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I think for something like a deity our feelings are what work best. Especially because there is no proof either way and deep down we often know what feels right. When you take everything into account our feelings are all that is really left to make such a decision. There is no proof that shows a deity does not exist so proof means nothing.
How does this make even the slightest bit of sense?
The existence of a deity is a factual question, and like all factual questions some answers are correct and some are incorrect.
Regardless of people's feelings, since the factual claims of the various religions are so directly contradictory a maximum of one of them is correct.
Your gut feeling may get you an answer that makes you feel good, but who cares about that? It is of absolutely no benefit to you to come to a comforting, but incorrect, answer.
If you abandon reason, logic, and evidence in regard to this question, why adhere to them for any other question?
I think for something like a deity our feelings are what work best. Especially because there is no proof either way and deep down we often know what feels right. When you take everything into account our feelings are all that is really left to make such a decision. There is no proof that shows a deity does not exist so proof means nothing.
I think for something like Santa Claus our feelings are what work best. Especially because there is no proof either way and deep down we often know what feels right. When you take everything into account our feelings are all that is really left to make such a decision. There is no proof that shows Santa Claus does not exist so proof means nothing.
A lot of posters seem to rely on 'Feelings' as a basis for God - faith. Some seem to link this with a handy religion and some seem content to remain agnostic.
I remain convinced that, since these 'feelings' need not indicate a physical or mental link with a 'God', one has to remain unconvinced and therefore agnostic. To insist that 'God' is what they are is irrational, illogical and unworthy of an educated let alone scientific mind. To further link such convictions with any one of the palpably nonsensical Holy Books goes beyond irrationality into foolishness.
I say this not to be mocking or insulting but in a spirit of helping the potentially intellectually capable out of the morass of faith that makes them look rather absurd.
Could I be accused of proselytizing agnostics to hard core atheism?
You misunderstood me. If, as a level 6, you leave open the infinitesimal possibility about which Catman wrote about, then when science comes forward with evidence of God’s existence, you will have to believe. No?
IF science provided evidence of a diety, I would revise my position on the existence of said diety, but that does not necessarily mean that I would find such a diety worthy of worship. For instance, the god described in the Bible is unworthy of my worship even if it were found to be real. I would never worship such a sadistic, small minded creature.
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Correct! As a rule people insist, though, that Ancient Americans and ancient peoples of the rest of the world imagined that identical story independently. You wrote:” Ancient Americans were Ancient Asians before they came across the land bridge. With migration, trade, etc. Doesn't seem too spooky to me”, and I quite agree with you. We can therefore date the production of the original fund of myths at least 15,000 to 20,000 years before present.
Yet, we still have a problem. Who did the imagining and who the copying?
People did. What's the problem?
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Were the myths of the Asians borrowed from the Europeans, and if so why was it that the Asians did not have their own myths?
They both have mythology, as do all human civilizations, and this is exchanged at meetings. Asians and Europeans had lots of contact via trade and if you go far enough back all these groups converge.
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We are dealing here with one set of myths narrating one and the same story.
Perhaps you think so. It seems to me that humanity has a large store of mythology already developed and is constantly dreaming up more. Myths frequently conflict with each other or blatantly rip each other off.
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“A fascinating psychological, as well as historical, problem is thus presented,” wrote Campbell. I am interested in the historical aspect of the problem which when solved it will prove that the vengeful, flawed anthropomorphic gods did exist but not so the spiritual immaterial ones.
You are interested in the historical aspect of what? Humanity's creation of dieties? I think you are in the wrong subforum, this one is for discussing atheism and agnosticism.
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That is what the Academia has been doing for thousands of years depriving thus humanity of the knowledge of its past.
Please. Academia has preserved the past. Humanity has been deprived of nothing, all that "knowledge" which is mostly fictional folklore, is still there for people who want to believe in fairy tales or are merely intellectually interested in them.
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Science, however, has taken a great step last year towards proving myths to be partly fairy tales and partly historical reports.
I am sure that many myths are based on a kernel of truth.
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You know the myth of the tower of Babel and the famous Diaspora: the human kind dispersed from the Near East, where they were fashioned, to the rest of the world. On the other hand you most probably know the latest achievement of the science of genetics :BBC News - Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'
We, the hybrids, were produced in the Near East and then spread out to the rest of the world. The original fund of the mythological motifs was obviously produced there, into the mother-culture, and thus its age increases to approximately 50,000 years (the Europeans begun to enter Europe by approximately 40,000 to 45,000 years ago).
Yes, I know of the myth of the tower of Babel. Correlating neanderthals with Babel is quite the stretch imo.
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the original deities had no divine attributes at all and that we are judging the words of our ancestors from the perspective of our culture which is dominated by fully divine deities.
Which dieties had no divine attributes? Dieties by definition have divine attributes or they would just be mythical people.
How does a true deistic deity, the conception of which is based on logic and evidence alone, look like?
Deistic deities don't look like anything from our perspective since they don't interfere with our universe. However, since it was only thought up as a way of fitting a god into our observations, it's unlikely to be true.
Only that it shows that emotions arise from a physical cause rather than from *god*
Yet, the God’s spot, or module or however they call it, is supposed to be a physical part implanted there by god so that eventually emotions do arise from god.
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Originally Posted by nana053
Science is telling us a lot about the emotions and how they come about.
Science has been unable up to now to explain how the idea of the gods had been originally produced, otherwise there would have never been the funny idea of the God’s spot.
Science has been unable up to now to explain how the idea of the gods had been originally produced, otherwise there would have never been the funny idea of the God’s spot.
It isn't too hard to imagine that since human beings are a species of ape, we find it hard to imagine a world not ruled by an angry alpha male. Think about it.
IF science provided evidence of a diety, I would revise my position on the existence of said diety, but that does not necessarily mean that I would find such a diety worthy of worship. For instance, the god described in the Bible is unworthy of my worship even if it were found to be real. I would never worship such a sadistic, small minded creature.
Before refusing to worship the wicked deity you would have to consider torture and death for you and your family.Listen to some Hittite “Instructions for temple Officials”:
If then, on the other hand, anyone arouses the anger of a god, does the god take revenge on him alone? Does he not take revenge on his wife, his children, his descendants, his kin, his slaves, and slave-girls, his cattle (and) sheep together with his crop and will utterly destroy him? Be very reverent indeed to the word of a god. (ANET, p.208)
Well? What do you say now?
A deity is a supernatural entity and surely science would never provide evidence for the material existence of such an entity. A god, however, was originally an empirical idea, not a theoretical one, and there is a very good chance that science will find out some day that our ancestors were neither idiots nor living in a world of fantasies and that the gods they were talking about was just another human race.
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Originally Posted by tilli
People did. What's the problem?
This answers my question “Who did the imagining and who the copying?”
By saying “People did” we return to “people did it independently” and I believe we have already agreed that imagining independently the same story is not possible.
Then you wrote: “They both have mythology, as do all human civilizations, and this is exchanged at meetings. Asians and Europeans had lots of contact via trade and if you go far enough back all these groups converge”, which is correct. They converge to the original mother-culture and therefore we are not dealing with just fantasies but mostly with that kernel of truth you mention below.
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Originally Posted by tilli
Perhaps you think so. It seems to me that humanity has a large store of mythology already developed and is constantly dreaming up more. Myths frequently conflict with each other or blatantly rip each other off.
There is no conflict between myths dealing with gods and their deeds. Myths are distinguished from legends because they are found in more than at least two different cultures.
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Originally Posted by tilli
You are interested in the historical aspect of what? Humanity's creation of dieties? I think you are in the wrong subforum, this one is for discussing atheism and agnosticism.
“Humanity's creation of deities” is a preconception. If you want to know historical truth you should get rid of prejudice. As regards the subforum, agnosticism can only turn into atheism when the agnostic learns the early history of religion.
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Originally Posted by tilli
Please. Academia has preserved the past. Humanity has been deprived of nothing, all that "knowledge" which is mostly fictional folklore, is still there for people who want to believe in fairy tales or are merely intellectually interested in them.
“God” is a concept not an entity. One has to know how that concept came to be in order to realize that no such entity exists. Academia dares not fight religion, especially in your country and mine.
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Originally Posted by tilli
Yes, I know of the myth of the tower of Babel. Correlating neanderthals with Babel is quite the stretch imo.
Do not forget that the earliest figurines of the Mother Goddess were produced while Neanderthals were still alive in Europe. They were made by the Cro-Magnons, the first modern people to arrive in Europe from the Near East just after the Diaspora –the Babel Tower incident/myth.
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Originally Posted by tilli
Which dieties had no divine attributes? Dieties by definition have divine attributes or they would just be mythical people.
This answers my question “Who did the imagining and who the copying?”
By saying “People did” we return to “people did it independently” and I believe we have already agreed that imagining independently the same story is not possible.
What are you talking about? Different religions have totally different stories. Some are similar, but that's because they are related.
And there's no reason to think they came about independently either. Religion started before humans had spread out much. It branched out and evolved to completely dissimilar religions, just as language evolved.
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