DigitalDruid

Evolutionary paradigm does not say the god concept is useless.
We human beings have a need to understand what we see around us.
Evolutionarily, any organism survives better if it has some knowledge of the the environment. Why do plants grow better after a flood? It was a great leap of survival value to make the connection that floods bring in silt and that somehow makes plants grow better. So I can hope to get lots of my favorite fruits when it floods again. Why do I have this terrible tummy-ache? Oh, it must be those red berries I ate while foraging. So I better avoid them next time. So, asking "why" can have value from evolutionary perspective. It is almost an imperative to ask "why" if you do not want to repeat all your mistakes, or you want to predict favorable events (next when plants would flourish).

Imagine a primitive tribe. Some one has just died. His dead body looks pretty much the same as when he was alive. But he does not speak or move. So the tribe ponders over the standard "why" question. Why does he not speak or move? It must be something that we can not see becuase all his body-parts are intact. And it must be something powerful too, because it enabled him to laugh and talk and work when he was alive. This kind of thinking can easily lead to the concept of spirit or soul in different forms in different cultures. Once you accpet the existence of powerful unseen elements, you can invoke it to explain thunder, lightning, - anything intriguing that needed explanation in ancient times.

The rest of the god story is mainly refinement of the idea of the spirit and economics! Powerful groups of people (brahmins, clergy, druids, voodoo men, etc.) arose that gained prominence by claiming to communicate with or appease such powerful unseen elements.

So I think the root of the god concept is evolutionary - the need to ask why when we see something intriguing in Nature to survive it or predict it.

MythFree

It's part of man's evolution into 'intelligence'.
The history of our minds leaving superstition and fear and entering into a better use of the left side of our brain ie:math and science.
We need it to become part of a historical overview of the human race and not remain a viable part of our current paradigm of reality.


ANYWAY......
we aren't Australopithecus afarensis any more and the current, important point is...
look around 'there is no God' and although visually there appears to be more proof that Santa exists most adults (even believers) acknowledge that story is just a fairy tale.

9% of us are waiting for the other 91% to wake up and wise up and enter this century...in an interview the late Joseph Campbell, mythology expert, stated that the main problem with our society is we have a 2000 year old mythology which is out of synch with our current reality...I was hoping the UFO story would become our new mythology (at least there's some evidence of that) or better yet we could grow out of the need for mythology but at this stage of our development we still need our 'blankee'.

MythFree

I'm not upset because the Sumerians and Hebrews didn't know anything about quantum physics or quantum computers, they needed 'Gods' and magic,
I'm upset because NOW we should know better and this ancient myth is stunting our growth.
I'm hoping that seeing the source of this emotional and subconscious imprint (ie:helpless infant imprint) will help deliver us from the misunderstanding.

RakMaster

Once again, interesting, yet unsupported by any sort of evidence whatsoever. Let's try this one on for size.

Once upon a time there was a real man. His name was SAINT NICHOLAS OF BARI. Later on, after he died, stories were written about his wonderful deeds. Most of these stories are legends. We know they're legends, because we have accounts of the real person that the legends were based on. While the legends about ol' Saint Nick are really fun and really quite quaint, we can indeed know all about the real St. Nick because we have the benefit of history.

Now, once upon a time there was a real man. His name was JESUS OF NAZARETH...

Now, once upon a time there was a real being. His name is GOD...

Oh, and one more thing. Find a word in the English language that doesn't describe something known, experienced, or scientifically probable. (hint: those would be the words that describe religion and philosophy)

MythFree

There is no historical evidence that he was a real person other than a contrived addition to the historical writings of Josephus.

Read the below synopsis from http://members.aol.com/FLJOSEPHUS/testimonium.htm
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Do the Christian gospels record actual events during the First Century A.D./ C.E., or are they the ecstatic visions of a small religious group?

There are no surviving Roman records of the First Century that refer to, nor are there any Jewish records that support the accounts in the Christian gospels --- except one.

In Rome, in the year 93, Josephus published his lengthy history of the Jews. While discussing the period in which the Jews of Judaea were governed by the Roman procurator Pontius Pilate, Josephus included the following account:


About this time there lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was one who performed surprising deeds and was a teacher of such people as accept the truth gladly. He won over many Jews and many of the Greeks. He was the Messiah. And when, upon the accusation of the principal men among us, Pilate had condemned him to a cross, those who had first come to love him did not cease. He appeared to them spending a third day restored to life, for the prophets of God had foretold these things and a thousand other marvels about him. And the tribe of the Christians, so called after him, has still to this day not disappeared.
- Jewish Antiquities, 18.3.3 §63
(Based on the translation of Louis H. Feldman, The Loeb Classical Library.)

Yet this account has been embroiled in controversy since the 17th century. It could not have been written by a Jewish man, say the critics, because it sounds too Christian: it even claims that Jesus was the Messiah (ho christos, the Christ)!
The critics say: this paragraph is not authentic. It was inserted into Josephus' book by a later Christian copyist, probably in the Third or Fourth Century.

The opinion was controversial. A vast literature was produced over the centuries debating the authenticity of the "Testimonium Flavianum", the Testimony of Flavius Josephus.

A view that has been prominent among American scholars was summarized in John Meier's 1991 book, A Marginal Jew.

This opinion held that the paragraph was formed by a mixture of writers. It parsed the text into two categories: nything that seemed too Christian was added by a later Christian writer, while anything else was originally written by Josephus.

By this view, the paragraph was taken as essentially authentic, and so supported the objective historicity of Jesus.

Unfortunately, the evidence for this was meager and self-contradictory. But it was an attractive hypothesis.

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The other two major historians of that era never mention him once...
wake up!

DigitalDruid

You are ascribing scientific temperament to primitive people, and then you are wondering why they invented gods – why they did something seemingly unreasonable!
How would they explain lightning other than ascribe it to some god of lightning and thunder (Indra, Zeus, Tinia, Raiden, etc.), in view of their lack of scientific knowledge? Even now there are tribes in remote places who believe everything (including leaves that stir in the wind) is caused by some unseen spirit.

When we are discussing unseen and unobservable entities we are necessarily in the realm of plausible reasoning. Looking at dead animals, primitive men wondered about what animated them when they were alive , just as they wondered what caused lightning. Plausible explanation: something powerful but unseen entity is responsible for animation. That is plausible reasoning – not the axiomatic kind. Social anthropology also provides a wealth of information about similarity of tribal myths.
Do you have a better explanation of the root of the god concept? If I find a better one, I’ll examine it. For now, I can’t find a better explanation.

Yeah, but in case of Jesus (especially his miracles) and GOD we do not have the benefit of history.

JEST2ASK

Not to be rude but are you stating that early records of supernatural beings are accurate that Thor, Odin, Loki were / are real ... that once there were dragons, giants and magic ????

You state that there is a God I offer the same challenge to you as Magus55... please produce evidence ... Please detail just what is this God you believe ... Just how do you verify it did in fact cause if not the whole universe then at least this local reality....

Do you believe that because one group had achieved a certain level of technology it was available to all living humans ... :huh:

Again not to be rude but please detail just what it is you believe and how and why you arrived at those conclusions ... I am not sure just what you are rambling about do you deny that there are many documented human socities that in fact attributed weather and other events to spirits ... are you saying such stories were based on real events ...:huh:

JEST2ASK

And why should we believe a second hand report that enity X created the universe not just this tiny little rock .... is there some island say in the pacific that has a giant tag on it .. or a yet undiscvovered pattern in the stars that when viewed from earth gives a manufactures code ...

windsofchange

Just out of curiousity, since by our nature we are pretty much limited to this little floating rock, how exactly would we go about searching through the rest of the universe? And what exactly would be be looking for?

MythFree

According to some mythology we are created in his image, his favorite creation, so wouldn't he show up to check us out? (Even if he lived on Abell 2218)