When and where did atheism first start ?

[Cod]

I think I was clear that I wasn't talking about modern humans. I think the concepts were still fuzzy for very early humans, and the ideas of what was alive, and what had emotions, and what needed to be cooperated with, was nowhere near what it is for us on this forum. 

So the early humans were by default, atheists with questions.

I think we have built in desires to explain how the world works. Maybe it works like a language -- the desire and the basic structure is built in, but the specifics are learned from whatever society the child finds herself in. In a religious society, she learns religion as the explanation. In a logic-only society, she learns logic as the explanation.

Yes, which just backs up what I said about the default position.  

If we take the term "faith" in its simplest sense, to mean "I'm pretty sure it's true,"  then a child raised in a logical household will have faith in logic. 

In a theistic sense, I take the term faith to mean "I'm believing this on poor, or no evidence." I wouldn't use the term faith in the way that you describe.

That particular woo isn't hardwired into us. The general desire to find explanations probably is. Some explanations will be a lot better than others.

So why did you object to atheism being the default position in human beings? (Yes I know atheism wasn't even a thing back then, but I'm sure you know what I mean)

[Belacqua]

I think I was clear that I wasn't talking about modern humans. I think the concepts were still fuzzy for very early humans, and the ideas of what was alive, and what had emotions, and what needed to be cooperated with, was nowhere near what it is for us on this forum. 

So the early humans were by default, atheists with questions.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. 

They probably thought that there were different non-human powers in the world, they probably anthropomorphized somewhat. They didn't have the concepts that we do, of supernatural/natural, or natural/divine. 

If an early human goes to great lengths to appease the unseen forces of the bison hunt in order to eat through the winter, but lacks the modern concept of a god, is he an atheist? I think that's getting too hair-splitty about definitions. 

I think we have built in desires to explain how the world works. Maybe it works like a language -- the desire and the basic structure is built in, but the specifics are learned from whatever society the child finds herself in. In a religious society, she learns religion as the explanation. In a logic-only society, she learns logic as the explanation.

Yes, which just backs up what I said about the default position.  

Please explain why.

In a theistic sense, I take the term faith to mean "I'm believing this on poor, or no evidence." I wouldn't use the term faith in the way that you describe.

You can use it however you want, I don't much care about definitions. The point is that a person raised in a given society will be likely to think that his society's explanations for things is pretty good. And that's the case whether the kid comes from an animist hunter-gatherer group or a sciency group.

So why did you object to atheism being the default position in human beings? (Yes I know atheism wasn't even a thing back then, but I'm sure you know what I mean)

No, I don't know what you mean. 

I think that early humans were very likely to come up with explanations that we moderns would call god-like. The power that controls the hunt, who listens to our requests and might get angry if we don't do things right. The power that causes earthquakes, who might be in a bad mood. 

Thinking of human psychology, it seems more likely to me that these god-like concepts would be a part of people's earliest thinking, than that people remained pure empiricists until some conman invented the concept of a god. So at the time, given how people's minds work, explaining the world through god-like forces seems closer to a default than not. 

[vulcanlogician]

So the early humans were by default, atheists with questions.

I wonder about this though, Cod. I see where you're coming from. But the thing is, you don't find primitive tribes with worldviews that resemble those of, say, atheists on this forum. They typically have shamanistic beliefs or assume some kind of animism. To me, that says something about what default human belief is.

I think this is because they are using an unrefined, rudimentary kind of logic to form conclusions about the world. As we all know, our innate sense of logic is often fallacious. People who depend on such logic are bound to form erroneous conclusions.

Anyway, long story short, I wonder if humans need a developed sense of logic with a careful, systematic study of the natural world (ie. science) in order to genuinely reach the conclusion of atheism.

Of course it depends how you define things like "nonbelief in gods" or the "default position of belief in gods" etc. etc. but the argument could be made that humans innately form ideas about the world that include spirits and such. And atheism is not a default, but an ability to reach different conclusions after carefully and systematically considering evidence.

We can split hairs all day about what belief is default , but anthropologists have arguably observed default human belief, and it don't look like atheism.

[Abaddon_ire]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"God did it" was the lazy excuse to not think about something.

[Belacqua]

"God did it" was the lazy excuse to not think about something.

Some people say that everything was just atheist until some guy invented the concept of god. 
That's a lazy excuse to avoid real thinking.

[vulcanlogician]

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"God did it" was the lazy excuse to not think about something.

Some people say that everything was just atheist until some guy invented the concept of god. 
That's a lazy excuse to avoid real thinking.

Whoa, that was stupid.

[Cod]

"God did it" was the lazy excuse to not think about something.

Some people say that everything was just atheist until some guy invented the concept of god. 
That's a lazy excuse to avoid real thinking.

No it isn't. How would you label early humans in a time before we invented Gods, and everyone had a lack of belief? Okay the word atheist isn't a perfect fit but it's close enough for me. You are sounding like someone who is pushing the idea of some sort of intentional design, like we were destined to invent Gods through an 'inbuilt need'. I'm not buying it.

[Belacqua]

Some people say that everything was just atheist until some guy invented the concept of god. 
That's a lazy excuse to avoid real thinking.

No it isn't. How would you label early humans in a time before we invented Gods, and everyone had a lack of belief? Okay the word atheist isn't a perfect fit but it's close enough for me. 

When you say "before we invented gods," it sounds as if we were going along with no notion of gods and then came up with the idea out of whole cloth. 

That strikes me as too simple, and as projecting modern thinking backwards where it doesn't belong. 

People tried to figure out how the world worked. They attributed various events to various kinds of forces and agents. Some of these are what we would now call natural, and some weren't. Some were anthropomorphized, and some weren't. 

Gawdzilla and other lazy thinkers act as though people used to be honest empiricists until some guy had a fantasy. That suits the general anti-religion ideology around here, but it's a comic book view of history.

You are sounding like someone who is pushing the idea of some sort of intentional design, like we were destined to invent Gods through an 'inbuilt need'. I'm not buying it.

This is your interpretation, but it's not what I'm saying.

I'm saying that when early humans tried to explain the world, it was natural and understandable that they would picture causal agency, other-than-human powers, and thinking agents that reflected the way they themselves thought. If early humans were at all thinking beings, offering the very earliest explanations for how things work, it is close to a default premise for them to assume that other things work the way we do. Only bigger, in the case of volcanoes, for example. 

Before any such explanations occurred to early primates, it makes sense to call them atheist in the sense that dirt is atheist, or the empty space in a box is atheist: it lacks belief because it has no belief. It has no belief because it has no abstract thought or the capacity to try to explain.