too right

I meant war and murder as ideas the same as religion all being thought of in all of the socieities that had independent thought from each other. They all came up with lots of similar ideas, some right, some wrong. That's why I don't find it intriguing as to why all cultures have practiced religion.

I meant war and murder as ideas the same as religion all being thought of in all of the socieities that had independent thought from each other. They all came up with lots of similar ideas, some right, some wrong. ======================

I see.

This doesnt clear the mystery up so far as I can see, or in fact having any bearing upon it.

The point that I made was that,

"It might well be that modern europe is the first society in the history of mankind to not (indepdentently develop a belief) in a supreme being which did each of the following :

a) created life
b) takes an active interest in life
c) has a role in the next life"

War and murder don't strike me as having anything to do with this point. People fighting each other is not the same as people conceptualising an abstract idea such as that described above, and developing a faith and belief in that concept.

It is vastly less likely that societies will independently come up with the same abstract concept of a supreme being which governs creation and the afterlife, than it is that they will engage in fighting.

It is human nature and also a survival instinct for human beings to try to claim scarce resources. such resource grabbing inevitably leads to wars. a society does not have many options when attacked. it is very likely that the society will fight back.

it is not very likely though that a society will indepednently envisage a supreme being and make the belief in that supreme integral to that society.

it is the fact that almost all of mans' societies have done this that is the mystery, and it remains unresolved by a reference to the fact that societies engage in warfare.

JPB comes up with some fantastic points.

i may have it wrong, but as i see it there are two alternatives which can realistically explain this :

a) in the very early days of human civilisation (assuming that man started in the same place and that there was not a seperate origin in asia), the human society developed a belief in a supreme being affecting creation and the afterlife, which was so engrained in and fundamental to that society, that as mankind seperated over tens of thousands of years to various islands and other land masses around the globe, that belief stayed fundamentally central to each faction of that original society.

b) it is, and always has been, in human nature to develop a belief in this same supreme being.


My question would be, if it is the first alternative, then what an earth could have happened to make this belief to be so fundamental to human existance, and if it is the second alternative, why does this instinct exist ?

JPB comes up with some fantastic points.
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i'll stick that one in my (imaginary) scrap book mate

I notice you've had no responses. Write an article on it!

JPB - the fundamental of why Religions (all religions) were formed, is due to mans desire to see himself as immortal.

Religion was spread by various means, travelling preachers & the *ahem* Crusades.......but all had the same thing in common - the sales pitch, was immortality.

Religion was spread by various means, travelling preachers & the *ahem* Crusades.......but all had the same thing in common - the sales pitch, was immortality.
=====================

that might be true of modern religions, such as catholicism. it's also true that islam has been 'actively' spread for centuries.

i dont see that that accounts for the issue though. hindism wasnt spread in the same way. and niether were brands of religions with smaller amounts of followers and in more remote locations, such as the bliefs of australian aboriginies, native americans, people on easter island etc etc

my use of the word "modern" was a bit loose in that last post

The were spread in exactly the same way mate, just on a more localised basis. The 'Gods' were greatly varied in form & many of the earliest religions relied on their 'Gods' to provide them with the basics of life, heat, water etc, so I suppose they were maybe more interested in survival than immortality - but the existing religions of today all have immortailty at their core.

First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it.

fair enough toblerone.

so then that takes us back to your other previous point which i didnt reply to, ie

"the fundamental of why Religions (all religions) were formed, is due to mans desire to see himself as immortal. "

i think this is going along the lines of my alternative b (that it is in human nature to think of and believe in this god).

and your explaination is that it is in human nature to develop a belief in immortal life.

we all know that one of man's basic instincts, like all other animals, is the survival instinct. perhaps one of the things then which differentiates humans from other animals is that humans have the intellegence to conceive of why they have this instinct and what might happen after death has occured.

this would arguably explain why man should have a yearning for there to be an afterlife, just as they have an instinct to survive. if your theory is right though, and man develops this belief in god out of a desire to be imortal, then mankind must be inherently dillusional. is this the case ? are we really this willing to pull the wool over our own eyes ?

and there's still another point to address which is that there are still several alternative solutions to this belief in an afterlife, than the belief that there is a supreme being reposnible for creation and the afterlife, which is the remarkably similar belief which so many (if not all) human cultures have developed. for instance it is perfectly conveivable to belief in a system where there is an afterlife with no supreme being atall.

whilst your point is therefore extrmeley interesting and relevant to the discussion, i personally remain unconvinced that it explains the issue.

by the way, and on what i think is a separate point, i think i would argue that the more significant factor in why less people believe in god now, isnt that science has developed, but because people's lives are busier now, and therefore less concerned with concentrating on what happens in the afterlife.

1000 years ago, nobody knew the Earth was round.
100 years ago, nobody knew about the big bang.
10 years ago, nobody knew some sub atomic particles existed.

It stands to reason that science will answer more and more questions. It's just a matter of time.

could it be more to do with we are probably the first creatures to ask "why?"

A big yellow thing comes up every morning and heats us up and gives us light, then some grey things come along and give us water to drink, Animals grow and give us meat, fruits and berrys grow to feed us aswell - for the average animal this bears no reasoning, it just "is" - but humans asked why, and with no understanding of physics they assumed it must be some sort of gift from above, Generally all humans are wired the same so therefore think similarly, and that might be how it was reasoned across the whole species - and as this developed, and people started to manage other peoples beliefs, for whatever motive, we end up with complex religions like we have today.

In a similar way, all cultures seem to have some sort of belief in spirits and ghosts, as it is hard to accept, regardless of our beliefs, that when we die, the lights go out and we are no more. As humans our brains are developed to think a certain way - try getting your head around infinity or quantum physics - and that is why these ideas develop across the world in isolation

what's just a matter of time Hex ?

could it be more to do with we are probably the first creatures to ask "why?"

A big yellow thing comes up every morning and heats us up and gives us light, then some grey things come along and give us water to drink, Animals grow and give us meat, fruits and berrys grow to feed us aswell - for the average animal this bears no reasoning, it just "is" - but humans asked why, and with no understanding of physics they assumed it must be some sort of gift from above, Generally all humans are wired the same so therefore think similarly, and that might be how it was reasoned across the whole species - and as this developed, and people started to manage other peoples beliefs, for whatever motive, we end up with complex religions like we have today.

In a similar way, all cultures seem to have some sort of belief in spirits and ghosts, as it is hard to accept, regardless of our beliefs, that when we die, the lights go out and we are no more. As humans our brains are developed to think a certain way - try getting your head around infinity or quantum physics - and that is why these ideas develop across the world in isolation
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Oddiy, apologies for the late reply. it took me 20 minutes to notice your post.

ive deciphered the nursery rhyme bit and worked out that you were talking about the sun and clouds !

getting to the substance of your post, you appear to make the following substantive points in relation to the discussion point which has been raised:

1. man has a superior cognative ability than other animals

2. "with no understanding of physics (people assumed that berries) must be a gift from above.

3. people are all wired the same

4. people managed other peoples belief..."leading to religiions we have today"

5. it's hard to accept that when we die the lights go out and die

6. "our brains are developed to think in a certain way"

7. "infinity or quantum physics"...are the reason for the ideas developing

Point 1 has already been addressed in the previous post. It does not explain the issue in isolation.

If I understand what you mean by point 4, this has already been discussed in relation to the spreading of religion. As has been discussed above, this does not explain the issue.

I would be inclined to dismiss point 2 and at least part of point 7. There is no reason why someone would automatically think that a berry is “a gift from above”, and I see no way in which quantum physics can make independent cultures develop the same religious concepts and beliefs.

I would have structured the post to put a fear of “infinity” together with your point 5, so I will treat it as one and the same point.

From what I can see, points 3 and 6 are the same.

So that leaves points 3/6 and point 5 as substantive contributions to the discussion, ie that

“people are all wired the same” / "our brains are developed to think in a certain way" and that “it's hard to accept that when we die the lights go out and die”.

The point about not wanting the “lights to go out”, has been addressed already aswell really. In the previous post I mentioned that I would be sceptical about mankind being so delusional as to blindly accept something they want to be true as something which they just assume must be true and to then dedicate their lives to that belief.

As I also pointed out previously though, even if that is the case, it would not explain why all cultures have conceived of an almost identical solution to that problem, ie that the problem of the lights going out is resolved by a supreme being which also governs creation. There are so many alternative solutions, and it seems implausible to me that everyone would devise the same solution.

Your other point is interesting though which is that human beings are “wired the same”.

This point appears to me as if it could possibly have some merit to it, and that it could be relevant to our search for the answer to this puzzle.

With this in mind, could you expand on the point ? do you mean that human beings are biologically programmed to believe in a supreme being which is responsible for creation and for an afterlife ? If so, where do you think this ‘programming’ comes from ? Is it something which has been developed through natural selection (if so, why would this be the case ? ), or is it something given by God ? or is there some other explanation ?

People are not biologically programmed to believe in anything, the reasoning for a god comes from a lack of understanding of how things are, it's simply a matter of someone saying "I don't understand how this could have happened, it must be created by some amazing thing I don't know about". It's the simplest solution to anything, in fact how this article came about from from that exact thing, people saying we don't understand how the big bang could have happened, it must be some supreme being.

Rinse & repeat forever.

that's interesting bobby.

so we've got 2 alternative opinions now then.

1. oddiy's proposition that human's brains are "wired" to believe in a supreme being who is reposnsible for creation and responsible and for an afterlife

2. bobby's propostion that humans didnt understand how they were created and dont understand what happens to them when they die, so they all independtnetly reach the same conclusion that there is a "supreme being" who is reposnsible for both.

Whereas, I am interested in option '1', I have to say that personally bobby i dont find your proposal convincing, not least because it is too much of a coocindence that every culture would devise the same convuluted and abstract solution to the problem when there were (numerous) alternatives which they could have settled on.

Not every culture has a god, Buddhism for example.

There are many cultures that do not believe in a god, therefore to say it is programmed into the human psyche would not be correct.

fair point Bobby.

there are indeed millions of buddhist followers who do not believe in the same sort of supreme being.

my initial analysis of that though, is that this is 'the exception which proves the rule'. i believe this to be the case, because it proves - as i have said - that there are alternatives to the supreme being scenario, which could just as easily explain the questions of creation and afterlife.

notwithstanding this however, and notwithstanding the fact that a substantial amount of the world's population follows this buddhist model, rather than the supreme being model, it is nonethless true, that the vast majority of culture,s include those as diverse and remote as native americans, easter islanders and aboriginal australians, as well as hundus, chirsitans and muslims, believe in the paritcular supreme being model which has been discussed above.

for this reason, i believe that the issue remains unresolved, subject at least to further investigation of the "wired" brains theory.

JPB

it wasnt the berries that were a gift from above, it was the whole cycle of the sun and rain and food, all just there, a never ending gravy train - for uneducated people, like early humans, this could seem like a gift from above - its just an idea i threw out there

the "wired the same" comment, the way we reason is very similar, due to how our brains work (im a controls engineer, i cant escape things being wired) give a problem to a large number of people and we will generally think about it the same way - its how lateral thinking problems work and optical illusions - our brain is biologically programmed to suit our survival as an animal. When we dont understand things, like the cycle of sun and rain and food being so readily available (or not) for ancient peoples we will try to try reason it, this is one possible solution to why people will have similar ideas (like that of a God or Provider) in isolation

In short - it wouldnt be unreasonable to see how isolated but common thinking could happen.

the Quantum physics and infinity part of my comment was an example of how some things are beyond our brains ability to understand (meaning we know what happens in quantum mechanics, and we know what infinity is but we just cant fully get our heads round it comfortably) - thus providing some evidence to our brain being wired to reason in certain ways.

Personally i doubt we are predisposed to believe in god

fair enough Oddiy

all interesting points we've made between us.

i still find this predisposition thing interesting.

if it's not that then i dont think we've really got an answer.

maybe it's a case of going back to the other alternative i mooted earlier which was it just being so massively ingrained in the first human settlements, that it spread (almsot) everywhere people did. to me though this still leaves the problem in that it seems to me that something must incredible must have happened for such a belief to be so ingrained that it became synonomous with, and inextricably linked to, human life.

It's very possible, the human race has been subjected to so much god over so many years that it's possible that it's been hardwired into the evolution of the brain.