When Did Mankind First Begin to Believe in a Godhead?

Well if you noticed we are both biased you for unbelief and I for belief, but look forward into science probable you to.

 

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I am indeed bias against what I perceive as irrational / fallacious thinking, and bias toward critical thinking.
My position of unbelief stems from those biases.
What other bias do you think I have in this regard?

 

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It's not a matter of choice. No-one chooses to believe in something, or to not do so. It is something to which we are compelled by experience or evidence, or lack thereof. I have personal experience of several deities, which constitutes evidence for me, and consequently I believe in many gods. But not everyone has those experiences, and I am not going to sit in judgement about that. Nor am I going to act like my experiences and my conclusions are absolutely right.

An atheist is not so by "choice" or by mis-application of reason. They are so because they have yet to see evidence of any god or gods. They have applied reason, logic, and most importantly, empirical analysis to the question. And in the face of no evidence, reason compels one to assume the null on any hypothesis.

So get off your fuckin' high-horse.

 

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Does the OP ask this as if he'll get an answer from anyone who actually knows?

 

There is an entire range of human experience that is not easy to quantify by the scientific method. For example, we have all had dreams. Dreams are things that are naturally generated by the brain. It is not much different from an enzyme generating a chemical. The difference is the dream is a type of information output, which is not as tangible, as a chemical output that we can freeze and examine. Natural neural output is not called real science because science is not yet up to the task of analyzing the output.

The irony is, those who are knowledgeable about dreams are the real experts, yet it is layman in this field, who may be experts in other fields, who get to decide whether this is useful. Science is not fully rational. How many people who downplay dreams, for example, have spent years investigating them? Dreams are data we all have observed. These are rarely the same for any two people or any two dreams. It would nevertheless be unscientific for deny you observed something, yet this is what science teaches. Ignore this data since it makes our curves look better.

Besides dreams, any expert in the neural information field will also recognize there are other forms of natural information output from the brain. These become even harder to accept sine they are loss common and often rare, unless induced.

Many people who are faithful to the various religions, have had experiences with unique neural information output. Their faith is not just imaginary, since the data is real hard data. An analogy is say you go into the rain forest and find a unique plant that was never seen before. You carefully remove the plant, hoping to show others, only to see it wilt before anyone can see its original splendor. Nobody will believe your original data observation, based on what they now see. Yet their doubt, does not change your resolve, because what you saw was real data. I was placed on a stage, for you. Others who may have had similar experiences, can relate better to your account, because they have had their own secret viewing and know such data exists.

I my experience, I wanted to learn about this type of natural information data from the brain. This does not require any special resources or funding since you already own your own brain. After having many experiences, and observing tons of data, it bothers me that layman get to dictate things which they know nothing of.

I tend to believe this bias is caused by a version of PC in science, generated by the atheist religion. It is taboo for science to deal with any natural neural information, since it give credence to the claims of the faithful. The result is a dumb down of science and science often projecting his own natural neural data, into reality. Religion is about the truth in this natural neural information, so we can reality as it is supposed to be viewed. One needs to isolate this neural data to see what is behind it; reality.

 

I disagree. One only believes in something wholeheartedly if they really wish to, or if there is compelling reason to believe in it, if it offers something as an alternative to common existence.
This is the exact reason religion has so many followers among the poor.

An atheist is generally given the opportunity to be one due to circumstance or upbringing. That's why they're prevalent in the west, but not elsewhere.

 

When I read about how people try to equate the past, when religion appears, it sounds like revisionists history, where we assume how perceive today was how they perceived in the past. Perception is based on filters of the mind, which are set up by culture. In the beginning, these filters would be very thin and more connected to the filters of natural instinct. This is why invention was very slow. If it appears here and there, there are no filters to help stress the need and importance.

What will be needed will be the brain to begin generating new neural information for new filters. This can occur via dreams and visions, since this can be reacted to by natural man. The superimposition or projection of neural content onto the sensory reality of natural man, begins to create a distinction where natural reactions to stimulus no longer are optimized.

As an example, say you have you favorite food. One day you eat a batch that was bad, which tastes nasty and makes you sick. This can forever change your favorite food. A long standing habit can change. Instead of a bad taste that makes you sick, say there is a projection overlay that leads to an action that results in injury to yourself. The next time what has always been attractive becomes inhibited.

If you was able to differentiate the two data streams, because instincts are so conservative they can't change that fast, one begins to recognize one data stream is normal and the other is superimposed. The superimposed because the world of spirits. If one is more knowledgeable about natural neural output, this makes more sense.

If you look at an artists who creates a novel work of art, this is coming from an internal data stream. It may be based on learned precedents, but the neural data is organizing this grid in another unique way. The ancients were creative and would learn to differentiate the two information streams with the god stream seen as separate and more advanced than the natural since it allows one to extend the natural.

 

Goddess
It seems that early hunter gatherer societies had a female deity---the goddess.
Everything seems to have been group oriented ---hunting as a group activity, gathering as a group activity, and living in a close knit tribal society.
And then, came agriculture which is normally a more individual activity. The current theory is that this led to an increased carrying capacity and attendant population increase, while lifespans shortened.
As the group became less important, the "goddess" seems to have been replaced by the "god".

Belief and worship are tricky beasties. We know almost nothing of beliefs, nor worship of our early ancestors. What we have is a few clues embodied in the trinkets which survived the millennia to be found by somewhat confused and biased archaeologists.

Your guess is most likely no better nor worse than that of the archaeologists.

 

Atheism was a political movement that polarized itself to Christianity. This is why it is more western. It acts as the shadow side of religion, and makes an effort to do the opposite, even when it gets irrational.

Buddhism is a religion that does not have deities. Its philosophy is to overcome the projections of the mass mind of culture, based on learned and conditioned behavior. It tries to get rid of this cultural filter, so one can see the natural neural stream. Its shadow philosophy is the opposite of this. Its version of the atheism, results in a more materialist and conformists attitude; cultural homogeneity.

The shadow sides are sort of like the child defining himself, by doing the opposite of the parent. He is not really thinking of anything new and creative that sets him apart, but simply does the opposite. The lack of creativity reflects the repression of the natural information stream. It is an illusion of creative input but more based on inference and conformity to a philosophy. The religious need to stand apart, based on their own unique experiences. They will seek birds of a feather.

 

IMO, belief in an "unseen" force started very early in the evolution of sapient hominid brains.

This probably is an extension of the *fight or flight* instinct when confronted with "unexplainable" phenomena*.
Nova had an episode which followed research of the behavior of common chimpanzee in the wild.

During a monsoon with heavy thunder, lightning and rain, they observed the troupe huddling together in a sheltered area. But the Alpha male was observed to respond to this obviously violent *attack* with a defensive/aggressive display in defense of his family and territory.

He began to run around a small clearing and swatting the bushes to see if anyone was hidden there, of course to no avail. Then he picked up a stick and began to pound the ground and tree branches to flush out the perceived enemy.

And finally, to the surprise of the observers he raised and shook his stick to the sky to show the unseen force (from above) which was making loud noises, bright flashes and was throwing water at him and his family, showing that he was prepared to defend his territory.

The researchers concluded that this might well be the first response to phenomena caused by an *unseen, but very powerful enemy*. A rudimentary belief in a god (an unobservable, undefined, unknowable force).

Much later, as the hominid brain gained in sophistication, these unexplainable phenomena were attributed to the first gods, rain gods, thunder gods, sun gods, etc., which were to be appeased with sacrifices in order to placate the anger of these gods.
These practices were orally passed on, each in a slightly different way, depending on the environment.

Still later, as knowledge of natural functions became better known, these gods were also applied to known communal phenomena of human behavior, such as the goddess of love, the god of war and the practice of moral behavior in accordance with the needs of these gods and the hierarchical order of the spiritual world with a single godhead ruling everything.

As natural phenomena were identified as natural functions, the lesser gods were dropped and only the concept of a single God who was causal to the universe, the earth, and humans and of course as we have only one example of intentional action in human behavior, the Godhead was believed to have human attributes, such as approval (God saw that it was good) and disapproval (the wrath of God) and the concept of *God's will be done".

With the replacement of oral communication with written communication we created the first books, which were then assembled by spiritual scholars, in accordance to their interpretation of the messages contained in the various early scriptures.

Thus the evolution of spiritual scriptures such as the Torah, the OT, the NT, the Quran, the Book of Mormons, and recently the Book of FSM, each progressively more
convoluted and speculative.

IMO, assigning gods to individual events might be a rudimentary form of science. Science speaks of Cause and Effect and Natural Laws, which govern these functions.
Science explains the natural functions of the early gods, by way of mathematical functions, slowly replacing all the named gods with mathematical equations, which today are applicable to all natural phenomena.

Except for the question of Original Causality, most Gods now have different (mathematical names), and this is why the concept of a single Godhead remains. We just have not yet found the mathematical equation of Original Causality, which would replace the term "God" Hence the expression "God of the gaps".

To me, all this means is that scripture cannot be held as scientific, but apart from that, scripture does hold some useful secular moral messages. If those messages could be culled from scripture, they might serve as secular philosophy, than Divine spiritual messages from a sentient and motivated Godhead..

 

The great flood has been discussed at length. What if the great flood was a massive Tsunami, caused by tectonic upheaval? Seems to me we have had several of those in the history of earth. But now we know the causes and we no longer attribute floods to a God caused miracle.

Volcanic eruptions are no longer considered to be the act of an angry *fire god*. Stars are no longer considered to be *windows to the heavens where the gods dwell".

But the causality of natural phenomena have been explained and they are not spiritual in nature.
So, IMO, it can be said that science is the evolution of knowledge, slowly replacing the concept of sentient spiritual beings with natural implacable mathematical functions. Universal constants.

 

The natural presupposition would be that spiritual insight codified for the instruction of the young long predates anything one would term a "godhead". Until the invention of agriculture humans wouldn't have any obvious use for such a thing.

As evidence, the beliefs of various Australian aboriginal peoples.

A particularly intriguing aspect of "primitive" spiritual insight systems is that they often exist in layers, at least two: there's one layer for the kids, and then an initiation ceremony in which they discover a deeper layer and put their childhood beliefs into perspective.

 

Which is exactly what I was saying.

Environmental factors are part of personal experience. It is the sum total of our experiences that inform our worldview. That is, once again, exactly what I was saying.

Common assertion, but not backed up by evidence. We don't really know what forms of deity or spirituality that Neolithic societies believed in or practised. We have some reasonable conjecture that sacrificial ritual originates from the psychological development of hunting practices. But that's as far as we really know.
The first 'great goddess' deities are found in agricultural society, being mostly either earth-mothers responsible for the growth of crops or potnia-theron types, mistress of the animals. But these are not often the same figure. These societies were polytheistic, having many gods and goddesses, and were not monotheistic or even really henotheistic.
Futher, the 'matriarchal religion' line is mostly a modern myth. Not quite a fabrication, but it is based on incomplete evidence and highly politicised conjectures made fifty to seventy years ago. It is, at the very least, not up-to-date with current anthropological knowledge.