Religion and Lore: What started it...

[dgirl1986]

This is more a question for the atheists, non theists, etc.

If we work on the assumption that there are no deities or so called supernatural elements to life as we know it...where did it come from? Where does the concept and/or the idea of the mystical and divine originate from? Imagination? Doesnt imagination in a way just come up with ideas that are already suggested in some way in the mind?

Hypethetically if we go back to the beginning of when there is no religion, no concept of beings that you cannot see...wouldnt the first person to announce such an idea be ridiculed and shut down straight away?

 

[Gjallarhorn]

Ever ask a child what causes the wind to blow? Without the benefits of learning, our ancestors used the same logic children use to understand the universe.

 

[dgirl1986]

Ever ask a child what causes the wind to blow? Without the benefits of learning, our ancestors used the same logic children use to understand the universe.

How do we go from trying to explain something we can physically feel but not see to the idea of divinity?

 

[Cephus]

How do we go from trying to explain something we can physically feel but not see to the idea of divinity?

Humans don't like not knowing, therefore we have a long, long history of just making up answers to questions they cannot reason out immediately. That's where the ideas of gods came from and from that, religions arose. Lots of people are emotionally comforted by the idea of gods so they cling to the beliefs even when we have no good reason to think that those beliefs are factually true.

 

[bippy123]

How do we go from trying to explain something we can physically feel but not see to the idea of divinity?

Or you can look at it this way Dgirl.
My friend who is married to a native American Girl, would ask me questions of what to make of the spiritualism of the Native Americans. Even though im a catholic ive always had a sense of spiritualism whenever I go to a native american Pow Wow.

I responded by telling him that the Native american indians were among the first people to intuitively sense that there was more to this reality then this physical realm we are in, and this is starting to be found out through things like remote viewing and veridical near death experiences. Notice I said veridical NDE's and not regular nde's

 

[dgirl1986]

Humans don't like not knowing, therefore we have a long, long history of just making up answers to questions they cannot reason out immediately. That's where the ideas of gods came from and from that, religions arose. Lots of people are emotionally comforted by the idea of gods so they cling to the beliefs even when we have no good reason to think that those beliefs are factually true.

What would you say of those that have spiritual experiences that point to specifc deities?

 

[dgirl1986]

Or you can look at it this way Dgirl.
My friend who is married to a native American Girl, would ask me questions of what to make of the spiritualism of the Native Americans. Even though im a catholic ive always had a sense of spiritualism whenever I go to a native american Pow Wow.

I responded by telling him that the Native american indians were among the first people to intuitively sense that there was more to this reality then this physical realm we are in, and this is starting to be found out through things like remote viewing and veridical near death experiences. Notice I said veridical NDE's and not regular nde's

An interesting way to look at things.

 

[1137]

This is more a question for the atheists, non theists, etc.

If we work on the assumption that there are no deities or so called supernatural elements to life as we know it...where did it come from? Where does the concept and/or the idea of the mystical and divine originate from? Imagination? Doesnt imagination in a way just come up with ideas that are already suggested in some way in the mind?

Hypethetically if we go back to the beginning of when there is no religion, no concept of beings that you cannot see...wouldnt the first person to announce such an idea be ridiculed and shut down straight away?

The human mind looks for explanations. Likely, deities were our "scientific" answers to the questions we had at the time. They probably developed along with us and our minds. This belief was then used to gain power by intelligent individuals and boom, you have religion.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is more a question for the atheists, non theists, etc.

If we work on the assumption that there are no deities or so called supernatural elements to life as we know it...where did it come from? Where does the concept and/or the idea of the mystical and divine originate from? Imagination? Doesnt imagination in a way just come up with ideas that are already suggested in some way in the mind?

Hypethetically if we go back to the beginning of when there is no religion, no concept of beings that you cannot see...wouldnt the first person to announce such an idea be ridiculed and shut down straight away?

We have a tendency to err on type I errors (false positive inferences) rather than type II errors (false negative inferences).

Type I and type II errors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There are good reasons for this. Typically, the cost of false positives is less than the cost of false negatives: if you're drinking from a stream and hear a rustle in the bushes, it could be the wind, but it could be a predator. If you assume it's a predator and you're wrong, you lose an opportunity to drink water for a few minutes. If you assume it's not a predator and you're wrong, you're lunch.

We also have a built-in tendency to infer agency and purpose in inanimate things. There are probably also good evolutionary reasons for this, too: the cost of assuming that an unintelligent threat can actually respond to your actions is low compared to the cost of assuming that an intelligent, thinking threat won't respond to your actions.

We can see this last tendency in small children. I heard a podcast about this topic a while back, and the psychologist they interviewed gave an example involving his own young daughter: while they were hiking, he pointed to a large, jagged rock and asked her why she thought it was pointy. After a minute's thought, she said "so bears won't sit on it." Her default was to assume that there was some sort of intended purpose or design behind the rock being the way it is.

So... we have a tendency to:

- assume that things exist when they really don't
- assume that there's agency and deliberate purpose in the world when there really isn't.

This gets us pretty close to full-fledged religion as it is. When you add into the mix the effect of "prophets", "oracles", or other people who - under the influence of psychiatric conditions, substances, extreme conditions, or other things - claim to have special insight into the "beyond" or the "divine", I don't think it's hard to see how religion might emerge.

 

[Cephus]

What would you say of those that have spiritual experiences that point to specifc deities?

I'd doubt that they can demonstrate that they point to specific deities. There is a difference between *CLAIMING* that they do and *PROVING* that they do. There are lots of claims, absolutely no proof that I've seen.

 

[dgirl1986]

The human mind looks for explanations. Likely, deities were our "scientific" answers to the questions we had at the time. They probably developed along with us and our minds. This belief was then used to gain power by intelligent individuals and boom, you have religion.

I guess what I am wondering is how you go from looking for explanations to going "there is a being in the sky that we cannot see that does everything". Seems like a bit of a stretch, but maybe I am over simplifying.

There are good reasons for this. Typically, the cost of false positives is less than the cost of false negatives: if you're drinking from a stream and hear a rustle in the bushes, it could be the wind, but it could be a predator. If you assume it's a predator and you're wrong, you lose an opportunity to drink water for a few minutes. If you assume it's not a predator and you're wrong, you're lunch.

This makes sense.

We also have a built-in tendency to infer agency and purpose in inanimate things. There are probably also good evolutionary reasons for this, too: the cost of assuming that an unintelligent threat can actually respond to your actions is low compared to the cost of assuming that an intelligent, thinking threat won't respond to your actions.

We can see this last tendency in small children. I heard a podcast about this topic a while back, and the psychologist they interviewed gave an example involving his own young daughter: while they were hiking, he pointed to a large, jagged rock and asked her why she thought it was pointy. After a minute's thought, she said "so bears won't sit on it." Her default was to assume that there was some sort of intended purpose or design behind the rock being the way it is.

Hmmm kind of makes sense. Might have to ponder over that one for a bit.

This gets us pretty close to full-fledged religion as it is. When you add into the mix the effect of "prophets", "oracles", or other people who - under the influence of psychiatric conditions, substances, extreme conditions, or other things - claim to have special insight into the "beyond" or the "divine", I don't think it's hard to see how religion might emerge.

Do you think there is any chance that people who make these claims might actually have an ability, or is there something more rational to it?

I'd doubt that they can demonstrate that they point to specific deities. There is a difference between *CLAIMING* that they do and *PROVING* that they do. There are lots of claims, absolutely no proof that I've seen.

How does one prove the legitimacy of an experience though?

 

[Sha'irullah]

God was always used to fill int he gaps. People have always used unexplained an dillogical claims to fill in unknown gaps in knowledge.


Look at cultures in the past and see how primitive they were in theology. Animism for example.
They supposed that these inanimate objects had wills and controlled things. When this was later ridiculed and proven untrue, people began saying their gods lived far away in mountains and this was later proven to be untruthful.

After so many millenia we finally have the supernatural god who is invisible. Religions progresses to fill in more gaps. The issue is now that there are very few gaps to fill.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Do you think there is any chance that people who make these claims might actually have an ability, or is there something more rational to it?

Here's my take on it:

- to the extent that these phenomena are measurable or testable, they seem to be rooted in activity of the brain. We can cause "religious experiences" by artificial means (Google the "God helmet" if you're curious).

- usually, though I realize not always, similar effects have similar causes. While they can't all be right (since they suggest mutually exclusive gods), they could all be wrong... and this seems to me to be more reasonable than assuming that one small sliver of them are based in real communion with the divine while all the very similar phenomena are based in neurological quirks or whatnot.

 

[outhouse]

This is more a question for the atheists, non theists, etc.

If we work on the assumption that there are no deities or so called supernatural elements to life as we know it...where did it come from? Where does the concept and/or the idea of the mystical and divine originate from? Imagination? Doesnt imagination in a way just come up with ideas that are already suggested in some way in the mind?

Hypethetically if we go back to the beginning of when there is no religion, no concept of beings that you cannot see...wouldnt the first person to announce such an idea be ridiculed and shut down straight away?

Men explained much of what they did not know about nature, through a mythological characters.

Even remote tribes which I know of only two that don't have god or gods, still have smoke spirits and fire spirits.

So yes imagination plays a huge role in men's attempt to explain what he had no knowledge of.


Thunder, lightning, volcanos, earthquakes, are all powerful events to a small tribe of people, and fear and respect played roles in creating their mythology.

 

[Cephus]

How does one prove the legitimacy of an experience though?

The same way you do with everything else, through evidence, reason and logic? You need to be able to draw a direct causal link between the experience and the claimed source of the experience, otherwise you're just plugging in an emotionally comforting concept because it makes you feel good. If you can't demonstrate that your claims are valid, why should anyone believe they are valid?

 

[payak]

Fear of death and the refusal to let go of those who passed could cause such beliefs to grow to ease the suffering.

 

[chinu]

wouldnt the first person to announce such an idea be ridiculed and shut down straight away?

I don't know about the first person, but I know about some people like.. for example; the who was hanged on the cross for such reason

 

[Luke Morningstar]

If we work on the assumption that there are no deities or so called supernatural elements to life as we know it...where did it come from? Where does the concept and/or the idea of the mystical and divine originate from? Imagination? Doesnt imagination in a way just come up with ideas that are already suggested in some way in the mind?

It's a mix of imagination and perception. When the first signs of definite religion appear in cave paintings and carvings, those people were exactly as evolved as we are today. Just as intelligent and capable of processing the same levels of information.

Take away traffic, cities, and pretty much every human you know except for a dozen, maybe a few dozen for a large band.

All those distractions gone. Now you have all that brain power to apply to your surroundings. If you're observant and good at investigation, you could glean quite a lot of information.

Imagination doesn't work in a vacuum. It's a creative process, connecting seemingly unrelated pieces of information into a brand new realization. Imagination is the reason we took over the world. It didn't seem to exist in most hominids. The same power to imagine that a herd will come to a certain area in a certain season is the same one that can see that there is power beyond what we can see in the entire world around us.

Whether we call it God or Physics is really just stating a preference.

 

[Willamena]

I guess what I am wondering is how you go from looking for explanations to going "there is a being in the sky that we cannot see that does everything". Seems like a bit of a stretch, but maybe I am over simplifying.

Deity was never any sort of explanation of the world, it was the foundational world. It was when we turned our skill at explanation on "God" (as if it wasn't "God") that things started getting mixed up. You don't measure something with itself.

That's symptomatic of the separation. That's the fall.

 

[chinu]

Ever ask a child what causes the wind to blow? Without the benefits of learning, our ancestors used the same logic children use to understand the universe.

But I don't think its possible for someone to very happily accept, being hanged on the cross for such logic.