Who come first the theist or the atheist

[Sarkus]

Any line of reasoning that argues that religion is man-made, implies strong atheism.

No it doesn't.
The flaw in your logic is to think that a result can only be reached by a single path - i.e. that one can not reach the conclusion that religion is man-made by anything other than belief in the non-existence of god.

It is certainly true that if you consider god to be non-existent then you would argue religion to be man-made.

However, if god is held to be unknowable (agnostic) then the logical extension of this is that religion is man-made. Period.
I say this because if religion is not man-made then it would require god to be knowable, which an agnostic does not hold... thus they consider religion to be man-made.
An agnostic that holds god to be unknowable usually chooses to not-believe in the existence of god.
They are weak atheist.

Thus both agnostic (weak) atheists AND strong atheists would consider religion to be man-made.

Heck, even some theists might consider religion to be man-made, if they believed in an entirely personal deity.

Thus one can not logically argue that "religion is man-made" implies strong-atheism.
To do so is logically fallacious.

 

[Aqueous Id]

The theists in the room were trying to play a word game within a word game. Get the reader to admit that the prefix a- is added after the root already exists.

It's not just "the theists in the room" that have made that perfectly reasonable point. I did as well, repeatedly.*

This response lives in a vacuum, devoid of the literal text in the Apology. I have offered one of the earliest known works that actually used the word atheos. I presented it specifically because Plato went to great trouble to communicate the irony behind Socrates’ accusation, perhaps even with an eye on the future, that we would not perpetuate the tragedy.

(I defeated this by showing in Plato's*Apology*that even the game fails, the word "atheist" in its earliest use, was against the guy who denied sun and moon worship).

So how do you explain Socrates' own paraphrase of the charge leveled against him:

"I suppose you mean, as I infer from your indictment, that I teach them not to acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges, but some other new divinities or spiritual agencies in their stead. These are the lessons which corrupt the youth, as you say."

The question implies a negation of several assumptions generally held to be true:

(1) That the worshippers of the pantheon are not “theists”, as the term is used in post #2

(2) That the person who repudiates the pantheon is not an “atheist” as used in post #2.

(3) That, in the end, Socrates was espousing the position of “theist”, as used in post #2.

Furthermore:

(4) Socrates does not raise a defense against a charge of repudiating the pantheon, only the charge of repudiating the worship of the sun and moon.

(5) Plato isolates the animism from pantheism from theism, then squarely places animism in the spotlight in the very critical exchange between Socrates and Meletus at the end of cross-examination.

(6) This emphasis is remarkable because it appears to be the only fact admitted that led to his death penalty.

 

[Aqueous Id]

'Atheism' was basically a political charge in Socrates' time and place. It was something like a charge of disloyalty or treason. It took the shape of allegations that somebody failed to properly respect the polis' patron deities. As Socrates says, failure to "acknowledge the gods which the state acknowledges" and teaching that disloyalty so as to "corrupt the youth". The prosecutor emphatically agrees with that paraphrase.

As far as prosecuting an atheist, the charge would need to show injury to the state. I don’t see how that relates to the theological aspect--renouncing worship of the sun and moon--which is the ‘proximate cause’ of the injury, to which Socrates admitted his guilt.

The relevance to this thread's 'who came first' argument is that the idea of the Greek gods already existed in Socrates' time. The idea of Zeus, Athena, Apollo, Poseidon and all the rest of them had already existed for many centuries and was already part of Greek tradition. There was an impressive temple dedicated to Athena up on the Athenian acropolis during Socrates' trial.

No, worshippers of the Athenian pantheon are not deemed “theists” as referenced in post #2. They would be called pantheists or polytheists. This was the linchpin of my argument: pantheism/animism occurs with atheism, and all of these precede theism. Post #2 falls.

It's true that Socrates, as was his philosophical fashion, kind of played with the definition of 'atheist', stretching the boundaries of the word and questioning exactly what it included. He even ended up referring to the idea of monotheism, which was gradually spreading among philosophers, even suggesting that perhaps the so-called 'atheist' was the most devout of them all. But that doesn't imply that the word 'atheism' was somehow prior to the idea of gods or didn't even refer to them.

Socrates put on a strange and rather 'deconstructive' self-defense and as we know, it didn't succeed. Trying to deconstruct the charge of 'atheism' so as to create doubt that it was even meaningful didn't really enable him to escape conviction on the underlying political charge. The court was probably determined to find him guilty before proceedings even began and it was something of a show-trial.

Let me begin by saying I almost don’t believe any of this happened. Plato’s accounts of Socrates are so detailed, he would need something like a lambskin steno pad to keep up. I’m also thinking of the Republic which contains mazes of intricate weaving of fact and logic, which gradually become intertangled as the story progresses. It’s this abundance of detail that makes me wonder how much of Plato’s art include fiction and embellishment.

Regardless of that, I interpret the story differently than you. To me, Plato is revealing a shift in Athenian theology, putting animism to bed, and anticipating the dawn of monotheism. (“theism” in post #2)

And, as I mentioned before, Plato places the sun-moon worship in a position of climax, where there is a dramatic emphasis to this specific element of the charge—maximizing it in importance, while the issue of how Socrates behaved towards the pantheon in general is dramatically minimized: left behind in the opening statement of the charges, but not drilled through on cross examination.

Regardless of our different interpretations, or even the question of climax, it was the specific use of the term “atheist” that is so striking in the story, since it takes place just before the conquests of Alexander. Hellenization was about to transform barbarian animism into Greek pantheism. The distinction, that denial of animism must be treated differently than atheism, was about to be tested. Plato almost seems to be paving the way, an odd aspect that comports with some of the curiosities about who these men were and how they actually related to each other.

And because post #2 seemed to just trample Plato to smithereens, I decided to raise the flag. It’s a spectacular moment in ancient literature, the Stoic will go drink his poison in another volume, Phaedo, in an eerie almost prescient resemblance to Christ’s own suicide and the conversation with his disciples over the chalice.

To dismiss the express wording of the passages, when not one scintilla of proof was advanced to support post #2, doesn’t make sense to me. The mere reliance on the prefix postdating the root is baloney—the word comes from Greek and very likely exists in our lexicon solely because of this story and the rise of monotheism that came on its heels.

 

[Aqueous Id]

The scam is fairly innocuous, so the reader tends to miss it and make an implicit admission that spirituality came first.

I suppose that the best way to look at it is to say that as religious ideas elaborated over time, linguistic and conceptual resources expanded as well, so as to better express the new ideas. That's probably how it works in all areas of human life.

No , what I meant was, post #2 committed a fallacy, hiding a fallacy in the hypothesis, leading to a false conclusion that spirituality came first.

So the game goes like that, you plant this idea in the mind of the reader, and they forget it was a fallacy, they implicitly agree to it, then they go about arguing for or against religion, and all the while the theists are quietly gloating that they pulled one over on the atheists.

What great victory do you think that the "theists" will have won if we accept that theism is logically if not temporally prior to strong-atheism? I'm not clear what you think that you are battling against.

Suppose that a brand-new mistake is made in a non-religious subject, any mistake, it doesn't matter. Somebody explaining why it is a mistake will follow the mistake's having been made. Acknowledging the mistake's temporal priority doesn't imply that the mistake is somehow more credible or more true. There needn't be any suggestion that the mistake was divinely revealed or that people are born with the mistake embossed on their hearts. Humanity's intellectual growth often comes through criticism, and if necessary the rejection, of earlier mistakes.

The victory is to gain consensus on what is evidently true. Once the participants acquire a taste for that, then these threads gain the potential to become excellent learning tools. In the above box where you cite me, I am exposing a deception that should be discouraged.

The other aspect of my position is that I call it as I see it, and when I see a person advocate on behalf of godliness by dishonesty I feel like calling them to the carpet, for their own benefit, and for the benefit of the readers.

Classic BS. The OP was not so disingenuous. It was posed honestly enough. Post #2 is where the deception, the word game, comes into play. Had it not been for that, I would have dropped my ideas at the doorstep and moved on.

But there is something insidious about pro-religious deception. It's almost pathological - the wolf in sheep's clothing. So I took an interest and followed the dialogue, throwing in my 2¢ worth wherever the fallacy cropped up and grated at me.

I think that you're over-reacting to a common-sense idea that's basically unobjectionable.

If you want to bash the theists, they certainly provide you with plenty of opportunity. There have been lots of things said, including right here in this thread, that probably do deserve disagreement and counter-argument from atheists.

But probably not this one.

I think anyone who reads Plato--and walks away believing theism precedes atheism--is in error, an error entirely understood by reading it in a vacuum, at face value. It was an opportunity to do some formal argument, something with substance to support it. I don’t want to bash theists, just to engage them when they go out in the weeds with the BS. You’re right, they made a lot of errors here, but this one is the main one, because, as I say, I have shut post #2 down. I’m surprised you haven’t understood that yet. It falls, and the thread is left in a stance that something else was going on at the dawn of religion, some interesting stuff. Stuff that unites us more than the petty beliefs and arguments that divide us.

 

[Aqueous Id]

Man, the ignorance in this thread is almost overwhelming. Time for me to hold some heads under the putrescent waters of knowledge...again...
:
:

Yeah, that graphic was on target.

They are basically ignoring you, but I find your arguments more concise and compelling than probably anyone else here. You are consistently on top of the logic, which is the other side's Achilles heel. What's weird is that (to me) they (almost) all seem unusually bright with a lot of character and experience, but they resist logic like the plague. Go figure.

Good play. +1.

 

[Yazata]

I don't think that accepting that mankind has a long evolutionary history necessarily implies strong atheism.

It does, if the evolutionist view is something to the effect of "Early hominids were not intelligent enough to correctly explain natural events, so they resorted to superstition and were subject to errors, which later developed into what became known as 'religion.'"

My speculation is that people, and perhaps originally beings like homo erectus even more than ourselves, found it easiest to conceptualize inanimate events and processes by thinking about them in ways that had already evolved for understanding other people in social groups.

So paleolithic people kind of automatically thought about natural events as if they were the result of wills, purposes and intentions similar to their own. And the idea probably grew that the non-human world around us is controlled by invisible but powerful personal conscious agencies. These were imagined as greater, more powerful and ever-holier as time went on, and they were eventually projected up into the heavens and sometimes associated with the heavenly bodies.

Popular evolutionist explanations of religion/theism make that kind of claim, and it does imply strong atheism.

Any line of reasoning that argues that religion is man-made, implies strong atheism.

That's where I don't entirely agree with you.

As I've written before, I feel very strongly that something very mysterious is happening all around me. Happening in the largest and farthest heavens, and right here in me as well, since I'm an integral part of the universe. Sometimes I'm inclined to see the fact that reality even exists at all as something bordering on the miraculous.

So it's not necessarily that I think that there's nothing there to find.

But I really do doubt that simply puffing up our human psychologies really large and then projecting them into the heavens gets us much closer to the answer either. If anything, it's more likely to be obscuring the answer. (Assuming that there is an answer and that the idea of an 'answer' even makes any sense.)

 

[arauca]

Evidence contradicts you. Consider the Mother of Creation, Tiâmat, in one of the oldest of such writings, from the Enuma Elish epic. Here is a late Babylonian tablet:

Relevant Text:

Ummu-Hubur [Tiamat] who formed all things,
Made in addition weapons invincible; she spawned monster-serpents,
Sharp of tooth, and merciless of fang;
With poison, instead of blood, she filled their bodies.
Fierce monster-vipers she clothed with terror,
With splendor she decked them, she made them of lofty stature.
Whoever beheld them, terror overcame him,
Their bodies reared up and none could withstand their attack.
She set up vipers and dragons, and the monster Lahamu,
And hurricanes, and raging hounds, and scorpion-men,
And mighty tempests, and fish-men, and rams;
They bore cruel weapons, without fear of the fight.
Her commands were mighty, none could resist them;
After this fashion, huge of stature, she made eleven [kinds of] monsters.
:
[Wikipedia commentary:]

:
Then they met: Marduk, that cleverest of gods, and Tiamat grappled alone in singled fight.

The lord shot his net to entangle Tiamat, and the pursuing tumid wind, Imhullu, came from behind and beat in her face. When the mouth gaped open to suck him down he drove Imhullu in, so that the mouth would not shut but wind raged through her belly; her c arcass blown up, tumescent,. She gaped- And now he shot the arrow that split the belly, that pierced the gut and cut the womb.
:
:
He turned back to where Tiamat lay bound, he straddled the legs and smashed her skull ( for the mace was merciless), he severed the arteries and the blood streamed down the north wind to the unknown ends of the world.

:
The lord rested; he gazed at the huge body, pondering how to use it, what to create from the dead carcass. He split it apart like a cockle-shell; with the upper half he constructed the arc of sky, he pulled down the bar and set a watch on the waters, so they should never escape.

He crossed the sky to survey the infinite distance; he station himself above apsu, that apsu built by Nudimmud over the old abyss which now he surveyed, measuring out and marking in.

He stretched the immensity of the firmament, he made Esharra, the Great Palace, to be its earthly image, and Anu and Enlil and Ea had each their right stations.

​

Hi Mom!

...so what were you saying about a leader?

One more thing: try and cast this into your ideas of theism vs atheism.

You brought an interesting point . " the oldest writing"
I suppose the Sumerian tablet are as old or older ? but one thing about deity puzzles me. For us the believers in Abrahamic followers, we think God reveled to the Jews first , I am not sure . I tend to believe Gid reveled himself first to the Egyptian and Assyrian. There is a possible indication in the book if Isaiah.
Because of that indication I will question this particular pos with the Babylonian tablet that they are the first.

 

[Aqueous Id]

You brought an interesting point . " the oldest writing"
I suppose the Sumerian tablet are as old or older ? but one thing about deity puzzles me. For us the believers in Abrahamic followers, we think God reveled to the Jews first , I am not sure . I tend to believe Gid reveled himself first to the Egyptian and Assyrian. There is a possible indication in the book if Isaiah.
Because of that indication I will question this particular pos with the Babylonian tablet that they are the first.

There are older writings than the Enuma Elish epic, but it is still very old. The example I gave is a later Babylonian version of the older Sumerian. The tablets are from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, who is probably Ashur of the Genesis myth. The Jews and their Bible came later than the early writings of Mesopotamia or Egypt, and it's one of many contradictions between folks who mix science and religion and the real world, to deny that. Unfortunately, if the foundation of a creed is that its God created reality, then it gets problematic explaining the artifacts in the museums.

My point was to present the dragon-Mother who was chopped up in battle to produce the substance of the universe. This is hardly a mother figure, and as to the question that hijacked the thread at post #2, you can not even touch this culture with a concept of theism. These folks practiced the most imaginative animism, at one point generating a pantheon of "60 times 60" gods (which may have been an attempt to say the number is infinite.)

They built temple upon temple from about 4000-2000 BC, in many versions of the religion, over many dynasties, and passing hands from the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian kingdoms of the region.

It seems that the bulk of ancient Hebrew foundations of the Bible probably originated around 600 BC, but as far as sequencing the text, it's moot anyway, since Genesis itself admits a contradiction. The rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Paradise included one that ran into "the Land of the Kush" and of course there is the reference to "Ashur, he that built Nineveh". So down in the fine print Genesis is already telling you it's myth and legend, in case you didn't figure it out from other clues.

It has also been pointed out in one of these threads, I think by Fraggle, that the Genesis myth opens: "In the beginning, the gods (plural) created the heavens and the earth...". Bible translators are notorious for redacting that little tidbit - it's such a hard thing to explain.

So Abrahamic theism, in the strictest of sense of fundamentalism, is a contradiction. These earliest of Jews were polytheists.

Which came first? Polytheism/animism, dragon-mothers and every other kind of superstition, almost always to explain the forces of nature for which they had no science.

wynn and jan and a few others seem to resolutely dispute this, but then when you show a tablet or describe a myth, they take their ball and leave the game, without showing any interest in the evidence.

Denial of history is denial of science is denial of reality is denialism.

 

[Aqueous Id]

It is typical for pre-Boasian athropology to believe that the development of human culture is 1. linear, 2. takes place in stages, and 3. progressive over time to higher stages, so that each subsequent stage is more advanced.

This notion is widely spread still.

Boas and subsequent anthropologists, however, challenged it, believing that each culture must be taken in its particularity, and that cross-cultural generalizations were not possible.


Many lines of reasoning about of theism/atheism build on a pre-Boasian model of a universal, linear model of the development of human culture.
We need to reconsider whether such a model really is to be given such full credence.

Oh yeah!

 

[ZAV]

Aqueos ID, a large part of why I came here is to dispel a lot of poorly researched and badly thought out arguments to see if I can clarify why I think these debates on the net are futile till people stop and really learn the topic. You provide an example. If I may…

There are older writings than the Enuma Elish epic, but it is still very old. The example I gave is a later Babylonian version of the older Sumerian. The tablets are from the Library of Ashurbanipal at Nineveh, who is probably Ashur of the Genesis myth. The Jews and their Bible came later than the early writings of Mesopotamia or Egypt, and it's one of many contradictions between folks who mix science and religion and the real world, to deny that. Unfortunately, if the foundation of a creed is that its God created reality, then it gets problematic explaining the artifacts in the museums.

I’ll admit to only skimming the thread but, you really think Science and Religion can’t be mixed? And base this on text being older than other texts?

I also wager you think Science and Religion are hostile to one another.

It doesn’t really matter what text is older, only which is the Truth. Its also not really proven that Sumerian Myths form the basis of the Creation Narrative, which you call the Genesis Myth. (Even though Genesis sis a large book with the Creation Account only comprising about 2% of it.)

I won’t o into detail till I start posting my essays this week, but this comment is base don the now discredited 19th Century “History Of Religion” School of thought. The general idea is that all Religions must have built directly off al previous Religions in the area and expanded upon the same themes. It then proceeded to look for examples of similarities between Religions and used those to “Prove” one had copied the other. However, there was never any substantial evidence for this in most cases.

Not that it matters, as I doubt you’ve read the Elish, or any other Ancient text, and are just quoting a book you’ve read or worse, a website you’ve seen.

In fact, I’d wager a large sum on it, given what you said about Genesis beign mistranslated, but more on that below.

My point was to present the dragon-Mother who was chopped up in battle to produce the substance of the universe. This is hardly a mother figure, and as to the question that hijacked the thread at post #2, you can not even touch this culture with a concept of theism. These folks practiced the most imaginative animism, at one point generating a pantheon of "60 times 60" gods (which may have been an attempt to say the number is infinite.)

Any belief in a god is Theism. Polytheism is not distinct from Theism. Neither is Pantheism, or Deism. I am not sure how you get the idea that this is Animism when they still say gods exist.

They built temple upon temple from about 4000-2000 BC, in many versions of the religion, over many dynasties, and passing hands from the Sumerian, Assyrian, Akkadian and Babylonian kingdoms of the region.

It seems that the bulk of ancient Hebrew foundations of the Bible probably originated around 600 BC, but as far as sequencing the text, it's moot anyway, since Genesis itself admits a contradiction. The rivers that flowed out of the Garden of Paradise included one that ran into "the Land of the Kush" and of course there is the reference to "Ashur, he that built Nineveh". So down in the fine print Genesis is already telling you it's myth and legend, in case you didn't figure it out from other clues.

This is not the text admitting a Contradiction, though. It only describes rivers, and tells where they flow to. Its been Contextualised to the then-modern readers world, but it isn’t really saying anything at all to show its a Myth.

Even the reference to Ashur is not proof. Its more of the usual rubbish about finding Similarities and then declaring a connection. All the text says is that a man named Ashur founded Ninevah. That doesn’t mean the text is based on the Elish because they also present you with a man of the same name. Even if it was the same Ashur, it only means Ashur is said to have lived, not that he was a god. Oftentimes great Rulers were deified after Death, and received the worship of gods. Look at Romulus to the Romans as an example. So even if the two Ashurs were the same, it could just be that Ashur the man founded Nineveh and was later deified. Not that it matters as the only thing you have presented is that two texts use the name Ashur, which is as convincing as two texts mentioning a man named Joshua. It doesn’t prove they were the same.

It has also been pointed out in one of these threads, I think by Fraggle, that the Genesis myth opens: "In the beginning, the gods (plural) created the heavens and the earth...". Bible translators are notorious for redacting that little tidbit - it's such a hard thing to explain.

This is just an old cobbler that someone whose actually learned Hebrew would scoff at. By the way I actually learned Hebrew.

The word is Elohim. It is a Grammatical Plural. This means the word connotates a plurality alone, but It does not, however, mean that each Time it is used it’s a plurality.

Unlike English, but like Spanish, French, Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, and a host of other Languages, some words are “Grammatical Plurals” which signifies importance, or multiple facets involved in a specific object, but do not always represent a number greater than one. Not knowing this leads to daft statements like “It should be the gods” and the uncalled for slur against Bible Translators.

In Hebrew, the Verb determines whether or not something is singular or plural. In Hebrew, there are two words for “Created”, with one signifying more than one active agent, the other meaning only one. Those words are Bara and Baro.

Bara is used in the Creation Account, and means Singular. Its “In the beginning, Elohim Bara the Heavens and the Earth. This means “God” not “the gods”.

It’s always the Verb that determines if its Singular or Plural.

Heck, this argument makes no sense anyway. If you really apply it, then the logical conclusion is that each Time Elohim is used its “The gods”, this means that even when it refers to Ba’al it’s “The gods Ba’al”… Ba’al of course was not a Pantheon, but an individual god. So was Ashterah whose is also called Elohim yet who remains only one goddess, not a plethora of goddesses.

The point is, each Time its used like that its used to refer to known singular persons. While it has also been used to refer to a plurality, such as with the Witch of Endor who in 1 Samuel 28:13 says she sees gods coming up from the Ground, its clearly used to refer to Individuals, and not groups, on numerous other occasions.

The idea that Elohim is plural and means “The gods” is an old argument but one based on a lack of understanding of the Hebrew, and one generally employed by those not seeking understanding, for they never look up to see if this is True, but rather by those who simply want to prove the Bible is horrible or full of holes and use this as a weapon.

So Abrahamic theism, in the strictest of sense of fundamentalism, is a contradiction. These earliest of Jews were polytheists.

No, they weren’t. This is based on a complete lack of understanding of the Hebrew combined with a desire to discredit the text of the Bible by any means possible to one up those horrible Fundamentalists, and is precisely why these arguments are meaningless.

Which came first? Polytheism/animism, dragon-mothers and every other kind of superstition, almost always to explain the forces of nature for which they had no science.

The false position that Science and Religion are opposing forces was created in the 19th Century. The idea that Religion was created in a world where they had no Science and now Science exists and can give us the answers, is really a Religious Myth of its own.

And what when Science gets it wrong?

Is a false Scientific Theory less of a Myth than a false Religious Creation narrative?

It seems to me the only real difference between Science, how you use the term at least, and Religion is the content of the belief system you employ, and nothing else.

wynn and jan and a few others seem to resolutely dispute this, but then when you show a tablet or describe a myth, they take their ball and leave the game, without showing any interest in the evidence.

But you have no interest in the evidence or I’d not have had to explain the Hebrew Grammar. Just reading on a website somewhere that Elohim is plural and should be the gods, and that Bible Translators are dishonest in how they hide this, really isn’t Evidence, its a farce. You blindly believed this was True because it fit your prejudice.

Denial of history is denial of science is denial of reality is denialism.

Well, you denied Language which is a denial of History which thus must mean you are denying Science and thus denying Reality.

 

[wynn]

What is your point?

I didn't suggest that I agreed with every idea proposed by Boas, and he himself has developed his ideas throughout his career. I only mentioned him as his work is sometimes considered an important milestone in the development of Western anthropology.


The notions I question are: human development is 1. linear, 2. takes place in stages, and 3. progressive over time to higher stages, so that each subsequent stage is more advanced.

I do not think we should take these notions for granted.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

Q: Who come first the theist or the atheist?

A: The theist, as the atheist defines himself by the negative of the existing word, theist.

 

[wynn]

Any line of reasoning that argues that religion is man-made, implies strong atheism.

No it doesn't.
The flaw in your logic is to think that a result can only be reached by a single path - i.e. that one can not reach the conclusion that religion is man-made by anything other than belief in the non-existence of god.

Your contempt for me is egregious. And it clouds your reason.


Any line of reasoning that argues that religion is man-made, implies strong atheism:

Whether one starts with strong atheism and reasons one's way to the stance that religion is man-made; or whether one starts with the stance that religion is man-made and then reasons one's way to strong atheism.
Either way, any line of reasoning that argues that religion is man-made, implies strong atheism.

However, if god is held to be unknowable (agnostic) then the logical extension of this is that religion is man-made. Period.
I say this because if religion is not man-made then it would require god to be knowable, which an agnostic does not hold... thus they consider religion to be man-made.
An agnostic that holds god to be unknowable usually chooses to not-believe in the existence of god.
They are weak atheist.

A weak/agnostic atheist acts in the same manner as a strong atheist - namely, he acts as if God doesn't exist; thus eventually becoming a strong atheist.

 

[wynn]

My speculation is that people, and perhaps originally beings like homo erectus even more than ourselves, found it easiest to conceptualize inanimate events and processes by thinking about them in ways that had already evolved for understanding other people in social groups.

So paleolithic people kind of automatically thought about natural events as if they were the result of wills, purposes and intentions similar to their own. And the idea probably grew that the non-human world around us is controlled by invisible but powerful personal conscious agencies. These were imagined as greater, more powerful and ever-holier as time went on, and they were eventually projected up into the heavens and sometimes associated with the heavenly bodies.

I have no idea how paleolithic people thought.
All we can do nowadays, is merely speculate and project on them, usually based on the assumptions that human development is 1. linear, 2. takes place in stages, and 3. progressive over time to higher stages, so that each subsequent stage is more advanced.

I don't take those assumptions for granted.

But I really do doubt that simply puffing up our human psychologies really large and then projecting them into the heavens gets us much closer to the answer either.

Give me some examples of what you mean by "puffing up our human psychologies really large and then projecting them into the heavens".

 

[wynn]

Q: Who come first the theist or the atheist?

A: The theist, as the atheist defines himself by the negative of the existing word, theist.

Do read the thread.

 

[Mind Over Matter]

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.

Atheism is not simply lack of belief in God. It is a decision to not believe in God.

 

[Dywyddyr]

Atheism is not simply lack of belief in God. It is a decision to not believe in God.

Wrong.
Do try to learn something.
This error has been pointed out numerous times.

 

[elte]

Wynn, I think Sarkus is right to have the view that if a person says religion is man-made, it doesn't imply that person is de facto atheist. It's especially the case if we are considering organized or mainstream religion. I go even further, though, since my personal observations over the years indicate that all religion is man-made. In addition, I'm not an atheist. I just see how ideas about God are based upon imagination. I earnestly hope to see otherwise but to no avail.

 

[lightgigantic]

Wynn, I think Sarkus is right to have the view that if a person says religion is man-made, it doesn't imply that person is de facto atheist. It's especially the case if we are considering organized or mainstream religion. I go even further, though, since my personal observations over the years indicate that all religion is man-made. In addition, I'm not an atheist. I just see how ideas about God are based upon imagination. I earnestly hope to see otherwise but to no avail.

If religion is what provides us with our ideas about god and if one suggests that all ideas about god are imagination I think they have effectively ruled out approaching anything but atheism (there may be a slim chance that they could squeeze in the agnostic side of atheism)

 

[elte]

If religion is what provides us with our ideas about god and if one suggests that all ideas about god are imagination I think they have effectively ruled out approaching anything but atheism (there may be a slim chance that they could squeeze in the agnostic side of atheism)

All the ideas about God that I am aware of are imagined, yet we know so little that we might someday find or truly hear from God. I appreciate your politeness.