'God' and 'god'

Author: keithprosser

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#61
3RU7AL
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@Stephen
Now, where is your evidence that "VERY primitive humans invented god"? 
It would seem that superstition was expanded and religion further imagined because both heavenly lights and flickering fire have been sacralized. This does seem to be somewhat supported by a researcher who spent 40 years studying African Bushmen who gathered evidence of the importance of gathering around a nighttime campfire as a time for bonding, social information, and shared emotions with fireside tales. This may provide a correlation that our prehistoric ancestors likely lived in a similar way to how the Bushmen currently do. Although, we cannot directly peer into the past or fully know the past from the indigenous Bushmen, these people do live in a way that our ancient ancestors lived for around 99% of our evolution. [LINK]
#62
Athias
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@keithprosser
Names denote objects and are a human invention.  Names are convenient and useful but not perfect - as you point out they are sometimes ambiguous.

As I am not sure what is in dispute I don't know what to say!
You stated this:

'God' is a 3-letter word;  more precisely it is the sort of word we call a name.  We use names to denote a particular object. 

The object denoted has a set of attributes.

That is to say keithprosser denotes an object that (inter alia) is 5'10"tall, currently lives in Croydon, likes cats etc etc. (obviously etc etc stands for a long list of my attributes I can't be arsed to write out).

Athias denotes an object with a different set of attributes.   Names are convenient because it is obviously much quicker and easier to say keithprosser than to say 'the object that is5'10" tall,livesin Croydon, likes cats... (etc etc)'.

The question 'does keithprosser exist?' is a convenient way of asking 'does the object 5'10"tall, living croydon, likes cats etc etc exist'?

Hence the question 'does God exist'? is really asking if the object with a certain set of attributes exists.  The issue becomes what are the attributes of God?   
This point was easily countermanded by providing an actual example of three objects with the same name, that being myself and two members of my family. If a name is a necessary reference to an object's attributes, how would you then explain my name, and that of my other two family members? We're not triplets. (It happens to be my cousin and my uncle.) We don't have the same attributes other than our genetic relation and ethnicity. There are similarities in our personalities, but there's enough difference as well.
#63
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@3RU7AL
It would seem that superstition was expanded and religion further imagined because both heavenly lights and flickering fire have been sacralized. This does seem to be somewhat supported by a researcher who spent 40 years studying African Bushmen who gathered evidence of the importance of gathering around a nighttime campfire as a time for bonding, social information, and shared emotions with fireside tales. This may provide a correlation that our prehistoric ancestors likely lived in a similar way to how the Bushmen currently do. Although, we cannot directly peer into the past or fully know the past from the indigenous Bushmen, these people do live in a way that our ancient ancestors lived for around 99% of our evolution.
So in other words, an assumption? That accounts for 99% of "our evolution" as well.

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#64
keithprosser
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@Athias
Assumption or reasonable inference?

 
#65
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@Athias
So in other words, an assumption? That accounts for 99% of "our evolution" as well. 
We also have pretty reliable data about the religious beliefs of the ancient Sumerians and Romans and from early Shinto and Taoism (which are highly animistic).

There appears to be a pretty reliable pattern of local, regional gods (god of this particular volcano or this particular river) who must be appeased with sacrifices when they get "angry" (natural disasters).  These regional gods get promoted or demoted over time as populations expand their territory and as the values of the populations evolve.
#66
Yassine
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@Mopac
Western Christianity descends from Roman Catholicism which broke away from The Orthodox Catholic Church over a thousand years ago. 

We hope for them to return to the church. We can't compromise the faith though, so reconciliation is really the heterodox churches becoming Orthodox.
- I don't think they see it that way though...


I go to an Antiochan diocese, so our Church is currently based in Damascus.
- So you're Eastern Church?
#67
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@Yassine
The heterodox wouldn't see that way, because they deny the church or prescribe to an understanding of the church that is different than what the ancient church believed. 


I am baptized and Chrismated in The Orthodox Catholic Church. So yes, you could say Eastern Christian, though I live in The United States. I go to an Antiochan church that was planted by Lebanese immigrants.
#68
disgusted
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@Mopac
Why is this thread still active? All gods are the invention of men whether you spell them with a capital g or capital f makes no difference. How do you distinguish between upper case and lower case in speech?
#69
Stephen
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@3RU7AL
We also have pretty reliable data about the religious beliefs of the ancient Sumerians and Romans and from early Shinto and Taoism (which are highly animistic).


 Sumerians & Romans......etc etc.

and they are classed as "very primitive humans", are they? https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/2059?

And they "had invented god just after climbing down from the trees", did they? https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/2059?page=2

I wonder , when these "primitive" Romans and "primitive" Sumerians "climbed down from the trees" did they know that they were Roman and Sumerian. Did the Sumerians ask  ,  where the fk did that massive Sunmmarian ziggurat come from?  Did the Romans ask who the fk put that Colosseum there!?

#70
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@Stephen
What's with your overwhelming need to prove your ignorance?
#71
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@Stephen
Sumerians & Romans......etc etc.
I'm drawing a line between proto-Shinto and proto-Taoism (before written language) and Sumerian and Roman (part of the written record).

But please, feel free to make your case, whatever it is.

Are you suggesting that primitive humans had no religious or spiritual beliefs?

Are you suggesting that primitive humans only worshiped "YHWH"?

Please detail your opposing hypothesis, if you have one.
#72
Polytheist-Witch
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3 page discussion in the religion forum on... grammar. Well done. This place is a shit heap.
#73
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Atheists claiming to have been present for the creation of every religion is some kind of mental illness. 
#74
Stephen
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@3RU7AL
But please, feel free to make your case, whatever it is.

Are you suggesting that primitive humans had no religious or spiritual beliefs?

No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been cliamed.


Are you suggesting that primitive humans only worshiped "YHWH"?



No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been claimed. I am also suggested that god wasn't invented the day  "we" apes climbed down from the trees as has also been suggested.


Please detail your opposing hypothesis, if you have one.

 I didn't make the claims so you are asking the wrong person . You need to ask the sea sponge that is disgusted why he believes "primitive" human" created god. And you need to ask what makes the half intelligent keith prosser believe that "we" invented god the day we climbed down from the trees"

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#75
keithprosser
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@Stephen
I am also suggested that god wasn't invented the day  "we" apes climbed down from the trees as has also been suggested.
It was not a serious suggestion - I intended only to imply that belief in gods could go way back.  I don't expect that homo erectus could have absract concepts like 'gods', but it's hard to know what a few scattered bone fragments did or didn't believe!

If we say that 'human' is resticted to homo sapiens then I think gus is probably dead right. If human includes hominids (or hominims - I can never remember the difference) then he would be (probably) wrong.   Either way there is no realistic possibility of 'proof' before a few thousand years ago.




#76
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@Stephen
No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been cliamed.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Are you suggesting that "ancient humans" invented god(s)?
#77
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@Stephen
No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been cliamed.
Produce your evidence. bwuahahahahaHA


#78
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@keithprosser
I am also suggested that god wasn't invented the day  "we" apes climbed down from the trees as has also been suggested. 
It was not a serious suggestion - I intended only to imply that belief in gods could go way back.

 Yes it was a silly suggestion that would only have been taken seriously by someone with a mental capacity lower than a sea sponge fetus, disgusted fits the bill. he was lapping it up when you came to his assistance with this utter baloney; at post 38 https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/2059?page=2

 I think it's pretty safe to assume that humans have believed in gods (of some sort) for a very long time - maybe since we came down from the trees.  

and now it has dawned on you what a cretinous statement that really is , you want us all to believe it was all suggested as a joke. 


I don't expect that homo erectus could have absract concepts like 'gods',

Homo erectus (meaning 'upright man') is a species of archaic humans 

That would be a primitive man then. So you don't agree that this primitive man invented god then. Good , now tell that to the sea sponge fetus

If we say that 'human' is resticted to homo sapiens then I think gus is probably dead right.

If if if . What he had clearly stated is "VERY primitive humans". See homo erectus above. 


Either way there is no realistic possibility of 'proof' before a few thousand years ago.

 Yes I know. But you just try telling that to a fk brain dead sea sponge.

#79
Stephen
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@3RU7AL

No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been cliamed.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Are you suggesting that "ancient humans" invented god(s)?

No.

#80
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@Stephen
No I am suggesting that "primitive humans" did not invent god as has been cliamed.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Are you suggesting that "ancient humans" invented god(s)?

No.
Are you suggesting that humans never invented any god(s)?
#81
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@Stephen
If if if . What he had clearly stated is "VERY primitive humans". See homo erectus above
Try Australopithecus and prove they didn't invent gods.
Who do you think invented all of the gods claimed by man to exist? Can you prove that it was the gods?


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#82
keithprosser
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@Stephen
Homo erectus (meaning 'upright man') is a species of archaic humans 
According to wikipedia "A human is a member of the species Homo sapiens," so homo erectus isn't a human at all.   Yet it has an article on 'ancient humans' that implies a broader definition of 'human'.


There isn't a canonical definition of 'very primitve humans'.

I don't know how to rule out h. erectus believed in gods.  I don't mind if people think I think it is possible the proto-humans emerging from the trees belived gods, as long as they don't think I think it is likely!  Anyone who did think that should have done so only briefly because in the final line of the same post I am more specific:

"I'd bet the farm we believed in gods 10,000 years ago and a large field on 50,000.  100,000?  May be, 1 million? May be not."







#83
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@keithprosser
"I'd bet the farm we believed in gods 10,000 years ago and a large field on 50,000.  100,000?  May be, 1 million? May be not."



I think the probable starting point for belief in gods is sometime around when whatever we include under the moniker "humans" for purposes of this discussion effectively conquered the basic survival needs and had the time and relative security to begin to wonder about the world at large. In other words, I find it difficult to believe that, say, an antelope (or proto-antelope) had the bandwidth to consider the questions of "how big is this plain, really? what's over the horizon? what are those dots in the night sky?" The antelope by nature is too worried about predators sneaking up on it, on where its food is coming from, on its general safety and reproductive drives, to 'contemplate.' THe way I figure it, once we had some layer of protection against predators, of which there were relatively few for our species, basically only apex, once we figured out how to master fire and build shelters, and once we figured out hunting and gathering, we found the time to ponder these questions ("what's on the other side of the ocean?", "what made this huge tower of stone", "why do I seem to conquer nature"). Given that we had no way to inquire with any reliability, we come up with stories that seem to fit the "just so" variety. Wham, gods invented. 
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#84
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@ludofl3x
Would we develop the concept of gods before we had an adequate language?

It's well documented human brain size inceased almost exponentially:

AFAIK we are far off knowing how human mental powers relate to brain size.  No one knows how far to the left on that graph you have to before brains aren't upto holding concepts like 'god', but the curve is so steep it might not be much.

We have completely moved away from why gus said what he said! 
#85
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@keithprosser
Would we develop the concept of gods before we had an adequate language?

Using 'language' in the loosest of terms, I don't believe we would have achieved the mastery of our surroundings without some intraspecies communication method like language, because we're pack animals, and that communication would have given us advantages (all pack animals seem to have a communication structure, just not as sophisticated as ours). So to answer plainly, no, I don't think we'd have developed gods without developing languages first, because without languages, I don't think we'd be so spectacularly successful at surviving and reproducing and taking control of our surroundings, which means we'd have had no time to tell each other stories while we huddled in our mud huts around fires we'd built while we waited through a refractory period to fuck some more :). 
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#86
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@ludofl3x
God is just another god, an imaginary character invented by humans. Even very primitive humans invented gods, they're not difficult to invent.
I think we know what gus was getting at and it isn't really about the specifics of human evolution.  He's saying that human socities that are culturally primitive - such as hunter-gatherer tribes - have gods.   It not exactly a controversial claim!

#87
Stephen
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@keithprosser

According to wikipedia "A human is a member of the species Homo sapiens," so homo erectus isn't a human at all.

Fkn semantic.



Natural History Museum.

The extinct ancient human Homo erectus is a species of firsts. It was the first of our relatives to have human-like body proportions, with shorter arms and longer legs relative to its torso. It was also the first known hominin to migrate out of Africa, and possibly the first to cook food.
In terms of species survival, Homo erectus is a huge success story. Fossil evidence for H. erectus stretches over more than 1.5 million years, making it by far the longest surviving of all our human relatives.




#88
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@Mopac
The heterodox wouldn't see that way, because they deny the church or prescribe to an understanding of the church that is different than what the ancient church believed. 
- Heterodox... LOL!


I am baptized and Chrismated in The Orthodox Catholic Church. So yes, you could say Eastern Christian, though I live in The United States. I go to an Antiochan church that was planted by Lebanese immigrants.
- Oh, that's nice.
#89
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@Yassine
Heterodox means other than orthodox. Orthodox means "Right believing" or "true worshiping".
#90
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@Mopac
No it doesn't oh master of language.