Theist or Atheist ?

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Human child is born WITHOUT clothes, so as the child of an animal.
Both the mother's hugs/love their new born child in their own ways.

After some time both the child grow-up.
Now, the mother of human child is ashamed of hugging her grown-up son WITHOUT clothes. But animals don't.

That's what makes the difference.

Try to understand if you can.

 

[Bear Wild]

Yes animals play and even dance.
But NOT exercise.

I hope you aren’t under the impact of cartoon movies.

No cartoon impact only observations of animals. And yes it is a form of exercise when many animals are at play. No gym needed.

 

[Bear Wild]

Theist build houses and also interested in building temples, churches etc. Whereas, animals build only houses.

Isn’t that the difference?

There are theists that do not build temples, churches, etc. Does that make them more non-human animal like?

 

[ChristineM]

Well, you will no doubt have @ChristineM stepping in here

Sorry im late mister president

Well...I'm assuming we're pretty much in conjecture land here anyways. But it seems that the earliest evidence of writing and art suggest some sort of 'more than just what's visible' or 'more than meets the eye' thinking.

"Around 30-35,000 years ago there was an explosion of symbolism in Paleolithic human culture around the world, primarily represented by cave art. This cave art is usually located in hard to access underground spaces that must have had significant meaning for the artists and those who would have experienced these strange images by torchlight; And strange they are. Whilst many of the images are naturalistic images of humans, mammals and birds, there is also extensive representation of therianthropic beings, that is part human, part animal shape-shifters. There are also many beings that seem to be distorted humans, perhaps better described as humanoid. These images suggest that the Paleolithic artists were attempting to tell stories and incorporate messages and meaning within the stories, which they deemed important. The fact that many of the beings represented in the cave art are of a supernatural quality is symptomatic of what we might call folklore."

Shamanic Explorations of Supernatural Realms: Cave Art - The Earliest Folklore

So...from that I might conclude that AS humans started to capture/write/draw their thoughts on cave walls ie started to share complex information via language or 'be-human,' they had thoughts that today we would think of as other worldly....as the quote says, 'of a supernatural quality.' IOW, I'd say theists existed at those earliest times even though it may have been simple beliefs that some things in the natural world had agency and they may have tried to figure ways to 'deal with' that agency...whether to appease, negotiate, laud or fear/love it. And...I just imagine that among those were some who said...or thought to themselves, "yeah, I don't think that volcano is making decisions whether to destroy us or not."

I've spent several years studying cro crognon cave art. One of several reasons i moved to france is to be close enough to the source that i wasn't limited to once or twice yearly visits.

Most early cave art is not symbolism but images of every day life. The hunt and the animals that fed them.

I have seen some abstract work, a series of dots or lines in a specific pattern. These tend to be much smaller images of to one side of a bigger mural. The same pattern can be found in several caves, some hundreds of miles apart. The latest thinking on these is that they are the equivalent of artists signatures.

And now for the spooky stuff. First I suggest you read the work of archaeologists who specialises in the field. Not a "hip" webpage that is part of a series that includes "The Secret Lives of Elves and Faeries" and a piece on "Leprechauns". Or better still, visit a cave and talk to the guide, certainly here in France guides to Cro Magnon (and Neanderthal) sites are all either phd archaeologists or master's currently studying for a doctorate in pre-history, so they know what they are talking about.

Yes there are some few unexplained works, that is unexplained, not jump to conclusion and write a trendy article or book with no evidence to back it up.

Of the link you provided showing some of the work i know, each piece is cleverly misrepresented in order to sensationalise

 

[ppp]

The fact that many of the beings represented in the cave art are of a supernatural quality is symptomatic of what we might call folklore

I think that they are jumping to some pretty big conclusions when they say supernatural. As a little boy I drew all sorts of things like that - with crayon of course - yet I was not imagining anything supernatural. Just cool combinations of animals. Similarly, I never perceived Godzilla, Gamera or the gang as supernatural either.

I am not saying that the authors of the cave paintings did not think some supernatural analogous thoughts. I am saying that we are not justified in assuming that they did.

 

[`mud]

There were a lot berries and such growing everywhere....
just a thought .

 

[Augustus]

Just because religious belief is prevalent in the human race isn't an indication of success on the part of the human race... As I've explained earlier, I see religion as creating its own need for itself.

What you say might be an argument against the value of Abrahamic-type religion to the individual in the modern world, but says nothing about the historical evolution of religion and its social utility which is what this thread relates to.

Religions have organically developed and thrived in all kinds of societies, which strongly suggests they offer benefits of some form. Noting this is not an 'argument to popularity fallacy' but an overwhelming balance of probabilities based on the empirical evidence.

Just some of the potential advantages of religious belief systems:

Ability to unify groups of unrelated people
Motivation to carry out actions beneficial to group
Individual psychological benefits
A source of meaning
A set of axioms on which to ground a more practical belief system
Intergeneration transfer of knowledge
etc.

Given all human communities and value systems are built on a mythos that is 'not true', and the human brain didn't evolve to be overly focused on objective truth, thinking things that can be no advantage to invest time and resources in false beliefs seems to have little grounding in our reality.

 

[Augustus]

How are you measuring success here?

Success for belief is the degree to which it spreads and length of time it endures.

Human societies compete with each other, so the belief systems that are most successful almost certainly offer some positive benefits to these societies otherwise their 'host' societies would likely lose out to those with more advantageous belief systems.

 

[Koldo]

Success for belief is the degree to which it spreads and length of time it endures.

Human societies compete with each other, so the belief systems that are most successful almost certainly offer some positive benefits to these societies otherwise their 'host' societies would likely lose out to those with more advantageous belief systems.

That leads me to another question: How are you measuring what counts as a positive benefit?

If you happen to be missing a limb, for instance, you will have a much easier time acquiring a job as a public employee in Brazil (the kind of job a lot of people want). Would you say that to be missing a limb is positive because of this?

 

[Rizdek]

Sorry im late mister president




I've spent several years studying cro crognon cave art. One of several reasons i moved to france is to be close enough to the source that i wasn't limited to once or twice yearly visits.

Most early cave art is not symbolism but images of every day life. The hunt and the animals that fed them.

I have seen some abstract work, a series of dots or lines in a specific pattern. These tend to be much smaller images of to one side of a bigger mural. The same pattern can be found in several caves, some hundreds of miles apart. The latest thinking on these is that they are the equivalent of artists signatures.

And now for the spooky stuff. First I suggest you read the work of archaeologists who specialises in the field. Not a "hip" webpage that is part of a series that includes "The Secret Lives of Elves and Faeries" and a piece on "Leprechauns". Or better still, visit a cave and talk to the guide, certainly here in France guides to Cro Magnon (and Neanderthal) sites are all either phd archaeologists or master's currently studying for a doctorate in pre-history, so they know what they are talking about.

Yes there are some few unexplained works, that is unexplained, not jump to conclusion and write a trendy article or book with no evidence to back it up.

Of the link you provided showing some of the work i know, each piece is cleverly misrepresented in order to sensationalise

That's all well and good. Perhaps I've been misled as to what certain ancient man made artifacts mean.

But I think it's still irrelevant to the topic of the thread just as my imaginings of how the supernatural might've come into being was challenged by some other poster is irrelevant.

The topic was which came first the atheist or the theist. Now, if you are saying YOU are sure that these early humans were all atheists because they didn't include images of gods....whatever those might have looked like...in their cave art or carved images you might have a point. And that would be a basis for saying that ALL humans THEN were atheists. Is that what you're saying?

But a) we can't be sure that at least SOME of those ancient artifacts weren't somehow their attempt to appease/honor/worship some powerful being or that they had primitive theistic thoughts even if they didn't include them in their art/carvings/structures. And b) even if ALL of those who lived then had zero thoughts of god I don't think it would be useful to consider them atheists. That would be tantamount to someone saying a child or primitive/sheltered person...before even hearing about or being presented with the idea of God is an atheist. I would say it misses the point of the terms atheist and theist.

I would say that as humans started developing thoughts of anything that in today's vernacular would connotate believing in god or gods, that there would have been both theists...those who happily went along with the idea and others..skeptics...who probably didn't believe or...atheists. That, of course, would be pure conjecture.

 

[ChristineM]

That's all well and good. Perhaps I've been misled as to what certain ancient man made artifacts mean.

But I think it's still irrelevant to the topic of the thread just as my imaginings of how the supernatural might've come into being was challenged by some other poster is irrelevant.

The topic was which came first the atheist or the theist. Now, if you are saying YOU are sure that these early humans were all atheists because they didn't include images of gods....whatever those might have looked like...in their cave art or carved images you might have a point. And that would be a basis for saying that ALL humans THEN were atheists. Is that what you're saying?

But a) we can't be sure that at least SOME of those ancient artifacts weren't somehow their attempt to appease/honor/worship some powerful being or that they had primitive theistic thoughts even if they didn't include them in their art/carvings/structures. And b) even if ALL of those who lived then had zero thoughts of god I don't think it would be useful to consider them atheists. That would be tantamount to someone saying a child or primitive/sheltered person...before even hearing about or being presented with the idea of God is an atheist. I would say it misses the point of the terms atheist and theist.

I would say that as humans started developing thoughts of anything that in today's vernacular would connotate believing in god or gods, that there would have been both theists...those who happily went along with the idea and others..skeptics...who probably didn't believe or...atheists. That, of course, would be pure conjecture.

I was replying to to your post. I have replied to the OP previously

We can be sure that the human animal is and has always been born with no thought of god. It is my understanding of pre history that some humans developed to revere animals or tranquil places. Whether these can be called a god or not is down to individual interpretation