A question that has haunted me all my life

[Dave Skummie]

How is it that every ancient isolated culture invented everything from languages to gods. If this is true, Then only two possible explanations can come from this that I can see. 1. If there is a real god then I'd say this god created a method to communicate. That would make all gods true and worshiping any would take you to the same spot at the end. 2. The simple psychology of ruling in man has created a need to worship something greater. This would mean all gods were made up by the psychological design of the human brain. If anyone has number 3. I'd be very interested. Thank you for your time. Dave

[dio9]

[Replying to post 27 by Clownboat]

Who made that quote Caligula ?

[ttruscott]

Consider this quote:
"Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful."

Is this from the same place as: "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: He catches the wise in their craftiness..."?

[dio9]

[Replying to post 28 by Clownboat]

can you summarize that article for me ? I don't believe in modern psychology. I don't want to get a warning for one lining you . Give me something better than Jesus could.
Are you saying the majority of historic humanity for thousands of years is not evidence of the inclination instilled in humanity to seek a relationship with a higher power is hogwash? And some unknown writer from Psychology today is right? Please get real.

[liamconnor]

[Replying to post 17 by Dave Skummie]

I was more interested in questioning the either or of your two options than identifying the credentials of any named deity.

I think I do not understand your OP.

[Justin108]

[Replying to post 19 by Justin108]

some say God likes to play with us, like playing a game of hide and seek .

What does this have to do with what I said?

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 25 by Clownboat]

its wide spread probably because its true.

It seems reasonable anyway, that I agree.

Your opinion my friend is the minority position.

I didn't offer an opinion, I linked to an article. Did you not read it? I ask because you didn't even attempt to poke holes in it. I assume you can't and your argument from popularity doesn't help you.

Considering that of the rest of the human race.

Can you turn this in to a coherent sentence?

excuse me your reference is a Barrett? never heard of him.

He is an Oxford psychologist. Further evidence that you didn't even read it?

you comparing him to Buddha Lao Tzu Jesus and Krishna?

Please show where I did such a thing. Better yet, respond to the article.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 27 by Clownboat]

Who made that quote Caligula ?

Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC " AD 65), fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Did you understand the quote? Do you not find it to be very accurate? If not, I would love to hear why.

[Clownboat]

[Replying to post 28 by Clownboat]

can you summarize that article for me?

Please do your own homework. If it is too much work for you, I suggest you pick a religion to provide you with answers, then you can avoid having to do any work. My guess is you have done that already.

I don't believe in modern psychology.

You don't believe in the study of the human mind and its functions?
Do you also not believe in the study of math? What is wrong with studying the human mind?

Give me something better than Jesus could.

Show me something that Jesus gave you and I'll see if I can do better.
I suppose I could send you a sandwich in the mail, that would be better than nothing right?

Are you saying the majority of historic humanity for thousands of years is not evidence of the inclination instilled in humanity to seek a relationship with a higher power is hogwash?

I wish you understood what you read better....
I didn't call anything hogwash. I offered you an article to read that offers a hypothesis about how humans gained this tendency to assign agency.

And some unknown writer from Psychology today is right? Please get real.

You will never know unless you read the Oxford Psychologist words on the matter.
I didn't claim one was right by the way, but I don't expect you to understand that either.

Seriously, not one thing to say on the article.

[Mithrae]

Barrett suggests we have evolved to be overly sensitive to agency. We evolved in an environment containing many agents - family members, friends, rivals, predators, prey, and so on. Spotting and understanding other agents helps us survive and reproduce. So we evolved to be sensitive to them - oversensitive in fact. Hear a rustle in the bushes behind you and you instinctively spin round, looking for an agent. Most times, there's no one there - just the wind in the leaves. But, in the environment in which we evolved, on those few occasions when there was an agent present, detecting it might well save your life. Far better to avoid several imaginary predators than be eaten by a real one. Thus evolution will select for an inheritable tendency to not just detect - but over detect - agency.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/be ... ble-beings

Whether or not this fully explains religious tendencies (I suspect it does not) this is an easily-understandable evolutionary/psychological tendency which deserves to be recognized as a potential element of latent bias, whatever ontological position one ultimately ends up favouring.

On the other hand, it's also worth noting that probably the very first thing than an infant comes to know, after their own existence, is the fact that most of the reality they come to experience does not respond to their agency. The very first conception we have, most likely, is that reality is not like me. Understanding of and empathy towards other agents develops from the idiomatic 'terrible twos' when kids begin to understand that there are other, active agencies against which they might protest and probably right through to juvenile and adolescent development. In fact many of the worst crimes that humans individually and en masse have committed against each other might be attributed, at least in part, to still-under-developed or easily-suppressed senses of empathy even into adulthood, the ease with which we can dissociate ourselves from perceiving other bodies as real human beings.

In other words, while a tendency to attribute false positives in those five or ten seconds it takes to glance at a rustle in the bushes is highly probable, extrapolating that to some ingrained tendency for long-term attribution of agency is dubious at best - I would say that on the contrary, if anything the available evidence suggests that in longer timeframes we are all too easily inclined to disattribute agency, or at least dissociate ourselves from its implications, where it actually does exist!

[Clownboat]

Barrett suggests we have evolved to be overly sensitive to agency. We evolved in an environment containing many agents - family members, friends, rivals, predators, prey, and so on. Spotting and understanding other agents helps us survive and reproduce. So we evolved to be sensitive to them - oversensitive in fact. Hear a rustle in the bushes behind you and you instinctively spin round, looking for an agent. Most times, there's no one there - just the wind in the leaves. But, in the environment in which we evolved, on those few occasions when there was an agent present, detecting it might well save your life. Far better to avoid several imaginary predators than be eaten by a real one. Thus evolution will select for an inheritable tendency to not just detect - but over detect - agency.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/be ... ble-beings

Whether or not this fully explains religious tendencies (I suspect it does not) this is an easily-understandable evolutionary/psychological tendency which deserves to be recognized as a potential element of latent bias, whatever ontological position one ultimately ends up favouring.

On the other hand, it's also worth noting that probably the very first thing than an infant comes to know, after their own existence, is the fact that most of the reality they come to experience does not respond to their agency. The very first conception we have, most likely, is that reality is not like me. Understanding of and empathy towards other agents develops from the idiomatic 'terrible twos' when kids begin to understand that there are other, active agencies against which they might protest and probably right through to juvenile and adolescent development. In fact many of the worst crimes that humans individually and en masse have committed against each other might be attributed, at least in part, to still-under-developed or easily-suppressed senses of empathy even into adulthood, the ease with which we can dissociate ourselves from perceiving other bodies as real human beings.

In other words, while a tendency to attribute false positives in those five or ten seconds it takes to glance at a rustle in the bushes is highly probable, extrapolating that to some ingrained tendency for long-term attribution of agency is dubious at best - I would say that on the contrary, if anything the available evidence suggests that in longer timeframes we are all too easily inclined to disattribute agency, or at least dissociate ourselves from its implications, where it actually does exist!

Your dismissal of some ingrained tendency for long-term attribution of agency is noted, however, we still evolved in an environment containing many agents - family members, friends, rivals, predators, prey, and so on.

These are life long agencies that we are accustomed to. Therefore, I don't find it much of a stretch that we assign agency to to unknowns.

Lightning and thunder come from the gods.
Rain, comes from the gods.
Drought, because of the gods.
Sickness is caused by demons.

Examples of humans assigning agency to unknowns goes way beyond a rustling in the bushes.

Where do we go when we die? = There is an agent for that.
Why are we here? = Because of an agent.
And this seems true for all humans, even isolated cultures.

These observations point to humans assigning agency to things. Living in the plains of Africa, humans would have assigned agency to the rustling in the bush. Fast forward into the future, and agents are responsible for, well virtually everything (rain, lightning, sickness...).

The debate question: "How is it that every ancient isolated culture invented everything from languages to gods."

The explanation by Barrett answers this very nicely. Much better than the idea that one of the thousands of agents are actually the true agent.