(February 17, 2014 at 2:17 pm)pocaracas Wrote: SoC, assume for a moment that there is no god.
Don't worry about how the universe came into being, for now...
It's a pretty big assumption but ok. You may as well ask me to assume that Earth is the only planet in the universe with life on it, it's possible but you can see why it's not the kind of thing you would assume.
Quote:Now, look at every believer you know... look at every religion you are aware of (even the dead ones).
I'm looking. I feel the need to correct them on certain details particularly if they're worshiping statues, that's a mistake right there.
Quote:Present me with a mechanism that can account for them. (don't forget, you're working under the assumption that there is no god whatsoever)
Human imagination that's why you have images of gods in the form of carved wood and stone and so on and these beings control the elements of nature. Though not all people back then necessarily prescribed to this view of the universe the ancient Greek and Egyptian philosophers tended to see them in terms of the human abstractions they were without help from any revelation regarding God as depicted in the Bible. But the urge to reach out to something beyond the human and natural world was always present however poorly it was expressed. People still needed the right guidance.
Quote:If such a mechanism is possible, and given that bronze-age man would have had to obtain something on which to base his early belief... and the lack of any such something nowadays... would it not seem plausible to you that such beliefs are all man-made?
Man-made to a certain extent the human imagination was a factor though you won't see any societies or cultures of atheists in all of history that seems to be something that has to be entirely imposed and doesn't come naturally.
Come all ye faithful joyful and triumphant.