RE: What came first, the atheist or the theist?
August 1, 2010 at 1:20 pm
(This post was last modified: August 1, 2010 at 1:21 pm by SleepingDemon.)
(August 1, 2010 at 10:24 am)EvidenceVsFaith Wrote:SleepingDemon Wrote:Given the very primitive reasoning involved in creating gods, I would say that it isn't so much that the first humans didn't believe in gods, it was that they simply did not have the cognitive abilities to wonder whether or not gods existed.
So are you saying they did believe in God? No they didn't. So yes the first humans didn't believe in God.
No, i'm saying there was no concept of god. It isn't the same. Atheism is by definition disbelief in gods, it doesn't matter which gods, if someone says they exist, an atheist says they do not. However if no one says there is a god, then how can you not believe in it? It's like not believing in a car that runs on butterflies. The idea itself doesn't exist, so therefore before I said it, you hadn't thought about it. This doesn't mean that you didn't believe in a car that runs on butterflies, the entire notion of such a thing wasn't around so you weren't subject to either believing or not believing in it.
"In our youth, we lacked the maturity, the decency to create gods better than ourselves so that we might have something to aspire to. Instead we are left with a host of deities who were violent, narcissistic, vengeful bullies who reflected our own values. Our gods could have been anything we could imagine, and all we were capable of manifesting were gods who shared the worst of our natures."-Me
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
"Atheism leaves a man to sense, to philosophy, to natural piety, to laws, to reputation; all of which may be guides to an outward moral virtue, even if religion vanished; but religious superstition dismounts all these and erects an absolute monarchy in the minds of men." – Francis Bacon
