Concept of God arising in multiple, different cultures

[James R]

lightgigantic:

Seeing as god is beyond all empirical investigation and all, can you tell me how the universe is different with god in it, compared to what it would look like without god in it? It would look the same, wouldn't it?

Please don't tell me that the universe wouldn't exist at all without god. We can take it as a given that you believe that. What I want to compare how my life would be with and without your empirically unexaminable god.

 

[lightgigantic]

lightgigantic:

Seeing as god is beyond all empirical investigation and all,

not just god, anything explicit

can you tell me how the universe is different with god in it, compared to what it would look like without god in it? It would look the same, wouldn't it?

I'm not even sure how one would explain a universe bereft of explicit articles without spilling into solipsism

Please don't tell me that the universe wouldn't exist at all without god.

well that's what it boils down to, given the primary causal nature of explicit things.

Kind of like asking what would you look like if you didn't have parents and requesting that you not receive the answer "well, you wouldn't exist for a start ..."

We can take it as a given that you believe that. What I want to compare how my life would be with and without your empirically unexaminable god.

Given that tacit descriptions (ie the things we use, lose and abuse in the name of empiricism) arise from explicit things, I'm not sure how one could offer such an explanation. Kind of like saying what would a country look like if it only ever existed on a map (IOW it wouldn't actually exist)? Or how would the interior of a room look like if it wasn't supported in any way by an exterior (IOW it would instantly collapse into a pile of rubble)? Or how would the world look if the only governing power was my ability to make sense of things in my mind (probably sparse, with four white padded walls)

IOW its not so much how the universe would be different if it was bereft of/contained specific explicit causes, but rather how one's comprehension of the universe would be different if one was aware/ignorant of explicit causes

 

[wynn]

You still haven't convinced me that God shouldn't stop suffering. That God that doesn't (stop suffering), isn't God, so our views on God stay unreconciled.

If we are to talk about suffering, we need to be more precise, and look into what exactly is suffering, how it arises and how it may cease.

Okay, if there is a God, why let our parents brainwash us with Abrahamic theology, especially if they knew no better. They were doing the best they knew and had no one else to tell them otherwise. Why does the idea of god have to be so gimmicky?

There's a saying - And if it rained gold coins, it wouldn't be enough to satisfy our desires for material things.
This will sound cruel if along with it, one thinks of hungry children in Africa, or terminal cancer patients, homeless people and the like.
But in our calmer, saner hour we know that it is true. Desiring for material things (money, food, shelter, clothing, romantic relationships, fame, status, etc.) in the hopes that fulfilling those desires would satisfy our deepest hunger, is bound to leave us hungry.

We so wish for the prince on the white horse to save us - and yet we quietly also know that a passive state of being saved from material turmoil is not going to make us happy.
A historical example of this is Prince Siddhartha, who while living as a young man in a palace, had every material comfort imaginable, and yet he was deeply unhappy and set out to find true happiness, leaving all material comforts behind and living as a mendicant and ascetic.

What is more, contrary to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we can't appreciate material things, unless we first have some higher level satisfaction. In "The consolations of philosophy" Alain de Botton makes this point, giving the example that we won't be happy with a fancy car unless we also have good friends; if we don't have good friends, it won't make a difference to our happiness whether we have an average or a fancy car.

Bottomline, we don't find happiness in things being handed to us on a silver platter (whether those things are money and everything money can buy, health, the weather, lovers, fame, or having a sense of "this religion is the right one and all others are wrong"). Striving, self-efficacy are much more conducive to happiness, satisfaction, meaning in life.

 

[wynn]

Ok. I get it. You're defining "automatic" as something that can only apply to God. That doesn't seem like a useful definition to me. And when pushed, you couldn't come up with anything that is "self-existent" other than God, either, which means that the term "self-existent" as you use it is just a synonym for "God", which doesn't take us anywhere new. So let's move on.

No, you've got that backwards.

Terms like "automatic", "self-sufficient," "being one's own person" (ie. 'being self-existent') are commonly used. Reflecting on them, one can easily see how the popular uses of these terms are actually misleading, incomplete. For example, as discussed earlier in the example with an "automatic" watch.
It's reflecting on these terms with progressive precision that leads one to consider the conclusion that only God fits them.

It doesn't matter whether I believe in an "omnimax" God or a little tiny God of the Tuesday Washing Load. Either way, I'm a theist.

Of course it matters. This is a really important point, as I sketched out earlier.

It sounds like you're saying that you want to act as if there is a God, in spite of a lack of any evidence that there is one. Well, you wouldn't be alone there. I'm sure that's exactly what the vast majority of religious people do.

I have been asking over and over here how I can find some actual evidence that there really is a God. Now you're telling me that I can't hope to find any evidence, and that I should instead just act as if there is one and hope for the best. LG, on the other hand, is arguing that I'm not looking in the right place for God, because I'm too reductionist. He would say I can't see the wood for the trees because of my "empirical" blinkers. I should instead look at the "big picture" and conclude that there must be a God based on ... er... something or other, which remains unspecified.

Again, I think you should reflect on your intentions as to why you engage in discussing this topic and what you wish to accomplish by doing so.

My hunch is that you have an ax to grind with Jehovah.

 

[wynn]

Seeing as god is beyond all empirical investigation and all, can you tell me how the universe is different with god in it, compared to what it would look like without god in it? It would look the same, wouldn't it?

Please don't tell me that the universe wouldn't exist at all without god. We can take it as a given that you believe that. What I want to compare how my life would be with and without your empirically unexaminable god.

Something you can reflect on right away is this:

How would your life be if you lived with (the omnimax) God in mind?
How would such a life differ from the life in which you don't have (the omnimax) God in mind?

Now you're telling me that I can't hope to find any evidence, and that I should instead just act as if there is one and hope for the best.

I didn't say that you should live like there is God.

The thing with a proper omnimax definition of God (and its implications) is that it makes it seem inescapable that one believe in God.

With inferior definitions of "God," one has to make an effort to believe in God; with inferior definitions of "God," belief in God is much like any other belief in something we are not sure of or don't know, but where we grit our teeth, hold our breath and hope for the best.
A proper omnimax definition of "God" doesn't bring along such problems.

LG, on the other hand, is arguing that I'm not looking in the right place for God, because I'm too reductionist.

You are being reductionist, when you define theism as "belief in God, a god, or gods", assuming that this is one thing, and not three quite different ones.

He would say I can't see the wood for the trees because of my "empirical" blinkers. I should instead look at the "big picture" and conclude that there must be a God based on ... er... something or other, which remains unspecified.

You don't have to conclude anything.

It's simply prudent to reflect on the particular definitions of the terms that one is using.

Even if we start off with total cultural relativism and say that all definitions of God are man-made, and equally possible, equal competitors for the truth about God, we are still faced with the fact that it is up to us which definition of "God" we will work with - and why.

 

[Balerion]

I didn't say that you should live like there is God.

The thing with a proper omnimax definition of God (and its implications) is that it makes it seem inescapable that one believe in God.

With inferior definitions of "God," one has to make an effort to believe in God; with inferior definitions of "God," belief in God is much like any other belief in something we are not sure of or don't know, but where we grit our teeth, hold our breath and hope for the best.
A proper omnimax definition of "God" doesn't bring along such problems.

For one, Christian theology presents its God as "omnimax," so I don't know where you get the idea that people are operating under lesser definitions. Secondly, how is it that the concept of an omnimax god makes belief inescapable? An omnimax god is prone to all the same issues that face the Christian or Muslim God, as in its nature is contradictory, the fact that it proposes objective morals when morality is so obviously objective, and the total lack of evidence for its existence. So what am I missing here?

 

[wellwisher]

The topic is God arising in many different cultures. The psychologist, Carl Jung, explained this with his theory of the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious can be understand as the personality firmware that define humans as a species. What he found was common myths and themes will appear in many diverse cultures even where there is no physical connection to each other. The explanation is connected to unconscious projection of human propensities to help make them conscious.

At one time the ability to reason was practiced as a religious cult to the goddess Rationalis. The ability to reason was natural human potential, but since it was a still a flower in the bud and unconscious to most people, it was projected onto the goddess. The goddess would do the reasoning for you, if you worshiped. If it comes from the outside, it seems easier to accept. If you said this was in you, even modern can't grasp that.

The ancients had the same bias as modern, with an outside source still considered the only source of data. They also were not conscious enough to realize the projection came from inside. Science still tries to collect data of consciousness from the outside, and can't seem to grasp the importance of inside data; still called soft science. The only difference is the projection is not into a goddess, but into abstractions that can't define what consciousness is; rational polytheism.

Jung, was the star pupil of Freud, but they had a parting of the ways. Jung extrapolated the ID into the shadow and collective unconscious. Jungian psychology was not as accepted because it made use of collective human symbolism, which included religious symbolism. This was taboo in the growing atheist religion that was spreading into science. One was not allowed give traditional religion any positive accolades. This was not good for recruiting new atheists or undermining religion. Jung got screwed.

My POV with religion comes from Jungian psychology. It made me think in terms of religion being a natural projection, which is why it lasts. The details of religions and their progression provide data in terms of the mapping of the human psyche, both past and future. As humans evolved within culture, the species was evolving simultaneously. This can be investigated with internal data.

 

[The Marquis]

Well, just to reiterate, there isn't any particular reason to believe the concept of god arose in different cultures at all, other than as regional variations on a common theme.
I mean, there's even some evidence that the Neanderthals had some concept of an afterlife, but no one seems to be interested in questioning the basic premise of this thread. It appears from the above that even Jung felt the need to expand upon a theory with a possibly incorrect premise.

Ah.... fuck it. Go for it.

 

[Balerion]

Well, just to reiterate, there isn't any particular reason to believe the concept of god arose in different cultures at all, other than as regional variations on a common theme.
I mean, there's even some evidence that the Neanderthals had some concept of an afterlife, but no one seems to be interested in questioning the basic premise of this thread. It appears from the above that even Jung felt the need to expand upon a theory with a possibly incorrect premise.

Ah.... fuck it. Go for it.

I think it's a question of probability. I personally don't think it's very likely that one concept could have survived from one source tens of thousands of years ago (if not longer) all the way through until today. I think it's far more likely that man tends to assume agency when there is no better answer. And it's not as if early religions were all that complex. Most of them centered around solar worship, which is easy enough to imagine occurring independently, given how reliant they would have been on it to survive.

 

[The Marquis]

Sooooo..... you're saying, in effect, that you believe it's more probable that the concept of god arose in multiple cultures independently, than it was a natural evolution from a single source?

We're talking a single, ideological concept; the capability of the human mind to envisage that agency to begin with.
It makes little difference where and how that concept eventually evolved.

 

[Balerion]

Sooooo..... you're saying, in effect, that you believe it's more probable that the concept of god arose in multiple cultures independently, than it was a natural evolution from a single source?

We're talking a single, ideological concept; the capability of the human mind to envisage that agency to begin with.
It makes little difference where and how that concept eventually evolved.

No chief, a concept is not the same as the ability to envisage said concept. If we're talking about the ability to conceptualize God, clearly we're talking about biological evolution, and as long as we're all human, then our ability to conceptualize God has a single source (as long as the Out of Africa theory is true). But God (or gods) as an actual concept is different. It's like the concept of sport. Or the concept of war.

 

[wellwisher]

The problem we have here is the philosophy of science is not equipped to deal with all aspects of consciousness. The philosophy was set up to factor out things that can't be proven in a repeatable way. This is the entire unconscious mind.

For example, if I had a dream with many details, this cannot be proven with science, even the experience was real. There is no machine to watch my dream. There is no way to externally prove what I saw, and there is no way to repeat it. Strike three and I am out even though real. Even if you have a dream and can relate the details, the philosophy says there is no proof based on the rules of the method. This is why sciences of the mind are often called soft science. While, the harder sciences of the mind (biological) can't define consciousness due to not being able to include data in violation of the method.

You need internal data to define consciousness, since even common internal things like dreams are outside the philosophy of science, so data is lost This loss of data makes it harder to discuss simply things like projection, since you will not be able to measure it outside. It will occur inside, but in a way that science is not able to see it, since it does not satisfy the conditions of the philosophy. This is a frontier where science becomes the problem.

Jung defined the archetypes of the collective unconscious. He made the case of the collective unconscious by showing how symbolism is common in many cultures including those who never came in contact. He was using outside historical data to prove the inside, you could not see with the science method. He was not proving religion commonality, but showing how the same myths can evolve independently because they projection from common brain areas. The Aborigine has a myth of a great flood.

When I studied Jung, I could intuitively sense his thesis, but what was missing was direct experience of special effects. If he was right, I figured I should be able to induce similar experiences within myself, since these come from the collective human areas of the mind. This is how you do inner mind research, even if the philosophy of science is not equipped to deal with the data you will generate. It is frustrating when a biased tradition lords over things it knows little of.

I grew up during the hippy era of the late 1960's early 1970's, when alternate reality was the way of the youth culture. Timothy Leary was about exploring and expanding the mind using LSD. This was also done with eastern mysticism and other forms of drugs. I was not into the drugs, but did like to watch the affects from the outside, as friends saw all types of cool things. What it showed me was under certain conditions the mind could generate awake dreamscapes, that were not always random, but could have a story line. The drug opened a barrier. This type of self exploration is uncommon now, but ask your parents and grandparents. It did generate a lot of good internal data of which science could not make use of due to its own bias.

The difference between an acid trip and a projection was the kids knew the drug was inducing this. Although I did see examples, of the wilder kids lacing food with drugs to give to unknowing subjects. These subjects would not have anything to blame the trip on, and would think it was very real; projection of the mind. I can see a natural projection affect. Religions perpetuate because the outward symbolism allows a matrix that is useful for firmware projection.

It is not uncommon for the youth to have teen idols. The idol is only a person in a good position, but the projection will add extra. Even an idiot who is an idol may be allowed to voice an opinion, with the youth thinking this is genius, due to the projection overlay. The idol offers a matrix onto which to project a hero.

 

[The Marquis]

No chief, a concept is not the same as the ability to envisage said concept. If we're talking about the ability to conceptualize God, clearly we're talking about biological evolution, and as long as we're all human, then our ability to conceptualize God has a single source (as long as the Out of Africa theory is true). But God (or gods) as an actual concept is different. It's like the concept of sport. Or the concept of war.

You're playing with semantics, not disagreeing with me. Basically, this is what I've already said.
Other than that the concept of god is not much different at all from the ability to conceptualise. It's merely a logical progression of it.
Not sure why you mentioned sport and war, they're subject to the same thing. Two tribes go to war, nowadays the tribes are a lot bigger and we think we have a clearer idea of what it's all about. So what?

You said:

I personally don't think it's very likely that one concept could have survived from one source tens of thousands of years ago (if not longer) all the way through until today.

Which indicates that you find it easier to believe that somehow, the concept just sprang up all over the world in a similar form because that's how the human mind works.
I've brought up the feral children argument before, so I'm not going to go into it again here. But basically there is as much proof that this is not the case as there is for it.

Look, even ignoring the single source theory for a moment, you still can't assume the concept arose in multiple cultures at a similar time. It smacks of some distorted vision of the different human tribes all having no contact with each other at all. Of course they bloody did. That the Chinese didn't have much contact with the European peoples until fairly late in the game doesn't mean there wasn't a gradual spread of ideas across the continents... like Chinese whispers.

In fact, when you look at the spiritual evolution of the American and Australian natives, the level of sophistication actually lends credence to them being more affected by isolation than mainlanders, and that the very early spiritual ideas were much the same, and in some places evolved more rapidly where contact was more frequent.
Single source.


Frankly, I can't see how you could possibly think it's more likely that the concept of god arose in multiple places independently of one another. It doesn't stack up.
Unless, of course, you happen to be religious. If that's the case, there isn't any point in arguing about it.

 

[James R]

lightgigantic:

Seeing as god is beyond all empirical investigation and all...

not just god, anything explicit

Everything is beyond empirical investigation now? Sorry, but I'm not buying that.

Please don't tell me that the universe wouldn't exist at all without god.

well that's what it boils down to, given the primary causal nature of explicit things.

You're begging the question. You assume that "explicit things" have a "primary causal nature", which is just a fancy way of saying that everything was caused by God. Then, you try to turn that around and argue that because everything was caused by God, everything was caused by God. Again, I don't buy it.

Kind of like asking what would you look like if you didn't have parents and requesting that you not receive the answer "well, you wouldn't exist for a start ..."

In my world, parents are an explicit thing that is not beyond empirical investigation. By the sounds of it, you live in a very different world.

IOW its not so much how the universe would be different if it was bereft of/contained specific explicit causes, but rather how one's comprehension of the universe would be different if one was aware/ignorant of explicit causes

I'm not sure whether you're trying to reduce your God to some kind of vague causal agent here. Does your God have attributes beyond being the explicit cause of things? And if so, how do you know what they are?

 

[James R]

wynn:

Terms like "automatic", "self-sufficient," "being one's own person" (ie. 'being self-existent') are commonly used. Reflecting on them, one can easily see how the popular uses of these terms are actually misleading, incomplete. For example, as discussed earlier in the example with an "automatic" watch.
It's reflecting on these terms with progressive precision that leads one to consider the conclusion that only God fits them.

Why can't the universe fit them?

It doesn't matter whether I believe in an "omnimax" God or a little tiny God of the Tuesday Washing Load. Either way, I'm a theist.

Of course it matters. This is a really important point, as I sketched out earlier.

....

You are being reductionist, when you define theism as "belief in God, a god, or gods", assuming that this is one thing, and not three quite different ones.

"A god" is a single instance of "gods". "God" is a name or title give to a god. Apart from those obvious distinctions, these are the same thing. Theism is a belief in a god or in multiple gods.

Again, I think you should reflect on your intentions as to why you engage in discussing this topic and what you wish to accomplish by doing so.

My hunch is that you have an ax to grind with Jehovah.

If I don't believe in Jehovah, that's kind of like saying I have an axe to grind with Santa Claus.

Something you can reflect on right away is this:

How would your life be if you lived with (the omnimax) God in mind?
How would such a life differ from the life in which you don't have (the omnimax) God in mind?

Well, for a start it seems that if I lived with your omnimax God in mind then I'd be wasting a lot of time worrying about a being who seems to be imaginary.

The thing with a proper omnimax definition of God (and its implications) is that it makes it seem inescapable that one believe in God.

If you want to define God as something that is indistinguishable from the universe, as you and lightgigantic seems to want to do, then believing in God only amounts to believing in the reality of the universe. But I know that lightgigantic, for one, attaches a lot more baggage than that to his concept of God. And so do all mainstream religions.

You don't have to conclude anything.

It's simply prudent to reflect on the particular definitions of the terms that one is using.

It seems to me that you want to avoid discussion of the thread topic, in favour of a discussion about some idiosyncratic redefinitions of common terms such as "automatic". Again, I get the impression that you're more interested in a meta-discussion than in a real discussion.

 

[lightgigantic]

lightgigantic:



Everything is beyond empirical investigation now? Sorry, but I'm not buying that.

Did I say "everything"?

You're begging the question. You assume that "explicit things" have a "primary causal nature", which is just a fancy way of saying that everything was caused by God. Then, you try to turn that around and argue that because everything was caused by God, everything was caused by God. Again, I don't buy it.

I am saying that tacit things derive their measurable/empirical quality from explicit things.
Perhaps your request for a purely tacit rundown on an object would make sense if you could offer a tacit description that is complete (instead of dialogue that starts losing traction the further one moves into the macro/microcosm).

Once again, its not just simply a "god" thing". Even a request for a description of a cup of flour bereft of an explicit foundation suffers identical problems

In my world, parents are an explicit thing that is not beyond empirical investigation. By the sounds of it, you live in a very different world.

actually I was using them as an example to illustrate the absurdity of requesting a description of a scenario that is bereft of causal elements ... but even then you are wrong ... unless you can actually present a complete family tree from day dot (as opposed to simply a network of tacit descriptions - aka metonymic - of individuals from a particular chronological slice of your history)

I'm not sure whether you're trying to reduce your God to some kind of vague causal agent here. Does your God have attributes beyond being the explicit cause of things? And if so, how do you know what they are?

I'm not sure how one could venture a tacit description of an object while insisting that it in no way involve an explicit qualifier. To get back to metonymy, it would be just like requesting that you take pictures of different parts of a persons body given that there is a person with no body at the onset. IOW its not clear how one could investigate the parts of something (which is obviously the authoritative playing ground of empiricism) for which there is no whole.

It seems to me you've got it all topsy turvy. There is no attribute beyond the explicit (unless you are talking about a metonym within a metonym ... but I really don't want to go there atm since its clear we are not on the same page with the basics) but there are attributes beyond the tacit .... much like (in terms of cartography) there is no attribute beyond the continent but there are attributes beyond the map.

 

[wynn]

For one, Christian theology presents its God as "omnimax,"

The idea that vast numbers of people will burn in hell for all eternity strikes you as something that the omnibenevolent entity would do?

so I don't know where you get the idea that people are operating under lesser definitions.

Not all people who consider themselves Christians (or of whichever theistic religion) hold the same beliefs, the same definitions.
So, for example, there are people who claim to be Christians and who believe in eternal damnation, and there are people who call themselves Christians but who don't believe in eternal damnation.

Secondly, how is it that the concept of an omnimax god makes belief inescapable?

First of all, the phrase "an omnimax god" is nonsensical. There can be only one omnimax entity.

If God is defined as the First Cause, the Creator, Maintainer and Controller of the Universe, then, as far as definitions go, God contextualizes everything that happens in this Universe. With such a definition of "God," a person considers that their every breath, their every bowel movement, every thought they have, is contextualized by God.

An omnimax god is prone to all the same issues that face the Christian or Muslim God, as in its nature is contradictory, the fact that it proposes objective morals when morality is so obviously objective, and the total lack of evidence for its existence. So what am I missing here?

What you're missing here? I think you're not acknowledging the worldly perks that inferior definitions of "God" bring along.

 

[wynn]

I'm not sure how one could venture a tacit description of an object while insisting that it in no way involve an explicit qualifier. To get back to metonymy, it would be just like requesting that you take pictures of different parts of a persons body given that there is a person with no body at the onset. IOW its not clear how one could investigate the parts of something (which is obviously the authoritative playing ground of empiricism) for which there is no whole.

It seems to me you've got it all topsy turvy. There is no attribute beyond the explicit (unless you are talking about a metonym within a metonym ... but I really don't want to go there atm since its clear we are not on the same page with the basics) but there are attributes beyond the tacit .... much like (in terms of cartography) there is no attribute beyond the continent but there are attributes beyond the map.

I think that some atheists here are working simultaneously with two mutually exclusive goals: 1. to find evidence of God, and 2. to define God. And then they switch between the two, so that at each step, they maintain the status quo, and maintain their atheism.

To give a less loaded example:
If one wants to find an apple, one first needs to know what an apple is, so that one has an idea of what one is looking for and is able to direct one's search. If one has no definition of an apple, an apple could be right in front of one in one's hand, and one wouldn't see it for an apple, as one lacks an understanding of what an apple is, an understanding which is necessary so as to be able to distinguish it from other things that are not an apple.

Sometimes, when people look for God, they seem to forget that if this is how they frame their search (ie. "a search for God"), they are already working with a definition of "God," and that therefore, they will find (or not) only things according to said definition.

Much like saying "I want evidence of X. But until I have evidence of X, I refuse to define what X is."

 

[wynn]

Terms like "automatic", "self-sufficient," "being one's own person" (ie. 'being self-existent') are commonly used. Reflecting on them, one can easily see how the popular uses of these terms are actually misleading, incomplete. For example, as discussed earlier in the example with an "automatic" watch.
It's reflecting on these terms with progressive precision that leads one to consider the conclusion that only God fits them.

Why can't the universe fit them?

What do you mean by the "universe" here?

If I don't believe in Jehovah, that's kind of like saying I have an axe to grind with Santa Claus.

You don't have to believe in Jehovah to take issue with some of his attributes.
For example, you surely take issue with the idea that it is an act of love to punish some of one's children for all eternity.

It seems to me that you want to avoid discussion of the thread topic, in favour of a discussion about some idiosyncratic redefinitions of common terms such as "automatic".

If you insist in mere colloquial precision, as opposed to philosophical precision, get ready for trouble.

Again, I get the impression that you're more interested in a meta-discussion than in a real discussion.

I get the impression that you want to keep the discussion in status quo.

"A god" is a single instance of "gods". "God" is a name or title give to a god. Apart from those obvious distinctions, these are the same thing. Theism is a belief in a god or in multiple gods.

The worldly perks of inferior definitions of "God" are many, and both some atheists as well as some theists maintain those inferior definitions.

Taking pride in one's intellectual prowess for having figured out on one's own which religion is the right one or what the truth about God is;
expecting or demanding from other people to give one special respect for being a member of the right religion or for having figured out the truth about God on one's own;
taking pride in one's social, cultural, national, racial, economic background as being decisive for one's membership in the right religion;
deeming oneself better than other people;
- these worldly perks are possible only for someone who operates out of an inferior definition of "God".

In the proper omnimax definition of "God," where "God" is defined as the First Cause, the Creator, Maintainer and Controller of the Universe, so, as far as definitions go, God contextualizes everything that happens in this Universe.
With such a definition of "God," a person considers that their every breath, their every bowel movement, every thought they have, everything they feel, think, say and do, is contextualized by God.

Such a person has no basis to take pride in their intellectual prowess (for they know it is provided by God), cannot demand special respect from others (as they know that everyone is just as much part of God as they are), knows that one cannot take credit for one's social, cultural, national, racial, economic background (as they know it is provided by God), and cannot deem themselves as better than others (as they know that nothing happens without God's will).

 

[Balerion]

You're playing with semantics, not disagreeing with me. Basically, this is what I've already said.

No, it's not what you said at all. You said (and you reiterate below) that the concept and the ability to conceptualize are one in the same. This is not true. It's no more true than the hammer is the ability to make tools. No, the hammer is a product of that intelligence, of that ability, not the ability itself.

Other than that the concept of god is not much different at all from the ability to conceptualise. It's merely a logical progression of it.

Another nonsensical statement. One is a product of the other; they aren't the same thing. It's like how you're not your parents, but a product of them.

Not sure why you mentioned sport and war, they're subject to the same thing. Two tribes go to war, nowadays the tribes are a lot bigger and we think we have a clearer idea of what it's all about. So what?

Wow.

Okay, I mention sport and war because they are concepts, just as God is a concept. They aren't the ability to conceptualize, they're the products of that ability. I mean, this is really easy stuff, so why is it so difficult?

You said:
Which indicates that you find it easier to believe that somehow, the concept just sprang up all over the world in a similar form because that's how the human mind works.

Yes, that's correct.

I've brought up the feral children argument before, so I'm not going to go into it again here. But basically there is as much proof that this is not the case as there is for it.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm not familiar with your past arguments. If you don't want to get into it, I have no reason to just assume your claim here is valid.

Look, even ignoring the single source theory for a moment, you still can't assume the concept arose in multiple cultures at a similar time. It smacks of some distorted vision of the different human tribes all having no contact with each other at all. Of course they bloody did. That the Chinese didn't have much contact with the European peoples until fairly late in the game doesn't mean there wasn't a gradual spread of ideas across the continents... like Chinese whispers.

Really? So you think it's more likely that this one idea spread to every single culture in the world than it just happens to be something humans dream up when they're ignorant to the workings of the world around them? That it survived every displacement, every disaster? Really?

I don't think I need to say how ridiculous that is.

In fact, when you look at the spiritual evolution of the American and Australian natives, the level of sophistication actually lends credence to them being more affected by isolation than mainlanders, and that the very early spiritual ideas were much the same, and in some places evolved more rapidly where contact was more frequent.
Single source.

So if religion is homogeneous in isolated places, how in the world does that suggest that it comes from a single source? Contact complicates the ideas...except as its spreading? That doesn't hold water. It actually suggests the direct opposite, that groups of people tend to come up with similar superstitions that complicate and grow as they spread.

Frankly, I can't see how you could possibly think it's more likely that the concept of god arose in multiple places independently of one another. It doesn't stack up.
Unless, of course, you happen to be religious. If that's the case, there isn't any point in arguing about it.

Of course it adds up. It's the only theory that does. Unless you think it's more likely that one idea from a single source permeated every single culture on the planet and survives to this very day. I mean, by your logic, every concept came from the same place. Artistic expression? Check. Sport? Check. War? Check. I mean, it's laughable that you could hold such an opinion.