I pose this question to atheists and agnostics:

How is it that the concept of a deity arose in different parts of the world at relatively the same periods of time despite complete physical seperation between the groups of people? Does that automatically imply the existence? Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all? Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?

Discuss.

What? do you want a lecture on probability?

fear+opinion

Deities began as soon as civilizations began. Kings need a mandate from someone, right? And with how class warfare was in the beginning of civilization, it certainly wouldn't be the King's subjects...had to be a higher power.

the fact that everyone came up with difference answers shows that there is no guiding hand at work.

id call it human nature. who the fuck wants to die and go nowhere. who wants to belive its all pointless. people evolved at about the same rate, and the introspective shit was inevitible.

"Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all?"

again, human nature. the similarities would be i guess -don't be a cockhead and something nice will happen when you die.

they are pretty vauge and what everyone on earth would wish for. shit, even monkeys and dolphins are probably at that stage.

"Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?"

it could, but it could also mean that aliens had a brief stint as rulers. occams razor is rarely applied to religious matters.

quote:Originally posted by w000t311:

I pose this question to atheists and agnostics:

How is it that the concept of a deity arose in different parts of the world at relatively the same periods of time despite complete physical seperation between the groups of people? Does that automatically imply the existence? Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all? Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?

Discuss.

The same period of time? Are you sure about that?

What similarities do they ALL share, exactly?

Oi vey... I gave an entire lecture on this at Brainwash Studios and I posted it in Spurious a long time ago. Most everyone just replied back with "Too long didn't read", so I'm not going to bother again.

But, there is a social evolutionary answer - a scientific answer to those questions. Particularily how god and religion evolved. In a nutshell: the caveman walked out of the cave and he saw the clouds moved but didn't know who was moving it, he saw the waves move, but didn't know who was moving it. He saw people got old and died, he saw children grow, sickness, hunger, thirst, hunt, etc... And not being able to explain these happenings through science, yet, he philosophized a higher power.

Most likely the very first religions were devised by women. The evidence for this lies in two factors: Women stayed back at the cave, where it was safer, they always ran in groups, and they raised the children where as men spent most of their time alone, spread out, hunting. This means that not only did women do the most talking but they also taught the children so they would be the ones to come up with an explanation for such things first. The other big suggestion that women created the first religions is that most of the very early religions were matriarchle(sp? damnit...).

Women are of a more parcarious persuasion than men, though. Especially in those days. Many women still die in child birth, but back then certainly it was very commonplace. Anyways, as time wore on women became more and more sheltered and the men became more and more dominant. (Resisting going into detail). It's suggested that men created the first organized religions, giving the sermon as a sort of news broadcast. A sort of pow wow. This of course evolved into the male dominated, female oppressive, monsterously controlling world powers of major orgasnized religions we know and love today.

Cheers,

Lost

quote:Originally posted by LostCause:

Oi vey... I gave an entire lecture on this at Brainwash Studios and I posted it in Spurious a long time ago. Most everyone just replied back with "Too long didn't read", so I'm not going to bother again.

But, there is a social evolutionary answer - a scientific answer to those questions. Particularily how god and religion evolved. In a nutshell: the caveman walked out of the cave and he saw the clouds moved but didn't know who was moving it, he saw the waves move, but didn't know who was moving it. He saw people got old and died, he saw children grow, sickness, hunger, thirst, hunt, etc... And not being able to explain these happenings through science, yet, he philosophized a higher power.

Most likely the very first religions were devised by women. The evidence for this lies in two factors: Women stayed back at the cave, where it was safer, they always ran in groups, and they raised the children where as men spent most of their time alone, spread out, hunting. This means that not only did women do the most talking but they also taught the children so they would be the ones to come up with an explanation for such things first. The other big suggestion that women created the first religions is that most of the very early religions were matriarchle(sp? damnit...).

Women are of a more parcarious persuasion than men, though. Especially in those days. Many women still die in child birth, but back then certainly it was very commonplace. Anyways, as time wore on women became more and more sheltered and the men became more and more dominant. (Resisting going into detail). It's suggested that men created the first organized religions, giving the sermon as a sort of news broadcast. A sort of pow wow. This of course evolved into the male dominated, female oppressive, monsterously controlling world powers of major orgasnized religions we know and love today.

Cheers,

Lost

How bout this: I'll accept the possibility that a deity does not exist if you accept the possibility that a deity does exist. Once that is done, we can call it even, and go get shitfaced.

Havn't people always developed similar ideas independent of each other?

Hmm.. just think of Joseph Cambell's (or is it Campell's, if at all) Hero Cycle.

quote:Originally posted by Shadout Mapes:

Havn't people always developed similar ideas independent of each other?

Sure. this is why the American Indians had the wheel, gun powder, and canons; and didnt have to build casinos to try and take back there land http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/wink.gif)

quote:Originally posted by RAOVQ:

the fact that everyone came up with difference answers shows that there is no guiding hand at work.

id call it human nature. who the fuck wants to die and go nowhere. who wants to belive its all pointless. people evolved at about the same rate, and the introspective shit was inevitible.

"Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all?"

again, human nature. the similarities would be i guess -don't be a cockhead and something nice will happen when you die.

they are pretty vauge and what everyone on earth would wish for. shit, even monkeys and dolphins are probably at that stage.

"Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?"

it could, but it could also mean that aliens had a brief stint as rulers. occams razor is rarely applied to religious matters.

Occam's razor is usually applied in deductive reasoning; in inductive reasoning, it is slightly less useful, especially in the matters of philosophy and religion...after all, it's all speculation; use occam's razor and one of the best topics in the world just disappears.

quote:Originally posted by w000t311:

How bout this: I'll accept the possibility that a deity does not exist if you accept the possibility that a deity does exist. Once that is done, we can call it even, and go get shitfaced.

No. 1: Why do you need me to agree with you?

No. 2: I'm already shitfaced. So, you have some catching up to do.

No. 3: Sure. There's definitely an equal possibility of the existence of god. What, exactly, god is, is a different story.

To be more technical about explaining my religious beliefs, I'm Agnostic. I do believe in god. However, my beliefs in god are so scientifically orientated most Agnostics consider me Atheist. Of course, in turn, because I believe in god all Atheists consider me Agnostic.

Go fig.

Cheers,

Lost

quote:Originally posted by w000t311:

How bout this: I'll accept the possibility that a deity does not exist if you accept the possibility that a deity does exist. Once that is done, we can call it even, and go get shitfaced.

Of course there is possibility either way. However, without any evidence of existence, we must proceed on the assumption that no deity exists.

Which brings us to...

quote:Originally posted by Hexadecimal:

Occam's razor is usually applied in deductive reasoning; in inductive reasoning, it is slightly less useful, especially in the matters of philosophy and religion...after all, it's all speculation; use occam's razor and one of the best topics in the world just disappears.

Speculation, yes. (Speculation that, generally, does not fit the facts).

The fact that Occam's Razor completely cuts down "one of the best topics in the world" indicates that, really, it wasn't that great of a topic in the first place.



In other words, in light of the lack of evidence, while there is an infinitesimal possibility that a deity exists, belief in such a deity is asinine.

People created God because humans need to believe in something so that their life can have some meaning.

People are terrified at the prospect of their existence coming to an end. So, they make up stories that tell them that there is some invisible intangible part of them that will exist forever. Sounds nice, right?

Then, we have those in power who attach conditions to this eternal existence: do as I see fit, and your eternal existence will be wonderful; do against what I say, and your eternal existence will be more awful than you can imagine.

(Only one problem... it is easily proven that the self, the consciousness, the awareness, are all caused by the biological functions of the brain. How, you ask? Well, it only takes a few moments of oxygen deprivation before all those things fade away and stop working.)

all societies evolve to a point where they have enough time to contemplate rather than spend every moment of their time getting food like animals do. when this happens people start to question things and we need answers to things. the easiest way to answer something we don't understand is to label it in a religious format. hence when people started asking what the fuck the sun really was they attributed it to a "god". the fact that many societies got to this point around the same time (give or take about 500 years) doesn't prove shit. and they didn't all come up with similar ideas they all came up with very DIFFERENT ideas. look at the incas compared to europeans, one worships the sun and sacrifices people by the thousands and one believes in a caring loving god (i know its not practiced this way but its meant to be the belief). Now there are similarities of course because of travel and communication and i will admit that many of the major religions do have similar points. most of them are monotheistic and most of them believe that "god" cares. this is because humanity is constantly searching for a connection with something outside their own skull. what i mean is that people are always looking for a feeling of being bigger than they are, hence why sex is so good because you get a connection with someone else and feel like ou are more. religion helps people who cannot accept the truth that we are on our own and we are responsible. the existance of a god means we are part of a greater whole and that we are not responsible for anything that happens to us. you lose all your money in the stock market and end up living out of a cardboard box all of your life then its not your fault its "gods mysterious plan". religion is just bullshit for those who cannot accept reality and want to be able to blame their actions on something other than themselves. now yes i am obviously atheist but i do believe that there is a possibility that there is something out there that is "bigger" than us, actually i think its almost definite i just don't believe its a god or anything that has even remotely the same systems as we do. it would not have compassion, anger, judgment or retribution because it would exist in a whole different "plane" (for lack of a better word) than us and wouldn't be anything like us. i believe that yes this "thing" created us but that doesn't mean it has to display emotional things like, say a christian, catholic or muslim god does or that it even cares what we do. eg you can make a hammer but your nothing like it and you don't make a heaven for the hammer when it gets worn out. same thing for gods

quote:Originally posted by zorro420:

Speculation, yes. (Speculation that, generally, does not fit the facts).

The fact that Occam's Razor completely cuts down "one of the best topics in the world" indicates that, really, it wasn't that great of a topic in the first place.



In other words, in light of the lack of evidence, while there is an infinitesimal possibility that a deity exists, belief in such a deity is asinine.

Sure it is...but so what? Discussion centered around the unknowable is the best...you can exercise your imagination as much as you want, and so long as you don't get too carried away, it's all fun and games.

Zorro, the problem with your hypothesis is that you aren't considering spiritual experience.

The five senses alone cannot prove to us beyond reasonable doubt that God exists.

First, look at His creation (which we all do, hence the birth of science).

Second, make a spiritual connection.

You can't fake a spiritual encounter with Almighty God.

The jews had found the one true god.

Everybody else is just faking it.

The Buddha found God five hundred years before Christ; and that God never demanded blood sacrifice of innocent animals and humans (Isaac & Jesus) to atone for sin; that God has never rained fire on a city or drowned every living being; he's never preached hate, fear, violence, or the existence of a chosen race (Jews!); and most importantly that God will never force billions of humans to endure eternal fiery torture for not believing one old fable among a thousand ancient fables.

If you can accept the 'God of the Jews' with a clear conscience, you are admittedly a stronger man than I.

quote:Originally posted by LostCause:

There's definitely an equal possibility of the existence of god.

Actually, the possibility of a God in any human religious sense is somewhere around the high end of none. Hey religious people. Way to get owned. As for the "spiritual" fucks. Buy some real drugs.

the reason most of the religions are somewhat the same, is because humans all have the same general natural instincts and thought processes. for example, in trying to explain the unknown, ancient people explained the sun thru the means of a sun god. einstein at one point concluded that there must be a god because he couldnt figure out where everything came from.

well once we figured out what the sun is, the sun god idea was gone, and i recently read about this thing called zero energy point, in which energy can come from what appears to be no where, due to probability which is part of quantum mechanics.

edit: to complete that thought, this zero point energy thing may say where everything came from. apparantly its real and it does happen, so maybe at one point a really large amount of energy came out of no where at once, and then everything went on from there.

[This message has been edited by voodoomagic (edited 04-21-2005).]

Snoopy your posts tend to be shit and never add to a debate, I don't know how you got to be a moderator.

With that out of the way, anybody who doesn't have an interest in philosophy should just skip my post.

Georg Hegel is a useful person to provide arguements against atheists. He was a philosopher, and so had the highest faith in the value of rational thought, something that atheists tend to refer to when "disproving" the existence of god. But he also had very deep religious convictions, and held that the universe is anything but random. The reason that so many atheists rely on for their disbelief, Hegel thought was created by god, and that in fact god was rationality, a rationality that orders the universe. I should point out though that he wasn't the biggest fan of the church, as he thought it had devolved from rationalism to authoritarianism, a point I find very interesting and agree with myself.

To quickly answer the question of this thread, Hegel would say that the reason the different religions emerged at the same time was because the Spirit (what we might call god) was only starting to understand itself then. It's as if human beings generate the Spirit of god on our planet through our consciousness, so as man became conscious of himself and the universe, the sum of all consciousness gave birth to god. God is in each of us, and we are each a part of god as it were.

This explanation comes from his philosophy of history, which is a truly fascinating concept. He referred to this Spirit, Zeitgeist in German, as developing through 4 eras in history. In different parts of the world, as it was being "generated" by different groups of people with different views of reality, it had different characteristics, and progessed from one to the next. The idea of historical development is closely related to morality, or the way in which the Zeigeist viewed it's own freedom at these different stages. History in this view ultimately is the unfolding of divine consciousness.

First was the Oriental world, where the Zeigeist had very little understanding of itself or its freedom. In this limited view of freedom, there was only one person in the society who could be "free", the despot, and all others were slaves to his will. This is very much like the egotism that young children experience before they understand their relation to the universe (for example a child talking to someone on the telephone might make gestures to illustrate an idea, and be confused why the other person can't understand). In this stage of development the Zeitgeist is entirely self centered, and expresses itself as the despot, who has abolute will and so on, like a spoiled child.

The next stage of evolution of divine consciousness came with the ancient Greeks, when people became aware of their individual freedoms with respect to themselves. They haven't yet realised that true freedom lies in the state, and fully cooperative behaviour, so their freedom is still a partially selfish one, leading to destructive self indulgence (expressed as civil wars). Where the first stage was like a spoiled child, this is now the rebellious teenager.

The it moves on to the Roman world, the early manhood of the Zeitgeist. Instead of the excessive and resultingly chaotic personal freedoms of the Greek world, the Zeitgeist has come to understand that the best freedom lies in the common interest. It called for hard work, but freedom could be achieved for individuals within the state. In order to achieve the highest freedom, the interests of the individual had to be reconciled with that of the state, which happened with Caesar. Unfortunately this didn't last, as the self-centeredness returned, and its antagonism of the outside world would lead to its downfall eventually. The Zeitgeist had achieved a glimps of the highest state of development, and moved on to the fourth era, where it could make this a reality.

This fourth era was the Germanic/Christian world. The Zeitgeist had learned the idea of freedom, which is why it first emerged in religion. The task was now to implement it for the state as well as for the individual. For Hegel the Christian state could allow this, by following Jesus Christ who was such a union of individual and universal, man and god, and so on. I think Hegel didn't believe the Germanic world had achieved this yet, but it was working towards it. I have a feeling that the two world wars kind of screwed that development right up the ass though.

So this is a very long answer to your question, but the point is to illustrate one highly intelligent persons analysis of the nature of god, which provides the basis for finding an answer to what you asked. I also think his theory of historical development is pretty cool too. http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif (http://www.totse.com/bbs/biggrin.gif)

Oh and the way this incorporates the views of atheists:

Just because we are each a part of what creates god, doesn't mean we have to act out his will. As we are each individuals, we are totally capable of exercising our own independence, and of viewing ourselves as isolated in the world.

None of this is meant to really be a proof of god or anything, just an alternative interpretation of our existence.

Why ask a forum of lay people a question that can only be adequately answered by an anthropology major?

quote:Originally posted by w000t311:

How bout this: I'll accept the possibility that a deity does not exist if you accept the possibility that a deity does exist. Once that is done, we can call it even, and go get shitfaced.



There you have Agnosticism, in it's most basic form.

I guess you could consider me Agnostic, although I'm more of an "Agnostic Atheist" (negative atheist, whatever) in that I don't personally believe there is a god, but am think there very well could be a "god" of some sort.

However, if there is a "god" or deity I highly doubt it woud be in any form that humans could comprehend.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Why ask a forum of lay people a question that can only be adequately answered by an anthropology major?

Anthropologists are lay people too.

And his question isn't so much about finding a technical answer as it is about finding how a typical atheist would provide an explanation for it.

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

Snoopy your posts tend to be shit and never add to a debate, I don't know how you got to be a moderator.

Ask God.

quote:Originally posted by imperfectcircle:

Anthropologists are lay people too.

And his question isn't so much about finding a technical answer as it is about finding how a typical atheist would provide an explanation for it.

It's an unfair question because it is close to impossible for a lay person (somebody not educated in the discipline) to give an answer that is complex enough to require education in anthropology.

The lay atheist would be forced to give a poor answer (and I think I saw this one) for instance "coincidence," giving the poster the upper hand. Yes I know any claim has the burden of proof, but it's an unfair burden of proof in this scope of discussion.

Looks like my definition of "layperson" was too narrow, I always had it defined as a person who is not a member of the clergy.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

It's an unfair question because it is close to impossible for a lay person (somebody not educated in the discipline) to give an answer that is complex enough to require education in anthropology.

The lay atheist would be forced to give a poor answer (and I think I saw this one) for instance "coincidence," giving the poster the upper hand.

What's so hard about responding to the question? I think the only mistake on could make is not noticing how flawed the question is:

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

How is it that the concept of a deity arose in different parts of the world at relatively the same periods of time despite complete physical seperation between the groups of people?

First of all, complete physical separation never existed in human existance.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/time/origtime.htm

As we can clearly see, today's major religions were created over a period spanning more than three millenia. The ones that developed in different parts of the world within the same century have very little in common. Confucianism and Taoism barely mention deities at all. The most similar religions are separated by centuries and originated in the same parts of the world.

Let us also not forget that the concept of deity arose before even any of these religions, and that records during this time are few and far between. Therefore we cannot assume that the concept arose simultaneously throughout the world.

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Does that automatically imply the existence?

quote:Originally posted by deptstoremook:

Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all?

In order to qualify as religions in the first place they have to have some similarities. But as far as the repetition in the texts, this can be explained by either the travel of ideas over time, or by the fact that people were trying to address the same issues of ethics, explain the same natural phenomena, and answer the same mysteries of life.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by deptstoremook:

[B]Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?

Now the poster is contradicting him/herself, sealing the coffin for good. R.I.P., poorly formulated argument.

O common, it wasn't that poorly formulated. It was pretty straight-forward. I didn't want to start great big debate over the topic, I just wanted to start a dialogue about divine guidance of man over time. I'm willing to give a deity the benefit of the doubt. But understand that there cannot be a concrete answer for either side. It's all based deeply in spirituality, which all of man possesses, and whether you believe this as an expressive way to connect with a deity or the bullshit of the stupid, it most certainly does exist. And within spirituality there is a lot of power to be tapped. And I spose it's what you do with this power that makes any difference. There are those who ignore this, others who choose not to use it, and those who connect with it. But it is very possible that man has made contact with a sentient being that exists in this dimension, this realm known as spirituality. And the ability of other people, who's intentions are sincere, to also come to know this being through ceremonies, introspection, meditation, "penance", etc., goes to show that a connection is being forged. That one day, with the help of this being, we will one day be more like it, because it surpasses us in understanding, logic, reasoning. Many of you believe that something does not exist until it can be proven otherwise. Maybe this being is trying to help us understand it by taking us outside of our boxes of perseption and elevating us to sense things on another level.

quote:Originally posted by w000t311:

I pose this question to atheists and agnostics:

How is it that the concept of a deity arose in different parts of the world at relatively the same periods of time despite complete physical seperation between the groups of people? Does that automatically imply the existence? Also, how is it that in all the major writings of every major religion in the world there are similarities between them all? Could that mean that there is a deity behind it all that chose to tap man in different ways, through different people, at different times?

Discuss.

Human nature. pwned!!!!!