(February 17, 2014 at 4:57 pm)Sword of Christ Wrote:The urge to live further than the frail human body allows, yes...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.
(February 17, 2014 at 4:57 pm)Sword of Christ Wrote: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.
Oh, I wouldn't be so bold...
South american indians were godless when the europeans came by.. as far as the europeans could see, at least.
And the Buddhists are sort of considered atheists.... with that all pervasive requirement for life after the body shuts down.