The Black Vault

greeney2 wrote:Humphreys either you do not read well, or you are so intent on your point, you just do not listen or hear what is said. As I just rote over 6 billion believe in God in some form. I did not group them for any reason other than they believe in some God and worship according to who they are. I also stated these cultures are even complety separated, not influenced by each other and independantly conclude a belief in God.

Such a great critical thinker as you might even ask just how and why did the native Americans, the Mayans, the Inca, and other inhabitants of the Ameica's who are uninfluenced by cultures of Europe and Asia, concluded there was God?

Prior to science, everyone on the planet had superstitions or theories about why they exist. Any intelligent being will ask themselves this question.

Ancient scientifically unsophisticated humans looked around, knew they were incapable of creating something as "complex" as the world and themselves, so they figured something more powerful must have done so. That's why over tens of thousands of years, all over the Earth, you've got thousands of different deities that have been invented by man. Different clans/tribes conjured up their own invisible friend that they could relate to at the time.

event_horizon wrote:Besides, the "Biblical God" has already been proven to not exist, because the very foundation of the Bible -- the "Adam and Eve" story -- is false, as I've shown in my previous post.

lmfao
I'm not a Christian but it still baffles me that some people buy into the "creation story is false ergo the Biblical God does not exist" argument.

Ancient scientifically unsophisticated humans looked around, knew they were incapable of creating something as "complex" as the world and themselves, so they figured something more powerful must have done so.

Scienticically unsophisticated? I beg to differ Ancient cultures were extremely advanced. You only have to look at the artifacts and structures that today astound todays scientists. They were hardly stupid people, and the building of the Pyaminds 4000 years ago, their accuracy and alignment, is considered near impossible, with the technology of that time. The ruins of the Mayans and alignments with the sun and on certain times and dates, is an astounding feat. You are talking about cultures so separated and remote from each other they may as well been on different planets. Yet, these completly different and totally separated cultures ranging from the Egyptians and African cultures, European, Asian, North and South American, all just imagined the concept of God never knowing of other cultures exsisting. And independantly advanced to a point of remarkable scientific things, knowledge of the universe, tools and building, precision measuring. How they were able to cut and move huge stones, accuratly enough to have alignment of the pyramids as close as they are, is very advanced.

Well said. The term "unsophisticated" probably refers to the fact that the ancient civilizations didn't have cell phones and internet porn. A lot of kids these days can't imagine life without either of these necessary tools.

It's absolutely expected that humans would believe in God before sufficient scientific advancement.

We see the same logic used way back then used today even:

1) the Universe exists
2) it looks very complex
3) it must have been created

While today we are only scratching the surface on how a Universe can exist without a creator, back then it was almost unfathomable that the Universe was not made especially for humans, with a flat earth at the center of it all with everything else revolving around it.

What I meant about you lumping all the beliefs together, your reasoning is as follows:

1) lots of people believe in a god, and have done right throughout history
2) these people were smart and knowlegable
3) therefore, it is likely god exists

However, you fail to see the logical extension to that kind of reasoning, which is:

1) lots of people, while they believe in god, do not believe in the Christian God or the Bible, or really anything particularly close to it
2) these people were smart and knowlegable
3) therefore, it is likely the Christian god does not exist

You can't have it both ways, either you play the numbers card and apply it fully, or you don't, and admit it really means nothing.

If I were to play it, I would state:

1) scientists in the most relevant fields regarding the evolution of life and the creation of the Universe are mostly atheists
2) these people are the best placed to discuss the likelihood of the Universe being created by god
3 therefore, it is likely there is no God

Personally, I reject all of the above arguments as being particularly convincing, but you either accept them all, or none of them, I think.

greeney2 wrote:Ancient scientifically unsophisticated humans looked around, knew they were incapable of creating something as "complex" as the world and themselves, so they figured something more powerful must have done so.

Scienticically unsophisticated? I beg to differ Ancient cultures were extremely advanced. You only have to look at the artifacts and structures that today astound todays scientists. They were hardly stupid people, and the building of the Pyaminds 4000 years ago, their accuracy and alignment, is considered near impossible, with the technology of that time. The ruins of the Mayans and alignments with the sun and on certain times and dates, is an astounding feat. You are talking about cultures so separated and remote from each other they may as well been on different planets. Yet, these completly different and totally separated cultures ranging from the Egyptians and African cultures, European, Asian, North and South American, all just imagined the concept of God never knowing of other cultures exsisting. And independantly advanced to a point of remarkable scientific things, knowledge of the universe, tools and building, precision measuring. How they were able to cut and move huge stones, accuratly enough to have alignment of the pyramids as close as they are, is very advanced.

By "scientifically unsophisticated" I'm mainly talking about them not having a scientific method. It's got nothing to do with construction.

Notice where you quoted me and pay attention to the underlined words:

Ancient scientifically unsophisticated humans looked around, knew they were incapable of creating something as "complex" as the world and themselves, so they figured something more powerful must have done so.

In other words, they knew that prior civilizations couldn't have built the planet, and they also knew they couldn't have created themselves. With no knowledge about evolution or cosmology/Big Bang, they must have thought something more powerful created them and the world. And so it's quite easy to think why humans from all parts of the world, from different cultures and different times, would all imagine there being a deity/idol/god of some sort.

It appears that the period of development between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons (about 50,000 years ago), when intelligence began to peak, is when the first known idols/deities began being worshipped.

Intelligence without knowledge can make people believe funny things.

I think our conversations are referring to Bibllical times forward, the birth of religions we talk about, and not cro-magnon eras or cavemen. The Americas knew nothing of Europe and Asia, who thought the world was flat only 500 yrs ago. The building examples are byproducts of the science of the time, and were remarkably advanced, and had advanced remarkably in totally opposite sides of the globe indepentant from each other. Cultures had remarkable knowledge of the stars adn universe, position of the sun, etc. They concluded the same things about God? How many cultures in Asia were just as separated, and advanced, Or Cultures as far North as you can go in Europe? Building relics still standing thousands of years, are a statement of how advanced their science was, to do such intellegent things. Certaninly not a society of delusional minds and people, and in so many differnet unconnected cultures.

Even with today level of science, you still have no proof God does not exist.

greeney2 wrote:Even with today level of science, you still have no proof God does not exist.

Kinda irrelevant since you (I presume) have no proof that God does exist.

The only absolute proof we all get is actually dying, and I've said that many times. Its a little like those 1 to 10 surveys, where they ask give a number if its "more likely" or "less likely", which way does the scale swings, or something in the middle. Some people answer 1 or zero, others are 10, and a lot more teetering at 4,5,and 6 point which way to decide. Concenous is twards belief, but not everyone is a 10. Bottom line is we all have doubts, and we all have things that make us believe, others can not accept or understand them. Some look only at a science based absolute proof, and others see convincing proof in a leaf, newborn, or sometimes a near death experience. It may convince me, but not even come close for others. There will always be the spigetti monster believer and those who dance shaking rattlesnakes that were convinced somehow.

If you want total absolute proof you are not going to find it, if you want convincing proof it is all around you.

We know more now than we did back then, and yet today atheism is a far more reasonable position, with, I presume, far greater numbers (in total, and by percentage, too).

If we want to go down this road and keep playing the numbers game, the argument could be made that scientific knowledge and atheism go hand in hand - the more we know, the less we attribute to God, and the more people turn to atheism or agnosticism.

Before Darwin's theory of evolution was formed it was extremely hard to imagine how even humans could exist without a creator, let alone the Universe, and yet today, it is completely accepted as true in mainstream science, going against everything people back then believed in.

The God of the major religions is really just a "God of the gaps", meaning, whatever we can't readily explain with our current knowledge base, is attributed to God. As science fills in the gaps as we advance, God has less and less holes to fill (way back in the day, he was thought to be directly responsible for pretty much everything, resulting in things like human sacrifices and the like). One day, I expect, he will be given the job of first cause by some and that's it (Deism), everyone else with be an atheist, agnostic or a pantheist (we may be talking thousands of years, though).