When did man first decide that there were gods.

Originally posted by DeReK DaRkLy
It was probably from witnessing all the phenomena that he couldn't fathom.
Like the old saying goes, magic is just science unexplained.

I agree, I think that initially it was simply a means of explaining the unexplainable. Gods as an omniscient or omnipresent set of entities only really come into play much later when society becomes more complex.

Look at life from the lowest level to the highest that We know of. Everything has a cycle and is apart of a cycle which is some lasting longer than others. What we can be sure of is that there are always two extremes and everything falls in between so you can kiss a black and white explanation goodbye. We are but a spec in this endless space. The question is what provided all this space, elements and creativity to allow this. Maybe things just are or a level of higher existence doesn't exist yet. Probably garbage but it's all i can come up with being on this planet for only 23 years.

The word god or godess in Ancient Egypt had a different meaning to what has been interpreted.
God or godess refered to a natural law/observation of nature of which there are many.
Of course as time passed religion replaced philosophy as a way to control people. Worshipping graven images and statues and cloaking truth in mumbo jumbo religous rituals lead by a corrupt priest class.
Akhenaten the so called Heretic Pharoah attempted to end this practice which he termed as magic ie trickery.
He closed down the temples of Amun Ra and sent the priests home.
Setting up a new capital Tel El Armana (Horizon of the Sun) for those that wanted a new natural way.
Akenaten was a poet and nature lover and the emblem of his new way was the Sun with extending rays holding lifes gifts. He famously said "The Sun shines equally on all.
He never fought any war but sought reconcillation and trade with Egypts old enemies.
He gave artists and crafts people free reign to create as they saw in reality.
When the displaced priesthood plotted and overthrew him - they attempted to erase all trace of his existence from the historical records - Even today many argue that he was a despot with a new religion - That is pure lies.
His ideas are very dangerous even today to the status quo.

Originally posted by Sailor Sam
I can go along with that, but why create a god to understand nature and how do you know "their explanation was that there must be some invisble being controlling these things". Would primitive man have understood invisibility, did he grasp that concept? I don't know and I suggest that nobody today really knows the answer.

Well, they wouldn't have explained it in those exact words, but humans have a tendency to see things in human terms. Look at any depictions of ancient Gods and you'll see they are shown in human form, more or less.

Perhaps they didn't have a concept of the invisible, but since they could feel the wind on their face, they had already began to know the existence of things that they could not see. Maybe they wouldn't think of something standing right in front of them that they could not see, but something at least elusive.

I'll continue to use wind as an example. The ancient people didn't know that wind was caused by heating and cooling cycles in the atmosphere, but they knew through experience that if an object flew past them, they felt a wind follow with it. This lead some to believe that a God was flying around making the wind. Others knew that when you exhale you create a sort of wind, so they guessed that the wind was caused by a being with powerful lungs blowing air.

What was the catalyst, what made the primitive society, before writing was invented, want to understand tides etc.
We know other animal species work with wind, tides etc, Do these animals have or need gods?

I am still looking for a logical answer, but I suggest that there is none.

When did we begin to question nature? At some point in our evolution, merely living a reactionary existence was no longer enough, we wanted to know why thing occur. This probably happened as we developed language, since we were able to ask eachother why we think things happen, and give our own explanations. Animals do not need Gods as they do not need to understand why. They live in reaction to their surroundings.

There is always a logical answer as long as you are willing to look for the connections. Never stop asking why, for it is in our nature.

Originally posted by Glass
Well, they wouldn't have explained it in those exact words, but humans have a tendency to see things in human terms. Look at any depictions of ancient Gods and you'll see they are shown in human form, more or less.

That is actually very recent, in the overall scheme of things. Herodotus comments on the Babylonian idols not having human forms, like those in Greece. And certainly evidence at Catal Hoyuk, and other early sites, show that animal forms are far more prevalent. Human figures were sometimes used as votives, but in that case, it was most likely representing a living person, or a recently dead one, that they wanted the gods to favour. So really, in Western terms at least, we are looking at god having been given a human form only in the past 8000 years or so.

i view it as being birthed from entheogenic experiences with psychoactive plants, which have been used in ritual contexts for thousands of years. these experiences literally awoke the divine within.

Originally posted by particlezen
i view it as being birthed from entheogenic experiences with psychoactive plants, which have been used in ritual contexts for thousands of years. these experiences literally awoke the divine within.

In some cases, in others, intoxication was derived from gases emanating from particular points in the Earth. Recent studies have found that Australopithecus returned to areas of seismic activity because those sites provided the best conditions, when they were stable; water, fertile soil etc. The first settlers of the Greek islands from Anatolia, too seemed to have a preference for fault lines, and their system of divination was based upon communing with those faults, or points of access to the Earth's core if you like. And there is some debate as to whether the gases that were emitted caused the trance like states reported of oracles and sybils. Plant based hallucigens tend to be more sky based, fungis tend to lean towards states of fibrous connectivity.

You can really start to see why there were so many gods and goddesses needed to explain all these different forms of other-worldliness, as there are so many means of manifestation, and no one form is precisely alike to another.

It happens when a man shows her heaven.

"Be not afraid" - Every celestrial messenger (angel) began their message that way according to more than one holy book.

Why? Because that is the path to heaven. No fear.

Who does fear? "Look I Fear" does. And a u can make the same sound as oo can, a c can make the same sound as k, and I don't hear any a sound from the a in the word fear, so... look i fear can be spelled out as lucifer. Lose cipher? Cipher is a key to cracking a code, and encryption.

If you want to read the bible try applying all the verses that can be applied to the verses to the verses of the bible themselves and then we see more of what the bible really has to say.

anyways....

During extreme female orgasms the part of womens' brains that regulate fear (and other emotions) has been know to shut off totally with absolutely no brain activity there whatsoever while the rest of the female brain is extrememely active.

Men invented gods around the time that reason and reflective consciousness first evolved.

Reason and consciousness give human beings the illusions of free will and control over themselves and the world around them. Almost at soon as they evolved, however, we discovered that there are events in the world beyond human control – for example, sickness, death and the way the wind blows.

Almost simultaneously, we discovered that there are also internal events beyond the control of human reason and consciousness – dreams, compulsions, berserk rages, wild infatuations and so on.

Now the new paradigm of consciousness and apparent free will seemed to imply that every movement was the work of a conscious mover. When the source was obviously not human – as in the case of the external events beyond human control – it was all too easy to imagine a disembodied mover: a spirit, a demon, a god.

As for an unwilled internal event, that obviously had to be the work of a spirit of some kind that temporarily gained control of the actor's body – 'the Devil made me do it', to quote the Boston Strangler.

Such was the probable genesis of the gods.

as far as im concerned the earliest religions were shamanistic and animistic in design. these early religons would have seen the spirit world at work all around them and revered them properly.but as man grew man changed and his habit of naming and defining everything clouded even his view of the spiritual. so what was once a religon of powerful spirits who deserved respect changed in to anthropomorphised gods with definitive traits and human appeareances.after all its easier to relate to a god who looks human and has humanised traits and flaws. i personaly worship universal forces and in order to more easily relate and connect to them i envision them in my dream the way the appeare as humanoid but not always human. i also call them by the names given to them the by ancients even though i belive their true names are not understandable by our limited minds just as their true exsistance cant be comprehended by our limited ability to understand and i still happly worship them, pray to them, curse their names and have dreams where they come to me to talk to me and help me understand the realitys of my life. and i happly consider them all my friends and thanatos my most adored gaurdian and teacher.

reply to post by Astyanax


Like a lot of others in this thread, you are starting to plilosophise using the knowlewdge gained by modern man.
I am after a definite answer, not a philosophy.
So my question remains - what caused primitive man to start to believe in gods(s).
Was it visits from extra terrestials as implied in Genesis, whas it straight creationism or was it something else.
What is being hidden from us, even today?

reply to post by krill


You also quote a philosophy, but that is tainted by the thinking of modern man.
Please is there no-one out there who has the answer?

Originally posted by particlezen
i view it as being birthed from entheogenic experiences with psychoactive plants, which have been used in ritual contexts for thousands of years. these experiences literally awoke the divine within.

This...

Early Homnids experience environmental change meaning they have to adapt to new food stuffs
Along the way someone eats one of the thousands of Psyhco-active compounds found naturally (moss, vine, fungus, toad etc)
Early homind creates new neural pathways via experience......langauge, ritual and ultimatley "Gods" are created as the output.


It's no accident that if you look at hereditary spoken word religions (in regions where civilisation hasnt taken hold) they are pretty much all Shamanic based around the worship of things around them ( Sun, Goats, Dead Relatives) usually involving some sort of substance taking activity aimed at unlocking enlightenment.

reply to post by Sailor Sam

Based on your statements in this post, you seem to have already made your mind up about what the reason must be and will brook no explanations to the contrary.

Originally posted by iterationzero
reply to post by Sailor Sam

 

Based on your statements in this post, you seem to have already made your mind up about what the reason must be and will brook no explanations to the contrary.

My statements are just comments on various philosophies posted here.
I am looking for something concrete.
I have put some theories up for discussion.
I am really intrigued.
For your info I am agnostic, I don't know what to believe.

reply to post by Sailor Sam


Mankind first decided there was a God when he opened his eyes.

reply to post by Sailor Sam


Fear is what created Religous Gods.If you do not follow my way you will go to Hell etc
It was introduced by decietful ones to control people.
Deceitful one's took truth and twisted it .

Originally posted by artistpoet
reply to post by Sailor Sam

 

Fear is what created Religous Gods.If you do not follow my way you will go to Hell etc
It was introduced by decietful ones to control people.
Deceitful one's took truth and twisted it .

How do you know?
Where is that recorded, when did hell get into the picture?
primitive man at some stage started to believe in multiple gods who controlled weather, sun, moon etc.
Don't know if hell was part of that.

reply to post by Sailor Sam

primitive man at some stage started to believe in multiple gods who controlled weather, sun, moon etc.

How do you know this for a fact?

Actually, it is probably untrue.

Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Sailor Sam

 

primitive man at some stage started to believe in multiple gods who controlled weather, sun, moon etc.

How do you know this for a fact?

Actually, it is probably untrue.

OK, so what happened then to make primitive man start to believe in gods?
Nobody has been able to answer that simple question as yet -not one religious believer, not one creationist, not one evolutionist.
The creationist is disregarding Genesis, the evolutionist dare not mention it and the religious believer knows that the "one god" concept was alien to primitive man, that came in much later.

So the challenge is still there.