(July 10, 2019 at 4:25 am)Cod Wrote: No. I'm talking about a considerable amount of time before these ideas evolved, which as you say would have been fuzzy ideas at best.
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I don't think I've said "some guy had a fantasy." I'm of the opinion that the God idea evolved slowly in the minds of early humans. Keeping in mind the position they were in it's understandable why Gods would be an appealing proposition.
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The before and after would have been a vast amount of time.. I mean it's not as if on a Friday no explanations had occurred to them and then on Saturday morning it all became clear.
Yes, that seems much more reasonable.
It's a matter of semantics, I guess, whether these fuzzy ideas, which may or may not develop into something more traditionally religious, counts as theism.
If people want to be strict about definitions and say that because these early concepts lacked the characteristics of Zeus or Jehovah, then the believers were atheist, I won't argue. Though it seems like nitpicking to me.
Early people tried to explain things. They didn't have the scientific method yet. Many of the explanations they came up with involve personal agency, intentionalism in nature, and human-like emotion in natural forces. This was understandable.
Whether their approach was a "default" approach or not I don't know, but if anyone is currently holding to the same explanations today, the atheists here will certainly not be in agreement. It's not like 1) there was atheism, 2) hey, maybe it's gods, and then 3) thank Dawkins it's atheism again. That's dumb.
