Caveman instincts may explain our belief in gods and ghosts

a reply to: ColorsOfTheWind
can you prove him?

a reply to: Blackmarketeer

It does fit the Fallen Angel Motif. A bright light, thats brighter then a Star fell from the heaven as it was punishment for the fallen deity, or maybe it was sent to punish Humankind as it was sent, or kicked from the Heavens.

True, it isn't consistent with the framework from the source its the quotes from, but the bible never really is consistent with its own framework. Especially if some stories from the bible could predate its creation by miles in time.

Also, the new or recent incarnation of Satan(or Lucifer) is actually Venus in some cases. Weather it how the ancients/pagan personified planets/constellations with certain attributes or characteristics. Like ancient Greece for example, Zeus was the king of gods, and stood mighty, much like the characteristics of Jupiter. And also the gravitational pull is asteroids magnet and protector of earth. Although I doubt the Ancient Greeks knew that part. And how Saturn rivals Jupiter in size, being the father of Jupiter.

Or Mercury being Hermes, the Messenger, since it would go around the sun faster then any other planet. Or How Ares, the God of War, is said to be a coward and hides, where as this how Mars orbit was viewed from those times.

Silly traditions that change much over time. How Satan got mixed up with the Goddess of Love and beauty wasn't my idea. And in other cases, Satan been associated with Lunar qualities by the more recent Solar worshipers.

originally posted by: ColorsOfTheWind
End must be nearer than I thought because you people are trying your hardest to disprove God.

What's the point? It's not like you'd pay any attention if we did.

These atheists just don't give up, do they? Why don't they use their seemingly endless energy to go after an actual myth, like the tooth fairy or Obama's birth certificate?

originally posted by: ScientiaFortisDefendit
These atheists just don't give up, do they? Why don't they use their seemingly endless energy to go after an actual myth, like the tooth fairy or Obama's birth certificate?

Because our pledge of allegiance makes no mention of the tooth fairy, Obama's certificate is not on the dollar bill, and Santa Claus isn't keeping my parents from getting married because "ZOMG GAYS ARE EVIL!"

a reply to: AfterInfinity

The tooth fairy is gay?

originally posted by: butcherguy
I wonder if the lower orders of life that operate entirely on instinct (responding to stimuli with reaction toward survival) and no higher thought processes, like self awareness, believe in gods?

I think you're onto something.
If we evolved from said lower orders...where did this instinctual-need to look outside the box and contrive some god/gods to explain things that we (as lower orders) had not needed explanation/s for, before...come from?
Maybe they do have 'gods'.

Also, another trendy tid-bit I notice. Since all Muslims, when they pray or bow, they must be praying in a certain direction, to their most sacred holy site...Which is believed to have fallen from heaven, like a meteorite. Yet, some how it spared them from certain destruction.

Also, the Muslim have a five tipped star, which looks a lot like Venus(for Satan, its got to upside down), with a crescent moon...While the symbol predates the religion an is said to be found on Arabic coins. Which i had found on wikipedia just recently.

Why does this seem to spite the so-called ever loving Solar Worshipers, of the Gods Sun(Son).

Staying on topic with the title....
"God's" maybe, although I disagree, what I will have to extremely disagree with Is ghosts, I feel ghosts are more of an experience-influenced belief more than anything else. I highly doubt genes are the reason we believe some unexplained/strange phenomena is ghosts.. But I do see how it can add/create thoughts of ghosts when it's just the wind breaking a twig...
Either way, Interesting theory

Don't much believe in ghosts myself. I believe in some supreme beings though, I believe it is possible to link to collective consciousness of many things in this world. You need respect of the trees/forest in order for them to guide you. You need the respect of the animals before they will let you connect to their consciousness. Even the fungi and bacteria share consciousness. Receiving info from these beings will do nothing if you do not have to ability to process and understand it. Some of us are learning how to do this, some of us are born with this ability.

Some people know things they have never been taught...they are linked to others. This connection is what is referred to as the word...a word that is not spoken. God may be the link, this link can be an entity of a sort. This link is the path. What structures this path is god. What exactly is god, structured energy...a sort of link that ties things together.

This does not go against religion. Actually it helps to define it.

originally posted by: blkcwbyhat
a reply to: ColorsOfTheWind
can you prove him?

100% Correct ColorsOfTheWind, since when is the burden of proof on us to prove a god exists?

ScientiaFortisDefendit - I find the god bots the most militant. Religion is based on myth, the entire bible is myth lets not kid ourselves.

would easily explain the gods of the greek and roman time period. We perceived everyone as "stupid" back than and feared everything, like earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunami's, etc, etc, so the worshipped the gods of things they didn't understand to appease them and spare their life. It's easy and makes a lot of sense, but I consider myself evolved or at least more so than some around me and yet, I have seen enough and felt enough to know there is something quite amazing with our perceived reality even if we are surrounded by less amazing things. - See more at: www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: Rosinitiate

Your arguement would have made sense, if recent studies,and discoveries caused science to re-write human evolution.

Human beings, like us. No they were exactly like us, and they roamed the globe as long as 70.000 years ago.
They didn't evolve any further to this day.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer
i have a hard time believing this because while it sounds plausible on paper, it is ascribing stimuli to a very real threat. even if a tiger isn't currently present (but a very startled squirrel is), tigers are quite real and observable.

the reasoning seems backwards. the tiger came before the fear of tigers.

In the absence of geological knowledge, our tribal ancestors' agency system would have ascribed this event to a person – but one that surely has superhuman ability.

would they have?

This even applies to the Abrahamic, all-knowing, all powerful god. He may seem very inhuman at first glance, but it has been shown that we reason about Him in a very human way.

is that so strange? would it not be more strange if humans thought about god in an inhuman way?

Very young children seem to show very accurate understanding of physical laws.

even young children have folk physics abilities, but that doesn't explain why we would seek to develop instances of "impossible" things happening.

a reply to: Bob Sholtz

That's not the point. A leaf rustles - our primitive ancestors evolved "fight or flight" response is to assume there's a tiger (or some other threat) making the leaf rustle. So we assign "agency" as to why the leaf rustled. Those who lacked the notion of a tiger making the leaf rustle would just sit there, oblivious to a potential threat, and get eaten by a tiger. Those who did would be forewarned and escape the threat, living to pass on their genes.

Now picture it is a falling star streaking across the sky. The same sort of "agency," assigning some form of intellect behind it, blooms into a belief in the supernatural. We see the falling star but we don't see what caused it, or even what it was, so it's the hand of a deity or deities at work.

a reply to: Blackmarketeer
the fear of a tiger is rational. the outcome for not fearing one would be very negative and very obvious, as would the source of the outcome (tigers).

the reaction comes from a stimuli based on a tangible threat, not a false threat.

i guess i'm trying to say that fight or flight doesn't seem to be a valid pathway for the creation of things to worship.

even with something they didn't understand like volcanoes, they would learn to fear the earthquakes/smoke as precursors.

fear is about getting out of the situation as fast as possible, not coming up with things to worship. it was an interesting read, but far too many assumptions.

a reply to: Bob Sholtz

This isn't just about worship and god, though. It's also about believing in ghosts and spooks and other supernatural entities. Our evolution gave us "agency" and "theory of mind." Perhaps that gave rise to our willingness to believe in deities, or on a far smaller scale, ghosts. A door creaks open. The wind? Or a ghost? We make assumptions based on our evolved instincts. Something made that door open. We can't see it. So we believe it's a ghost. That's "agency." The same phenomena, working on two different scales.

originally posted by: Blackmarketeer
a reply to: Bob Sholtz

This isn't just about worship and god, though. It's also about believing in ghosts and spooks and other supernatural entities. Our evolution gave us "agency" and "theory of mind." Perhaps that gave rise to our willingness to believe in deities, or on a far smaller scale, ghosts. A door creaks open. The wind? Or a ghost? We make assumptions based on our evolved instincts. Something made that door open. We can't see it. So we believe it's a ghost. That's "agency." The same phenomena, working on two different scales.

In almost every species there is a survival reflex, be it a hedgehog curling in on itself, or a baby gull projectile vomiting it's stomach acids, the human animal though is completely lacking in this capacity. We, instead, have a mind and a memory databank that has the ability to play back similar experiences and imagine outcomes, pre-emptively.

Our body, our bipedalism, evolved to cope with endurance running.

These two factors, combined, enable us to react quickly to a percieved threat or attack. Because, prior to our development of tools and weapons, we are otherwise defenseless to predators, it is necessary to react without thought, without even looking. Our sense of smell is limited, so we cannot use that as others do. Our eye sight while great for depth perception and colour differentiation, is limited peripherally. And our hearing has similar limitations. But what we do have is an ability to process a limited amount of information, rapidly, and react to a worst case scenario. So we can run away. That we, as a species, have survived at all, tells us that we have run first, and asked questions later.

This same ability, that 'sixth' sense, that tells us something is different, out of the ordinary, and therefore potentially threatening, also allows us to imagine what that 'something' might be. And, inevitably, to further use our imagination to give that 'something' more substance in order to justify our running away when we find on closer imagination that it was just a bird fluttering in a bush. Since, as big, bad humans, we couldn't possibly have been scared off by a bird, there must have been something else, something not as easily perceived. Our minds allow us to fill in the gaps between our conscious and subconsious actions and perceptions. In addition, we are naturally predisposed towards superstitious practices and beliefs, partly because the same mental processes allow us to learn and replicate techniques that have proved successful to our survival.

That we have developed gods and ghouls to explain the unexplainable, to give meaning to the world around us, is also reflective of the sometimes hostile environments that we have survived in. For thousands of years, death came easily. Only about 40,000 years ago did humans start to live beyond the age of 30. Once a few made it past that point, the rate grew exponentially. Superstition, imaginative memory and that 'react first ask questions later' combo, are our key survival reflex.

Blah, blah, blah... After all the learned pontification, I get that belief in a sky father and his zombie son is silly on various levels and I know that odd, incorrect dogmas abound and cause uncounted strife, misery and death in a seeming greater proportion than any comfort the belief provides.

And I love that we are moving towards a more rational approach to this universe we exist in... but... I was a logical materialist who blundered into an encounter with a disembodied intelligence.

What do I do with that fact if I'm intellectually honest?

Things we term 'spirits' exist, from my own personal experience... and it/they didn't seem to care a whit that I didn't believe in their existence.

I sympathize with folks trying to move us along from detrimental, dark age worldviews... but what do we do if those views are correct at least at some level?

Not to say knowledge of non-bodied intelligence leads to religion... it doesn't... but thinking all such matters can be attributed to brain chems is as off base and faith based as any other belief system.

a reply to: Baddogma

The more concerning question is, did this disembodied intelligence exhibit more than a passing interest in your existence?