Who come first the theist or the atheist

Anti-Flag said:
It's a learned concept, like most things. Don't you remember times before you were indoctrinated?
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I myself am not a theist, and was not "indoctrinated" in a theistic way.
But I am not an atheist either.


You said:

Before theism, everyone (and everything) was atheist, therefore it came first.
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This is a bold claim, impossible to prove empirically.


Not to mention we are all born that way.
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Another bold claim, impossible to prove empirically.
 
--While reviewing all organizational records available, no instance of "spontaneous organization" can be found, when many conclusive instances would be required to establish a precedence to organization.
--Organization always returns to disorganization (entropy), weakening further organization's claim to precedence.
--Disorganization lacks a label, thereby only a "theist" could establish the term "anti" to itself. This in no way concludes that a "terminology" precedes a "concept". Because disorganization lacks a label, it's likely it precedes that which has a label as fixed in an initiation time, such as organization.
These above points really help establish theism as the newby.
 
The weight of the points as logically valid.
--no spontaneous organization record
--entropy
--unlabeled pre-theist concepts are weighted likely to outdate theist-oriented terminology.


Another exampled of weighted logic.

keith1: There is a big hole up ahead in the road we are on. Logic and common sense says there is danger there as well.
wynn: For whom?:scratchin::huh::wtf:
 
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So these:

keith1 said:
The weight of the points as logically valid.
--no spontaneous organization record
--entropy
--unlabeled pre-theist concepts are weighted likely to outdate theist-oriented terminology.
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define you as "open-minded, rational, logic-oriented, modestly intelligent"?
 
The term atheism originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshipped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves as "atheist" lived in the 18th century.[9]
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From Wikipedia

The term was not even coined until the 18th century, therefore it had to have come last.
 
arauca said:
The theist know his owner . The atheist lost its owner

In the animal kingdom or later human, they knew their leader. Now among us some know the leader some have lost him
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Tie terminology precedence and concept precedence to the OP statement.
 
lightgigantic said:
Establishing dna to jungs ideas is all pseudoscience.
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Whether you're a student of Jung or not, any motifs that recur consistently throughout history, among communities who have been separated from each other for too long to attribute it to cultural continuity, must be instinctive. And instincts are programmed by DNA.
wellwisher said:
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.
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I beg your pardon. I am a third-generation atheist who never encountered theism. I was not introduced to the mythology of gods and religion until I was seven. I suppose the little boy who told me a fairytale about a creature named "God" who lives above the clouds and knows everything that happens on earth, and to whom I responded with appreciative laughter because it obviously had to be a clever joke he was making up, would have said that my worldview was built around denial of his, but I had mine long before I ever heard of his.
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.
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Just because atheism doesn't have a concise definition doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. Did quarks not exist until physicists postulated them in order to explain the workings of the universe in more accurate detail?

People like my family, who lived in a world without theism, never get into discussions about whether or not there are supernatural creatures who can turn us into pillars of salt or who can condemn us to trillions of years of torture in a subterranean inferno because we never heard of them.

Atheism is a lack of belief in the supernatural, not a rejection of that belief. This is a huge and important difference.
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.
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But that describes archetypes very well. They are just skeletal structures. Every culture fleshes them out with bits of the unique experiences they have had along the way. No two communities who did not evolve together fairly recently have exactly the same religious mythology.
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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Your hypothesis does not explain my atheism. I was not walking around with an image of a supernatural creature in my head, accompanied by a conviction that it was only imaginary. I had no such images in my head, and I had no reason to think that other people had them and that they were imaginary.
 
The original theists became aware of something that they interpreted as Gods. This was an addendum to their knowledge base. Even if this was a product of a dream, as a possible source of data, the awareness of this data, create a data perception called theism. The denial of this perception or atheism came second. Until something is defined, how can you know to deny it?

A good analogy in modern times are UFO's. People come to the conclusion of UFO's based on witness accounts, visions or inferences. Not believing only appears after the forward claim has been made. They start it, others deny it after they hear how it is being defined.

Having never thought about UFO's does not make you anti-UFO, anymore that you are anti something that will appear 1000 years from now that you have no idea of now. If you are unaware of a relationship, its opposite it does not inherently exist in you. You first have to define it before you can deny it.

People have been anti-Bush and now some are anti-Obama. This anti did not exist until each of these men were defined. To prove this, what will be the anti- of the next president and what is this anti called? I defined next president for you so you can't use that.

It is similar to the two year old child who learns the word "no". If you ask him, do you want noodles for lunch, he says no. He waits for a positive definition via a question so he can define himself in terms of the anti-no. If you stay quiet, he has little to say about what you will say next.

If atheism was not allowed to use any religious words, such as god, faith, religion, heaven, hell, devil, etc. , there would be nothing to deny. As religion adds words and terms and relationships, the amount of anti gets to go up. If atheism even got boring it will need to dig for new things to deny. Theism is more creative adding new things to culture.
 
My experience goes along with the notion of "without god" being what atheism is. I remember a lot from my early years and something as big as god doesn't figure in until I was several years old, after I was instructed in it. So, my recollection is that I began atheistic in belief.
 
Before a god was invented, there were people that did not believe in that god. We would call them atheists, even if they wouldn't themselves, not having known about the god. It's true they couldn't deny that god's existence, since they didn't know about him, but that's only one usage of the term atheist. If you use the lack of belief meaning, then you'd have to call someone not exposed to the god in question an atheist. They certainly aren't a believer.
 
Rhaedas said:
Before a god was invented, there were people that did not believe in that god. We would call them atheists, even if they wouldn't themselves, not having known about the god. It's true they couldn't deny that god's existence, since they didn't know about him, but that's only one usage of the term atheist. If you use the lack of belief meaning, then you'd have to call someone not exposed to the god in question an atheist. They certainly aren't a believer.
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You are ignoring the part of leader which can be labeled as god
 
wellwisher said:
A good analogy in modern times are UFO's. People come to the conclusion of UFO's based on witness accounts, visions or inferences. Not believing only appears after the forward claim has been made.
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Ah right.
So every one believes in UFOs until someone makes a claim that they exist, and then the deniers arise.
So, according to you, until everyone reads the rest of this sentence they were under the impression that cabbages formed the conspiracy responsible for the death of JFK, the disaster of Challenger and the number 12 bus not arriving on time when I wanted to go into town last Saturday? Only now that I have proposed this can people not believe it.
What a maroon...

Having never thought about UFO's does not make you anti-UFO, anymore that you are anti something that will appear 1000 years from now that you have no idea of now. If you are unaware of a relationship, its opposite it does not inherently exist in you. You first have to define it before you can deny it.
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But you don't have to define it to not believe. This where you consistently go wrong.
:rolleyes:
 
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