People across the earth have believed in god (in some form) for thousands of years. Remote tribes, civilizations with no external contact. All with wildly different ideas about the nature of god, but with some notion of god.

1. Why do you think there has been a widespread belief in some form of god across virtually all civilizations over all of recorded history?

2. If you have an answer to question 1, do you have any evidence (preferrably irrefutable) to support your answer?

People created religion to explain the phenomena of the world that they figured out the science to explain yet.

I personally have no evidence to support this but I'm sure others do.

Isn't it odd that peoples around the globe independently came up with the notion of a God to explain the unexplainable?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2011 08:26PM by thingsithink.

Not really, after all, not all civilizations came up with monotheistic explanations for things, it's not like one single story told by all civilizations.

It's not uncommon for children to make up invisible friends, ghosts or enemies to blame for things, or to seek comfort from. Similarly, it's not surprising that ancient civilizations made up things they could not see, in order to explain what they could not understand.

First, define "god."

Then provide evidence that "peoples around the globe independently came up with the notion of a God to explain the unexplainable" as opposed to sharing primitive supernatural explanations of natural events prior to migrations out of Africa.

I'm talking about all notions of god. That's pretty broad. I can't define them all.

The question requires some assumptions. You can assume it originated in one place and everyone took the notion on their travels. Possible, but I don't think we know. Or you can assume it did not originate in one place. I don't think we know. Maybe there are some other possibilities.

If you think it originated in one place, I'd be interested in hearing why you think that - any evidence or just guessing?

Or maybe you think because we don't know when or where the concept originated its not worth considering the possibilities. You know me, I like considering various possibilities.

I wasn't asking you to define every god out there. I was asking you to define "god" as used in your sentence "peoples around the globe independently came up with the notion of a God to explain the unexplainable".

What did you mean by that?

This won't be a satisfying answer, but:

What I said in my question was people have a "widespread belief in some form of god." So, what I meant by god was all of the forms of god of all peoples around the globe - err across the plains. Hence all gods or notions of god that sprung up.

I still don't know what you mean by "god." You're assuming I know what you mean. Saying god = god isn't an explanation.

What is the definition you're using? Without a definition how can we be sure that all people across the earth had "some notion of god?"

If you want to take a stab at answering the question, you'll have to go out on a limb and assume that people around the globe have a "notion of god." I tend to think this to be the case, but I could be wrong. I also tend to think that there are hundreds (well, millions or billions) of "notions of god." Thus, I could never define them all (I can't prove that I can't define them all. Can you take that on faith?).

If the empirical evidence indicates to you that people around the globe do not have "notions of god" then the question is faulty. If you don't know whether there is evidence to suggest one possibility (people around the globe have "notions of god") or another (people around the globe do not have notions of god")(or a third, fourth . . . possibility), then you may not want to answer the question.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:02AM by thingsithink.

Look at who the first God's were. They were all some kind of phantasmic entity based on the sun, or thunder and lightening.
Early man wasn't quite ready for handshakes and cute hats.

Later, the gods gained a little more sophistication, relating more to the harvest or the hunt and finally to war.

The Greeks really amped it up adding sex and hotness to the mix. And today we've streamlined god with control and money.

Clearly the concept evolved from the first grass being set afire by lightening, giving birth to the God of Thunder, to what we have today--a god complete with handshakes and cute hats.

When you line the gods all up in chronological order you see that they all evolved in concert with the needs of man. Curious, no?

So for question number one, I would say God started as a way to explain any mystery. Because we're human, and we don't like mystery. So we give it a definition, provable or not, to make us feel better, to make us feel in control.

God is a way to feel like you have control in an unknown situation such as being a human on this planet. You give some one who is afraid a rope to cling to, they are going to grab it and they are not going to examine too closely before or later when they feel that rope is sustaining them.

Humans can not stand the unknown and will accept any myth to alleviate the loss of control they feel because loss of control is the hardest thing to face in life. That is why they call religion the opiate of the masses. Obviously its not an opiate for mormons as they apparently still require so much medication.

I like it too, but it was full of unproven claims regarding the nature of man and woman. It's tough, maybe impossible,to answer the question without making unprovable claims. But I like hearing people's take.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 04:14AM by thingsithink.

Then the concept of God migrated everywhere humanity did right along with humanity. Yes, the concept changed, but the simplest explanation is that the concept existed when humanity was down to about 20,000 people and expanded with humanity.

A couple of guys drinking beer around a fire in Africa came up with it one night? Too bad Steve Benson's predecessor wasn't there to require some hard proof and poke fun by doodling caricatures of them on a cave wall. They would have dropped the whole thing and we'd just have to deal with Santa Claus. :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 01:07AM by thingsithink.

Yes, and too bad someone wasn't there to shoot down the idea.

I believe it's innate and your born with it. You can not believe in God and talk about why you don't a lot, but either way it gets talked about.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/14/2011 10:33PM by suckafoo.

Read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. He gives a much better explanation - and very well documented - than I could.

A friends raved about it. I'll have to read it. Thanks.

whose ear he just happened to have. :)

So how do you explain the fact that Atheism has existed longer than god beliefs ?

thingsithink Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 1. Why do you think there has been a widespread
> belief in some form of god across virtually all
> civilizations over all of recorded history?

I think the notion of gods came from evolutionarily induced paranoia.

If you are some sentient being walking through the rain forest and a twig falls in front of you, or you hear a strange sound you can approach it two ways: (1) It's just the wind or some natural phenomena at work and you have nothing to worry about or (2) it's something that might harm you, like a predator or enemy.

If you tend to pick (2) when the situation is really (1) you don't really get harmed much. But if you pick (1) when it's really (2) you die. This would select for tending to choose (2) over (1).

This leads to attributing intent to everything. And that intent becomes some sort of being that is doing the intending. This leads to tree-gods, lake-gods, mountain-gods, weather-gods, and gods associated with places like meadows or streams.

In ancient times each culture had its gods and if you moved from one place to another you adopted the local gods. Just as if you move from Oklahoma to Kansas you recognize a different governor. There was no question of any of these gods being "false," they just were in charge of different places.

The Hebrews, on the other hand, were nomadic. They weren't united by a god associated with any PLACE, but with a god associated with them as a people. They carried their god with them. This leads to their god being the only viable god ["thou shalt have no other gods before me"] which leads to the idea of there being only one god [yes, Akhenaton tried this earlier in Egypt but it didn't catch on--in fact it almost ruined the country]. Since this god was associated with the people it, unlike the other gods of the mesopotamians, greeks, or romans, actually cared about the people and how they behaved toward each other. This is where morality first became linked with religion.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 12/15/2011 03:14AM by baura.

I think that early people tried to placate the gods (or god) because they didn't understand what caused things in nature. They might have had tornados, intense storms, hurricanes, floods, pestilence, and so on, and they had no idea what caused these things to come about. They personified these forces because thats what human beings tend to do.

But tied to that I do think that there is a deep spiritual impulse imbedded in humanity. Maybe it's a profound desire to be intensely connected with the natural world. I think it is something more than just those primitive fears.

This is just my opinion. I have no evidence.

Belief in god started out of fear. Fear of disease, famine, beasts, death. When we are children, fear is usually placated by our parents and leaders, so gods often play a parenting role, or societal leadership type role. For adults who have no parents, god seems to fill a gap that still exists.

Religion became pervasive because the doctrine of the afterlife, with the heroes welcome, allowed the religiously organized society to fight to the death with less fear. That group likely prevailed and was selected for continuation--a societal survival of the fittest.

Belief in god was supported and encouraged by this same kind of society, because it led to success. That encouraged and empowered the religious institutions. The positive feedback continued until war transitioned from survival/conflict over resources to conflict over doctrine.

lightning bad

no understand lightning

lighting made by big man in sky with fire stick

big man in sky with fire stick god




I love the Terry Pratchett quote: "Prayer is just a sophisticated method of pleading with thunderstorms"

Natural phenomena......add in natural occurring hallucinogenics, disease which springs from nowhere, and a deep Human desire to ask/answer questions.
there you have it.........basically the 'god of the gaps'