(July 19, 2009 at 2:41 am)padraic Wrote: Interesting post.
I've always found the 5000 odd year evolution of the Abrahamic god quite fascinating. About 5000 years ago ,the nomadic goat herders who became the Jews didn't actually have god of their own.So they pinched one no one would miss. They chose a minor Babylonian deity they just called "El" which means " god". He lived on a nearby mountain,much like the later Greek gods living on Mt Olympus.
Sometime around the C4th BCE,he changed from "eL" a rather insignificant little mountain god of an even more insignificant little people,to YHWH ( I AM WHO AM) creator of all things.The ONLY god,creator of all things and lord of the universe.The little tribe now numbered about a dozen tribes,they became his "chosen people." That meant they could invade a foreign a country and murder/enslave the inhabitants with God's blessings. So they did that,and renamed the country the stole "The promised Land".
This practice had so many practical advantages,it continues to this day;with pretty much every tribe eventually getting a turn.Some more than once. Currently it's America's turn,but that's nearly finished. It's almost time for China to have yet another turn.
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
I don't know wherefrom you quote the origin of the abrahamic religions as originated from 5000 years ago.
I have also read a lot about the subject.Historians, archeologists, linguists and other scientists have studied this puzzle for about 200 years and as far as I know did not came to a final conclusion.
The old testament was studied as a historical document and found, beyond the primitive conception abuot the creation of the world,as comprising contradictions and being written in many litterary styles which prove that they Byble was written and rewritten for a lot of times.
Actually the idea of my post was not to refer only to the abrahmic religions,which is rather a narrow issue but in general about the evolution of this notion of God in the mind of people along history.
The belief in a supernatural force originated in the dawn of history.
What where the causes which generated this belief?
What was the contribution of this belief in the development of early societies?
Was this contribution positive or negative?
Could we imagine an early society as existing without the belief in a supernatural force?
How did evolve the imagination of Gods from fetish objects or animals to a more (if) evoluated representations of idols?
Why appeared the need to pass fom a peinted or sculptured God to an unseen God actually representated by written words?
I think that those issues are interesting because albeit priests even of our days tend to represent God as an immuable entity in time ,it's all lie.
The God of our days is not the same in the perception of people as he was a 100 years ago or as 200 years ago.
For example the fear of God ,the fear of sinning and be punished by God has changed even in the mind of the believers as it was in the not so far past.
Ther is a dynamics in the believe which evolves parralel to the changes which societies undergo.
I believe that debating those and related issues in a dynamic understanding of changes of religions ,beginning with early societies ,could contribute to a better undestanding of the position of atheism in the present and in the future.
