RE: Which was first: Atheism or Religion?
June 26, 2014 at 11:12 am
(This post was last modified: June 26, 2014 at 11:13 am by Clueless Morgan.)
Atheism is the non-acceptance or the rejection of theistic claims. How could an atheist reject theistic claims if they haven't been invented yet?
IMO, and I'm no expert, nor have I studied this in depth (and I don't know how you could), I think it comes down to seeing agency where there is none (Michael Shermer's hypotheses about agenticity and patternicity). Animals see an unexpected movement nearby and bolt, assuming that some agency was responsible for that movement. I think in our human ancestors there was a period of time when this agency-detector began to spin out of control to the point where the Australopithecine or Homo ancestor didn't just read agency where there was one, they began attributing specific personalities to that agency (lightening gods and storm gods are angry, harvest gods are giving, sea gods are tempestuous) and developed the foundations of polytheistic mythic figures.
Just my opinion, though.
IMO, and I'm no expert, nor have I studied this in depth (and I don't know how you could), I think it comes down to seeing agency where there is none (Michael Shermer's hypotheses about agenticity and patternicity). Animals see an unexpected movement nearby and bolt, assuming that some agency was responsible for that movement. I think in our human ancestors there was a period of time when this agency-detector began to spin out of control to the point where the Australopithecine or Homo ancestor didn't just read agency where there was one, they began attributing specific personalities to that agency (lightening gods and storm gods are angry, harvest gods are giving, sea gods are tempestuous) and developed the foundations of polytheistic mythic figures.
Just my opinion, though.
Teenaged X-Files obsession + Bermuda Triangle episode + Self-led school research project = Atheist.
