Theist or Atheist ?

[chinu]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

 

[Altfish]

Since man invented gods, atheists must have been here first ... But they didn't know they were atheists

 

[bobhikes]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

I doubt either existed based on evolution. More than likely conceptual thinking or "isms" began with societies. Early humans just considered ways to survive. Many would say this is atheist but the early humans may have held a concept of a higher authority but it was not organized or practiced and can definitely not be proven.

 

[chinu]

Since man invented gods, atheists must have been here first ... But they didn't know they were atheists

And what benefit were they getting of being so ?
Please complete the answer to question.

 

[Altfish]

And what benefit were they getting of being so ?
Please complete the answer to question.

None

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Theist or Atheist, Who was the first one on this earth ?

I define atheist as any person lackig a god belief. If you believe in or worship a god, you are a theist. All others are atheists. By this reckoning, everybody is one or the other, and nobody is both.

If we stipulate to this definition, atheists came first. They were already here when the first person held up and shook a bloody chicken talon to the sky in the hopes of currying favor from some unseen power.

what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

The same benefit you receive by being an avampirist and an aleprechaunist - freedom from a false, oppressive belief. There is no advantage to dedicating time and other resources to a false belief. As an avampirist, you sleep more soundly at night and don't waste your garlic on nonexistent monsters.

As an aleprechaunist, you are relieved of the futile search for the pot of gold at the ever elusive end of the rainbow. As a secular humanist, I am spared much. Sleeping in on Sundays and using what would have been thrown into the collection plate to attend to my family's needs rather than those of some priest or preacher is a great reward.

Also, freedom from the terror of hell theology That's good. How about the comfort of knowing that when later today, some doe-eyed child dies from leukemia, that it was just rotten luck, and not the plan of some malevolent or indifferent deity.

I have lived both within and without religion. The latter is preferable. That's the advantage, which was lost to the first theists.

 

[Daemon Sophic]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

As our early primate ancestor groups evolved they would have had as much theistic thoughts as other roughly intelligent animals. I.e. - none to speak of.
However, there is archeological evidence of primitive burial sites (neanderthal - 50+ thousdand years ago), with ritual elements (dyes used, trophies and jewelry with the bodies, etc.....) suggesting that these people may have considered that it would be comforting to the dead that they keep their treasured items with them after death.

How did it benefit them? Same as now. Comforting peace of mind. Solace.


Edit: Related closely to this topic, and light-hearted to boot....For those who have not already seen it, I recommend they watch this movie.....

 

[icehorse]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

I would guess (and I've probably heard too), that religion started as a way to attempt to explain how the world works. Since the people that were making up the explanations knew so little, their explanations were pretty bad.

 

[ChristineM]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

Early humans had no concept of god,i.e they did not believe in what they didn't know. So i suppose technically they were atheist.

Benefit? None, it was simply the way life was

 

[Mock Turtle]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

As per what others have said, but it is likely we (our ancestors) were sun-worshippers long before we entertained any concepts of gods, and no doubt we were grateful for what it provided each day (if we were lucky), and no doubt such origins evolved into the many gods and the one God eventually. Was there any benefit to sun-worshipping - especially when looking directly at the sun can damage one's eyes?

 

[Augustus]

There is no advantage to dedicating time and other resources to a false belief.

When a belief has proved so successful, pervasive and enduring across almost all human societies, the odds on it having 'no advantage' are practically zero.

It is exponentially more likely that you simply haven't worked out what the advantages are.

? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

Many, but probably the main one is the ability to form and unify larger social groups beyond genetic kin. Participation in religious rituals also acts as a sign of group membership, you are paying a 'cost' to belong to the group which helps build trust.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

Chinu has not defined what he is referring to Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthensis or Homo sapiens sapiens. The first one, I suppose, was a fiery capitalist. Got his meal and did not share it with others.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

And what benefit were they getting of being so ?
Please complete the answer to question.

Hope.

It may be misplaced (and it may not, which happens not to be my beilef), but hope is necessary when you have the intelligence to recognize your own frailty.

 

[Aupmanyav]

.. but it is likely we (our ancestors) were sun-worshippers long before we entertained any concepts of gods, and no doubt we were grateful for what it provided each day (if we were lucky), ..

You are right. The first concern was to pass the night safely. A prayer to night from RigVeda:

1. WITH all her eyes the Goddess Night looks forth approaching many a spot:
She hath put all her glories on.
2 Immortal. she hath filled the waste, the Goddess hath filled height and depth:
She conquers darkness with her light.
3 The Goddess as she comes hath set the Dawn her Sister in her place:
And then the darkness vanishes.
4 So favour us this night, O thou whose pathways we have visited
As birds their nest upon the tree.
5 The villagers have sought their homes, and all that walks and all that flies,
Even the falcons fain for prey.
6 Keep off the she-wolf and the wolf, O Urmya, keep the thief away;
Easy be thou for us to pass.
7 Clearly hath she come nigh to me who decks the dark with richest hues:
O Morning, cancel it like debts.
8 These have I brought to thee like kine. O Night, thou Child of Heaven, accept
This laud as for a conqueror.
Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXVII. Night.

BTW, some people opine that the Indo-European homeland was in sub-Arctic region, and the prayer here to the night for being easy to pass was because the night lasted much longer there. The reference to richest hues refers to Aurora Borialis. In turn, the Dawn in Indo-European homeland lasted for 30 days.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Chinu has not defined what he is referring to Homo habilis, Homo erectus, Homo neanderthensis or Homo sapiens sapiens. The first one, I suppose, was a fiery capitalist. Got his meal and did not share it with others.

I rather bet your last point is not actually true. Man evolved as a social animal, dependent on our fellows for survival. I expect that sharing was the default, and only giving way in times of very desperate starvation.

 

[Nakosis]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

Some feel everyone is born an atheist, not possessing a belief about God. The benefit would be a lack of a "worldview" to interfere with one's acceptance of reality.

 

[`mud]

I'm kinda lost here.
Wasn't Adam the 1st Theist
and maybe Cain was the 2nd...

And Eve got a fig !

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

When a belief has proved so successful, pervasive and enduring across almost all human societies, the odds on it having 'no advantage' are practically zero. It is exponentially more likely that you simply haven't worked out what the advantages are.

Just because religious belief is prevalent in the human race isn't an indication of success on the part of the human race. There's another possible formulation that you are disregarding or dismissing out of hand.

As I've explained earlier, I see religion as creating its own need for itself. I used the analogy of a cigarette smoker who tells me how much comfort he gets from his cigarettes when he has the urge for a smoke. Cigarettes also create the need for endless cigarettes. If, to keep the analogy intact, the parent believes that he is in an enviable position and want his or her offspring to also benefit from the joy of inhaling when withdrawing, that parent will convince his child to start smoking as well, and the practice will become, as you call it, successful (from the habit's perspective, in a sort of pseudo-darwinian sort of way in which a habit disseminates throughout a society like genes through a gene pool), pervasive and enduring until such time as people begin to recognize what is happening and begin teaching their children to not become dependent on tobacco in the first place.

View it like this. Mother gives junior his first Bible in the playpen, extolling the virtues of faith and exhorting junior to never listen to that dissenting or questioning voice that you or I would call cognitive dissonance, but the believer is told is Satan testing his faith. So, if doesn't cast off this religion early enough in life, he never can, like the smoker who first tries to quit at seventy. Maybe he could have succeeded at 35, but his window of opportunity has passed, and he has no choice in the matter any longer.

Likewise, if we never stand up and exercise our potential for skeptical, open-minded, critical thought, we never learn to live without religion, and the faculty atrophies away from disuse, like somebody who was put in a wheelchair from birth and never stood up or walked because riding in the chair was praised as being a virtue.

Eventually, if he never stands up on his own two feet, eventually, it is no longer an option. Now, the chair fills more than a choice. It serves a need. But is he in an enviable position? Isn't it better to not need the chair, or glasses, or a prosthetic limb? All of these things are desirable to those who need them or can benefit from them, but wouldn't they be better off to not need these things - to have good vision, strong legs, and all four limbs?

I used to be in that chair, but eventually, I found the wherewithal to stand up like the bipedal (and reasoning) ape I always had the potential to be. I was able eventually to shed the comforting but disabling swaddling of religious belief, and look out into the universe, which may be almost empty, and which may contain no gods at all, and face and accept the very real possibility that we may be all there is for light years, that we might be vulnerable and not watched over, nor special or loved in the eyes of anybody other than a handful of other terrestrial creatures, that oblivion likely follows death.

Now, all these years later, I am very adept at standing and walking (living outside of religion and faith-based thought), and I see people still in the wheelchair, telling me how valuable their chair is to them, how it gives their life so much more than what they would have without it, and seeing that as a good choice and an advantage.

But were I still in the chair, I would be stuck there indefinitely by now like the smoker that waited too long to try to quit, no longer with the option to stand on walk. Had I never seen that being in the chair was unnecessary and that the advantage wasn't in needing a chair to make my life better and having one, I'd be extolling the virtues of a faithful life in the chair like those before me who convinced me to never stand up, and explaining to others how this chair gave meaning to my life.

And you would be saying that with 70% or 90% of the people in chairs, that they can't all be wrong - that there must be some benefit there, that the odds on chair life having 'no advantage' over life without the chair were practically zero, and on this basis alone - an argument to popularity fallacy - and that it is exponentially more likely that I simply haven't worked out what the advantages of chair life are.

 

[sun rise]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

The first being with a fully formed soul was the Avatar, the God Man.

 

[Fool]

Theist or Atheist,
Who was the first one on this earth ? and what benefit was he/she getting of being so ?

most abrahamic theists are materialistic