Is the belief in God, a primitive instinct?

First this is not ment as an insult in anyway shape or form...its just a question.

I was watching the movie Battlefield Earth, and at the beginning the main charactor is told by his village elders that basicly everything that happened that they could not explain was the work of the gods....This made me start thinking about this..over and over when books or movies refer to primitive man there is allways the talk of there God or Gods??
Is believing in a God or Gods..a primitive thought, that the human race has not advanced enough to let go?

Half my family is Very Religous, the other half could care less....How about you?

Yes.. there is a 'god gland' in the brain.. it releases endorphines which induces a 'spiritual' feeling. I'll post a link up later.

You want the truth?

Here it is, and my brother Paul said it perfectly about 1,950 years ago

taken from Romans 1:20 of the Holy Scriptures
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities–his eternal power and divine nature–have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

Since the beginning of time, God has been revealed to us.
Look around.
Look in the mirror.
Look at your eyes.
Consider how complex your optical nerves truly are.
Consider the fact you can see!
What about sound? You can speak, hear and understand sound.
Consider the fact you can consider.

Without God, life would be meaningless.
Completly unproductive.
You are here.
Then you die.


So yes, the belief in God (or a diving power as some would say) is instictive in the sense you derive it from experiencing his creation.
Take time to think.
- Tass

of course it's a primative way of thinking. before science took off the only explanation for everything was god. 5,000 years ago there was no such thing as evolution, science and theory of relativity. the only way anyone could explain why we lived and why we died was to create the concept of god or gods. the concept was actually created around 30,000 years ago, and that the god or gods were actually female.

however, since the science age has taken off many people have opened their minds to new concepts of why we are here. the egyptians and acient greeks, two of the most powerful civilisations to ever live also had gods. however, where are those egyptian and ancient greek gods now? that's right, they're gone. they are laughed away as will the jewish god, the hindu gods, the christian god and any other god within the next 500 to 1000 years. there is no place in the future for religion, and the monotonous religious people know this, which is why they are so deperate to recruit people, hence coming to your own door to get you to come to church!

well that's what i have to say, i welcome you religious people to shout me down and tell me some more bulls**t about god being all loving, real and you having a personal relationship with him.

*well, I won't tell you any crap, so here*
**plus i hate posts like the one I'm about to make, but it might help**

We agreed on the question at hand.
What you want is an arguement.
Arguements are frivolous.
You should start another thread, elsewhere concerning you belief in the progressive evolution of epistimology or something of the sort.

*back to the issue at hand*

does anyone think the belief in God or some supreme power is not instictive/inherent?
- Tass

this here is a very deep philosophical question, one which I am not about to tackle right now.

mmmmm Id have to say the belief in god whether or not true from an obejective opinion is a grasp at "why we are here". Possibly, "what else is there for me"

Other then that couldnt tell ya, I have laundry to do

One idea is that there is really no such thing as an a priori concept, or that which is innate in the human mind. Everything we know must be the result of knowing something's form, through a sense experience. Through this logic, the concept of God either must be innate in the human mind (since we can't attain an idea of God without first experiencing him), or someone a long time ago would have had to experience God's form as to attain an idea of him, which would be passed on to others.

I think that the word "primitive" is out of context here and should be replaced with the word "natural".

There is no proof that as we advance we will discard our belief in God. In fact the opposite seems to have occured. If you take a look at the majority of modern day thinkers, philosophers and scholars, most profess a belief in a God.

Originally posted by shaunybaby
of course it's a primative way of thinking. before science took off the only explanation for everything was god. 5,000 years ago there was no such thing as evolution, science and theory of relativity. the only way anyone could explain why we lived and why we died was to create the concept of god or gods. the concept was actually created around 30,000 years ago, and that the god or gods were actually female.

however, since the science age has taken off many people have opened their minds to new concepts of why we are here. the egyptians and acient greeks, two of the most powerful civilisations to ever live also had gods. however, where are those egyptian and ancient greek gods now? that's right, they're gone. they are laughed away as will the jewish god, the hindu gods, the christian god and any other god within the next 500 to 1000 years. there is no place in the future for religion, and the monotonous religious people know this, which is why they are so deperate to recruit people, hence coming to your own door to get you to come to church!

well that's what i have to say, i welcome you religious people to shout me down and tell me some more bulls**t about god being all loving, real and you having a personal relationship with him.

Then the Christian god will only be replaced with other ones. No matter how much we learn about science, it never explains the basics of life. Why and how? We can never learn what created the first spark that made everything or why it was created. There will always be a little void in just about everyone that needs to be filled by some god or religion. Just look around at the people on here, especially in the paranormal topics. Even though many have gone on beyond Christianity, they still speak of the spirits and going on to their creators after life is over. We need something as humans to belive in. Is it primitive? Yes, but it is also modern. As long as we have a conscious as humans, many people will wonder why and how. Now, if we can just rid ourselves of reason, then we will live only as animals do and not question why and how. Therefore god will be unneccessary.

Belief in god is something that is taught, not something that is an instinct.

I just asked my 3 year old daughter "Is there such thing as god?"
Her answer, a firm and resounding NO

I didn't teach her that, its her built in instinct, fortified by my not lying to her about
Easter Bunnies, Santa Claus' etc for the past three years.

From the mouths of babes.
Now go ask some kid who has been taught lies from birth..I bet they believe in tooth fairies..and god.

That a cosmic consciousness is innately in us may be true.

But the teaching of a belief in particular scriptures supporting one deity or many deities is very much a learned and socialized phenomenon, accompanied in many Christian and Islamic practices by the 'fire and brimstone' type lectures to frighten young 'sinners'.

Originally posted by Legalizer
Belief in god is something that is taught, not something that is an instinct.

I just asked my 3 year old daughter "Is there such thing as god?"
Her answer, a firm and resounding NO

I didn't teach her that, its her built in instinct, fortified by my not lying to her about
Easter Bunnies, Santa Claus' etc for the past three years.

From the mouths of babes.
Now go ask some kid who has been taught lies from birth..I bet they believe in tooth fairies..and god.

Oh, come on. Someone had to dream up god in the first place, not have it taught to them. If we erased all forms of religion and any thoughts of god from everyone's brain right now, what will happen?

Someone somewhere will think up something that explains all the unexplainable things in life, such as what happens when we die, where did we start and why, what's the meaning behind it all? It may not have the same name as the other gods, it may not even be called god. But some supernatural force will be invented.

Oh yeah, and three is a little young to be thinking in such a reasoning way to create these supernatural forces.

[edit on 10-3-2005 by steggyD]

Originally posted by steggyD
Oh, come on. Someone had to dream up god in the first place, not have it taught to them. If we erased all forms of religion and any thoughts of god from everyone's brain right now, what will happen?

Man would probably naturally progress to believing in a God. Evidence tells us that he has done it before many times throughout history.
What you've got to understand is that God isn't religion - that can't be stressed enough for this subject. Although religion requires a doctrine and a set of rules that are normally created by more than one person, an individual can create a belief of a god on his own. Even an isolated individual can create a god for himself. In fact, with the isolated individual it's even more likely. Human psychology means that we are always looking for answers. A god is an answer. Sometimes that god may only be pertinent to the answer for a while. Science and knowledge will possibly overtake him, but then he will normally be applied elsewhere.


Look at it this way: ever since the first caveman saw lightning cause fire or saw a meteorite fall from the sky, man has used his gods to explain the unexplainable. It's a purely natural progression to do this and is not necessarily a weakness. The human mind works in peculiar ways and the belief in a god to explain the unexplained may actually be healthy, otherwise it is possible one may end up with all sorts of mental dilemmas - paranoia being just one. Looking at the world around you and applying god to it provides an explanation where there may currently be none. That may sound weird, but it's quite rational that we use gods as a stopgap in our knowledge. Once we fill those gaps, the god moves on. These are the natural external factors that the individual uses when considering his belief.

Posted by Legalizer: Belief in god is something that is taught, not something that is an instinct.

One may also go down another avenue and look to oneself. There one may also come to the conclusion that there must be a god, not only because of the unexplained but because it does seem logical. We were created - does science allow for a god? I believe that it does. "I think therefore I am", the questioning of reality and the study of rationalisation and logic can lead to the belief of a god. These are the internal factors that come into play.
I would question wether or not a three year old child has the mental faculties to start questioning it's existence. The first years of life are concentrated on surviving and growing. It is only when one matures that one has the intellectual capacity and the desire to question one's own existence.

This in no way denigrates the atheist, but would atheism even exist if the individual were totally alone? Isn't it a natural progression to seek someone or something else to relate to? My personal belief is that atheism is a result of contact with each other, it's a relatively new phenomenon that has progressed with scientific advancement, but it is a stopgap in itself. The atheist has a faith in man and he looks to man to give him the answers to the unexplained. If he can't supply them now, he's quite happy waiting for eternity for him to come up with them. But that's where I believe the atheist is going to be stumped - he's a) going to be waiting forever because we will never have all the answers or b) is going to eventually have to believe in a god because if we get all the answers, he will become one. One cannot not believe in oneself (we return to "I think therefore I am"). Either way, he's caught in a contradiction.

I personally believe that our gods are here with us forever - we are never going to gain the eternal knowledge that will turn us into gods ourselves whilst in this plane of existence. The external factors are the swaying element here. We will always have the unexplained and therefore we will always use a god to explain it for us.
If we had supreme knowledge we would be gods ourselves. But then we get into the question of how would we know we have supreme knowledge?!!! Mankind is probably caught in an eternal loop of the unexplained. Therefore he may have eternal gods.

And even supposing that there is some magical formula that denotes eternal knowledge, until we know the answer to everything, there will always be gods. If we do obtain that eternal knowledge, we ourselves will be gods. Therefore, logically, gods are eternal in the psyche of mankind (be they the gods that we may evolve into or the external gods that we believe in now) and our beliefs in them can be naturally explained.

Of course, our gods will have to evolve in our understanding, but then they've been doing that since the dawn of mankind anyway.




[edit on 10-3-2005 by Leveller]

The first icon or Idol to be worshiped by the ancient was the sun, it was due to the fact that people saw the sun with his warming rays as a giver.

Ancient man could not understand darkness they new that is was dangerous, but when the big yellow orbit came with the new day, it was hope and light.

That was the first think the ancients worshiped.

Originally posted by marg6043
The first icon or Idol to be worshiped by the ancient was the sun, it was due to the fact that people saw the sun with his warming rays as a giver.

Ancient man could not understand darkness they new that is was dangerous, but when the big yellow orbit came with the new day, it was hope and light.

That was the first think the ancients worshiped.

What you've just picked up on there marg is the beginnings of religion. Not the beginnings of god.
If there were two cavemen, it's possible that one could have worshipped the Sun, one the moon. Put three into the equation and you've got the origins of religion if the third goes along with either of the other two's belief system.

But for the individual? We simply don't know.
His god could have been a blade of grass. It could have been the corner of his cave. It could have been anything. We simply can't look back that far.

There's also an interesting thread here about the "God module" in the human brain.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Well you know what they say...

"You'll never find an aetheist in a fox hole."

Heck maybe there is your answer.

I was raised in church every Sunday...but im analitical..and I question everything including God..ect..ect. Since I was 10 years old I presented questions to my mother like if the garden of eden lied east of eden....what was eden?

Also she and her faith believes in the pre-tribulation....How could you have a Great Tribulation without christains...isn't this supposed to be the last great scrafice..or test of the christain faith??

With so many worldly religions....which one would be the way?

Christains believe we are the way...through us you will see heaven, come Sunday mourning bring your kids we will light the way for them....But what about Buddism....Islam...Judeaism....All these religons are like over a thousand years old..Am I expected to believe if the christain god is real then all the others people of these other faiths are condemed to hell??

Primitive was the term i used and Im comfortable with it...people who lived a thousand or 5 thousand years ago didn't know much of anything about our world much less our solar system, or universe...

When the White man came to America, many Indians thought there Gods would help them defeat the white man, so much for that...

I believe in God, or accually I belive in Much More Superier Races that exist in the Universe, that would be like God or Gods to primitive races as we were

I don't believe in Religion at all.

And untill God cares enough about me to offer me a burning bush and talk through it.....

Even animals mourn their dead. Its especially been witnessed in elephants.

Ancient man mourned the dead and even got the bright idea of eternity. The dead aren't really dead, for they must go on. Since there is something after death than there must be a someone to run it, right? Ergo, we end up with gods.

The next thing you know we were even created in gods image. Looks just like us the old bearded bastard does.

The simple fact is we need gods to explain those things we aren't willing to accept responsibility for. If Sh#t happens, it was the will of god. Or the work of the devil, depends on what happened and your point of view.

Religion is the most divisive tool ever created and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the creator.

If you can't see god in everything than you can't see god in anything.

It doesn't matter if its instinctual or not. God simply is and needs be nothing else.

Love and light,

wupy