Which was first: Atheism or Religion?

[fr0d0]

Irrational : fuck you hypocrite

Pokie : meh, I don't know why I reacted. I guess I care that I represent myself openly. It's not my intention to dodge anything. I'm not the clearest at expressing myself I think. No offense taken my friend.

[rexbeccarox]

Irrational : fuck you hypocrite

Huh. I wonder what you think makes Irrational a hypocrite.

[Cato]

If atheism was first, then religion was created by atheists.

Humanity's most egregious 'error carried forward'.

[GrandizerII]

Irrational : fuck you hypocrite

This is too funny. An atheist apologizes to you even though he/she didn't even do you any wrong, while you actually insult another atheist and instead of apologizing like a man of God is expected to do when he does wrong, you just insult him even more.

Hypocrite? In what way? You are the biggest hypocrite I've encountered around here thus far. Now I know when you speak of God, you're just making empty statements because your faith doesn't seem to have made you a better person at all.

But you know, there's still hope for you. You can fix the wrong that you just did here and apologize, or go deeper and deeper into the hole you just put yourself in. I'm trying my best to treat you as a fellow human being with feelings, but your choice.

And fuck me? In your dreams, mate.

[Chad32]

I don't really know if this is worth responding to, but with six pages I might as well throw in my two cents. I believe atheism came first, in as much as people were surely around before they started considering some powerful spirit was controlling the fire that was spewing from the mountain top, or something similar. It just wouldn't have been considered atheism. First theism had to come around before they needed a term to refer to people who didn't believe in what the theists believed in.

The non belief in deities likely came first, but the I expect the term for it came afterwards.

[bennyboy]

Atheism is often taken to mean an absence of theistic beliefs. But most of us agree that it also implies the capacity for a belief system-- otherwise, my beagle would be atheist, or my big toe.

It seems to me that superstition is more fundamental to organisms than the capacity to hold a cognitive world view. Therefore, I'd say that a kind of pseudo-religious mentality can be seen in mammals and birds at least, but that it wouldn't really make sense to say most of them have the capacity for world view that would earn them the term "atheists."

I would expect that as pre-humans developed, they would have had superstitious feelings first, and that as language developed, they struggled to formulate those vague feelings into words. That would have been the start of religion. In other words, there was probably never a time in which fully-developed humans didn't have superstitious beliefs and express them linguistically.


Therefore, I'd argue that religion preceded atheism.

[The Grand Nudger]

Well Rhythm if the bible it's empirical evidence then you will have no problem taking it's facts at face value. Welcome aboard brother.

In two ways, that's precisely -why- I'm not christian. I take the narratives as they are, and to me the core message is hideous, as-is. I take the verifiable claims for what they are - and they come up short of true again and again. But it's not important in the end how I interpret the evidence at hand vs how you do.

What is troubling me is that you hold two contradictory positions as simultaneously true in your justification for belief in the supernatural. I'm just trying to sound the rocks here - see which side of that line you actually fall on.

[Mystical]

Atheism is often taken to mean an absence of theistic beliefs. But most of us agree that it also implies the capacity for a belief system-- otherwise, my beagle would be atheist, or my big toe.

It seems to me that superstition is more fundamental to organisms than the capacity to hold a cognitive world view. Therefore, I'd say that a kind of pseudo-religious mentality can be seen in mammals and birds at least, but that it wouldn't really make sense to say most of them have the capacity for world view that would earn them the term "atheists."

I would expect that as pre-humans developed, they would have had superstitious feelings first, and that as language developed, they struggled to formulate those vague feelings into words. That would have been the start of religion. In other words, there was probably never a time in which fully-developed humans didn't have superstitious beliefs and express them linguistically.


Therefore, I'd argue that religion preceded atheism.

Precisely my sentiments. Well said

[Mystical]

Irrational : fuck you hypocrite

Pokie : meh, I don't know why I reacted. I guess I care that I represent myself openly. It's not my intention to dodge anything. I'm not the clearest at expressing myself I think. No offense taken my friend.

The more I think about it, the more I want to say: Welcome to the Dark Side, brother.

[Whateverist]

Before people invented deities they were, technically, atheists. However, they didn't have a term for it and gods had t be invented before the term atheist was coined.

But are you sure people were technically people before they 'invented' gods? Did they have language already? It might well be that animism and contact with spirits predate most of what we call our humanity.