Who come first the theist or the atheist
- Thread starter arauca
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Is this what you think, or are you just kicking off the proceedings
an idea of your own??
jan.
Oh my, I though we were made in his image, there was no mention of us being pets now was there?
Either that or you knowledge in this matter is, lets say, rather appalling.
You know, there is a useful skill you should learn. Its called making a sensible post!
How can one lose something that never existed? If I do not have a dog but see a dog running down the street do I think that was my dog because someone else lost theirs? :shrug:
The theist defines themselves in terms of their belief in a concept, like God. The atheist defines themselves, less in terms of a positive thing, but more in terms of the denial of someone else's positive thing. Without this denial there is no life in atheism, since everything else in atheism is not unique to atheism or invented by atheism. The unique niche of atheism is defined in terms of a parasitic relationship to religion. Religion can exist without atheism, but atheism does not exist without religion to help define and differentiate itself.
Atheism reminds me of a child learning the power of the word no. Whatever you ask or suggest to the child, his answer is no. "Do you want lunch? NO. ", Do you like the new shirt?, NO!", The saying of no, does differentiate the child as separate from the parent. However, this illusion of separation only works when you suggest something so they can say, NO!. If you remain silent, the distinction ends since the child can not provide something uniquely positive to differentiate itself.
I would challenge atheism to define its uniqueness without using the power words god, religion or anything associated with these in their pitch. Without the "NO", attached to these power words, there is little that was not already done by various religions. The modern university system was developed by the church, with scholarly thinking already an aspect of the church. NO!
In my opinion, I am most convinced with hard data and proof. But I also like to keep all the options open until something is disproven. Never say never unless you can back it up with hard data. As such, I find myself in the middle, able to define myself apart from each, yet still connected to both sides. In the tension of opposites is the creative flux.
Atheism reminds me of a child learning the power of the word no. Whatever you ask or suggest to the child, his answer is no. "Do you want lunch? NO. ", Do you like the new shirt?, NO!", The saying of no, does differentiate the child as separate from the parent. However, this illusion of separation only works when you suggest something so they can say, NO!. If you remain silent, the distinction ends since the child can not provide something uniquely positive to differentiate itself.
I would challenge atheism to define its uniqueness without using the power words god, religion or anything associated with these in their pitch. Without the "NO", attached to these power words, there is little that was not already done by various religions. The modern university system was developed by the church, with scholarly thinking already an aspect of the church. NO!
In my opinion, I am most convinced with hard data and proof. But I also like to keep all the options open until something is disproven. Never say never unless you can back it up with hard data. As such, I find myself in the middle, able to define myself apart from each, yet still connected to both sides. In the tension of opposites is the creative flux.
Bullshit.
If there were no concept of god at all then, by definition, everyone would be atheist but the term itself wouldn't exist. Hence: it's not "parasitic".
Sheer crap.
And what, exactly, does this have to do with atheism?
(Presumably you're a theist: please present your "hard data and proof" that supports your stance, otherwise we can only assume you're lying).
Yazata
Valued Senior Member
Depends on how you define 'atheist', I guess.
Living beings without belief in "God" almost certainly predate beings with that belief, so if we define 'atheism' or 'weak atheism' simply as lack of belief in God, then it's safe to say that weak atheism came first.
But if we define 'atheism' or 'strong atheism' as the denial that God exists, then there would have had to have been some cultural/linguistic concept of 'God' for people to express disbelief about. So strong atheism is probably subsequent to theism.
Who come first the theist or the atheist?
Atheist obviously.
Athiests - 3 billion yrs+
Theists - 300 thousand yrs +/- 50,000
Of course there were no theists before men invented god!
Atheist obviously.
Athiests - 3 billion yrs+
Theists - 300 thousand yrs +/- 50,000
Of course there were no theists before men invented god!
K
keith1
Guest
All belief in a deity, without first having evident proof of that condition, would define all theism as "weak theism".
All preceding "non"-theism could not be weakened philosophically, unless current evidence would debunk, which is not the current condition.
All preceding "non"-theism could not be weakened philosophically, unless current evidence would debunk, which is not the current condition.
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Of course there were no theists before men invented god!
Pretty much what I was going to say. Before theism, everyone (and everything) was atheist, therefore it came first. Not to mention we are all born that way. :shrug:
How do you know that?
Fraggle Rocker
Staff member
Jung tells us that religion is a collection of archetypes, motifs that occur in nearly all cultures and nearly all eras. He died before genetics became a science, but today we would restate that by saying that belief in the supernatural is an instinct preprogrammed into our synapses by DNA. The reason for any particular instinct to be passed down through the generations cannot always be readily determined; they're not all obvious, like the instinct to run away from a large animal with both eyes in front of its face. Perhaps supernaturalism was a survival trait in an era whose dangers were so bizarre that we can't imagine them; or perhaps it was a random mutation that happened to be passed down through one of the genetic bottlenecks our species has undergone.
But in any case, it's likely that (most) people are born believing in the existence of an invisible, illogical supernatural universe from which fantastic creatures emerge at random to interfere with the behavior of the natural universe. If this is true then atheism would most probably have arisen much later in the development of our species, as we accumulated enough knowledge and developed enough advanced reasoning for some of us to stand up and say, "Wait a minute, even if our loving parents assured us that this is true, doesn't it sound an awful lot like pure bullshit?"
Establishing dna to jungs ideas is all pseudoscience
If you are prepared to float jungs idea as sustainable with the current body of evidence surrounding dna I guess anything is possible
Apes are atheists, humans started believing in God relatively recently, so atheists came first.
That assumes humans are fully capable of proving there is no God.
No, it only has to assume that the idea of God is questionable - it can be challenged in a logical sense and that there is no 100% certainty of his existence. Its the old: 1 exception disproves the rule. If there is any question about god's existence that does not have a definite certain answer, even if the existence is probably [which it isn't], then that assumption is valid. It doesn't require "fully capable of proof" it only requires "slight chance of doubt".
Theism appeared first since atheism is a denial of theism. Before theism there was nothing to deny so atheism would have a way to define itself. One way to see this is to define atheism while avoiding any term like god, religion, supernatural, etc. All these terms need to be already in place before atheism has a definition.
As far as Jung's archetypes versus DNA, the archetypes are more that just DNA, since they also include all the data that has an impact on the genetic development such as environmental, cultural as well as imagination feedback. As an analogy the DNA is a seed that will grow into a particular plant. Although a tomato seed will always form a tomato plant (DNA), the final plant (archetype) will also be dependent on water, pH, nutrients, sunlight, bugs, mold, etc. The person with the green thumb will often end with a result different that someone with a black thumb, even though both start with seeds from the same DNA or parent stock. The DNA is too narrow since it does not take into consideration the impact of things outside the DNA such as the internal and external mental environment within humans.
Relative to God, if God is not part of the DNA, the mental imagery of God, in the imagination, will be like the bucket of water that is feeding the tomato seed, allowing it to grow differently that only depending upon the environmental rain for its water. This is why atheism needed theism to develop the cultural logistics (the water bucket), until it was evolved enough to define itself.
As far as Jung's archetypes versus DNA, the archetypes are more that just DNA, since they also include all the data that has an impact on the genetic development such as environmental, cultural as well as imagination feedback. As an analogy the DNA is a seed that will grow into a particular plant. Although a tomato seed will always form a tomato plant (DNA), the final plant (archetype) will also be dependent on water, pH, nutrients, sunlight, bugs, mold, etc. The person with the green thumb will often end with a result different that someone with a black thumb, even though both start with seeds from the same DNA or parent stock. The DNA is too narrow since it does not take into consideration the impact of things outside the DNA such as the internal and external mental environment within humans.
Relative to God, if God is not part of the DNA, the mental imagery of God, in the imagination, will be like the bucket of water that is feeding the tomato seed, allowing it to grow differently that only depending upon the environmental rain for its water. This is why atheism needed theism to develop the cultural logistics (the water bucket), until it was evolved enough to define itself.
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