product of Lovecraftian nameless ones....

You know what a metaphor is? Light allows you to see and understand.
Reyes Al 1294
Voted for God Is Light at 11:25pm on June 16th, 2009
I know that God is light, and I know that darkness is the absence of light, just as silence is the absence of sound and so forth. So I think that, if in the beginning there was nothingness, God came in and filled the space with whatever He felt like, light and planets and noisy people and stuff like that. There was a void (here, specifically of light) and we give the void a name when, really, there was just nothingness that we associate a negative opinion to.
Darkness is not a bad thing, but it did not hold anything good or useful either, and so God came in and created. And He did this in some way, I'm not mentioning how long He did it or in what order or manner. I'm not concerned with evolution or creationism because that shouldn't affect the fact that I see God in lots of things that I would otherwise take for granted.
And since I believe God is a Whole, Unique and Almighty being, He must not be unfamiliar with darkness and evil. But He simply understands that those are not exactly the best things for anything He created, and so does not embody that. That's how we associate Him with "light," or good. Really, "light" is simply a metaphor for good.
But, as long as anything has free choice (people, for example), as God has so lovingly given things free choice, there will be a balance of right with the wrong, because the wrong is within people, and there is an evil in created things to balance with the good of the Creator.
And I won't argue the essence of evil within humanity either. We can be just as bad as we are good. I always love the good in us, but I heard of a recent incident in which a man found a toddler girl's body encased in cement. And, as he recalled, that was just "pure evil" at its finest.
Have a nice day :).
Unknown Brain 1212
Voted for God is Darkness at 9:53pm on June 16th, 2009
Cuz its backwards :O))

We came from the *darkness* called the womb...... And born upside down.... Peace
Unknown Brain 1830
Answered at 7:23pm on June 16th, 2009
I'm not going to pick any of these answers because none of them really approach my viewpoint here.

I'm also not going to push my philosophical beliefs on others. The only thing I'm going to say is that the first option, 'God is Darkness,' is the only one I believe to not be possible, from a scientific perspective.

We have a number of terms that are not phenomenon or forces in and of themselves, but rather describe low quantities or absence of other phenomenon. 'Darkness' falls into this catergory.

One example of this is heat and cold. There is no such force or energy type as 'cold.' We use the term 'cold' to describe low amounts of heat. Heat itself is observed as the amount of activity within a given mass at the molecular level, ie. How quickly the individual molecules are moving around. Absolute zero, as cold as it can get, describes the condition where all of that movement ceases.

Similarly, 'darkness' is not a force or type of energy, but rather refers to absence of visible spectrum light. Light itself is composed of photons, which are particles that blur the line between matter and energy somewhat.

Terms like 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' do not describes forces of darkness as their name would imply- rather, it is a reference to darkness being an absence of visible light. Dark matter and Dark energy refer to theorized matter and energy that is, with current technology, not detectable, similar to how you can't see whats in a darkened room. It is believed to exist only because of the effects we can see it have on visible objects.

So no, you can't really describe God as being made of darkness because darkness itself isn't a force, particle, or any kind of tangible measurable thing, it is nothing more than a word used to describe the absence of light.



As for the main question- "If there was darkness before light, why is God more associated with the light?" I'll answer you this- in any profession where something is created, that profession tends to be named referring to the end product, not the initial condition. A clockmaker isn't associated with a pile of metal, but rather the finished product. As those of the judeochristian faith attribute the creation of light itself to God, it would make sense to associate God with light, the product, rather than "darkness," the initial condition that (as stated before) isn't actually any kind of material or energy anyway.
Denise Betegh 1294
Voted for There is no God at 7:22pm on June 16th, 2009
i do not believe there is a god. i feel that the ancient people many years ago created him as a way to cope with the troubleing things around them. he is, as you use the definition of light, a beacon in the darkness for those who have lost their way. the light is a symbol of the good that is in the world. jesus, however, was a real man, who was years beyond in knowledge than the rest of his people, so the people believed he was an enlightened one, or god-like, thus the reason for the mass worship of him and his lord god.
Unknown Brain New Brain
Voted for God Is Light at 5:22pm on June 16th, 2009
Everything is born from the darkness. Perhaps evil is born from the life of light?

We are all born from the darkness of the womb. Perhaps that is why its natural for us all to sleep at night. Since we all slept in the dark womb of our mothers for nine months.

I believe that our higher powers (or our gods) communicate through the various spectrum's of physical light. Such as what various colors you see come through a prizm. And possibly other frequencies of light that are not seen by the human eye. Light is energy. And we are all made of energy. When we die we turn into energy and travel through the light.

The chicken came before an egg could even be possible.
Elisabeth Schubert New Brain
Voted for God Is Light at 5:12pm on June 16th, 2009
God created light. Light is associated with security and so is God. Darkness has always been seen as a scary thing (whether you are scared of the dark or not) you can't see things in the dark (unless you are a vampire, but that is a different story completely) and that makes it a scary thing. Light shows what is in the room and is enlightening. God has always been seen as an enlightening symbol.

If anyone sees this and voted for God is darkness, I am curious about your reasoning. I understand those who see Him as both. I do understand that, but I'm curious about those who view God as darkness. Thanks! :)
Vidda Chan New Brain
Answered at 5:10pm on June 16th, 2009
I don't feel any of the choices are appropriate. If God is everything and everywhere, then he is both Darkness and Light. As for the last choice, while we are of God, we are NOT God.... not literally speaking. It's like a drop of water in the Pacific Ocean. God is the ocean and each of us is a miniscule drop. But this does not answer the question, "If there was darkness before light, then is God more associated with the light?" The last choice is a completely different topic.

But my own take on the question is that we (humans) have such a fear of darkness and the unknown and anything related to that, ie., death, the future, changes, that historically we have relegated these areas to the devil. Even women's bodies, with menses and the ability to grow a life within us (in the darkness of our wombs) has been generally feared and in some cases, envied. This fear has so dominated throughout history that we tend to forget to look to nature to see how much God also lives in the darkness; that in the darkness, God, nature, even we humans, begin to create life. Without darkness, seeds cannot grow.
DJ Golden 1458
Answered at 5:00pm on June 16th, 2009
Because God brought the light, and society is very grateful for it. That is why God is associated with light. You should also specify which God you mean. Kali is associated with darkness and so is Charon.
Load more
There are no debates yet! To start one, click "Debate this answer!" under someone's answer.
There are no debates yet! To start one, click "Debate this answer!" under someone's answer.