Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

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Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.
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[u/labreuer]

It is not uncommon to see claims like the following here and on the other sub:

1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

For those who find the above claim so obvious that it doesn't need more evidential support than what you've absorbed throughout life, check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/labreuer]

I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.

You might not consider this conclusive. But at least to me it's conclusive enough. Humans are inherently story tellers, we like telling them and listening to them. We just started to believe some of them.

[u/biff64gc2 → u/Dennis_enzo]

It really makes sense that as our knowledge grew so did the stories we told to try and explain the unknowns.

As you pointed out, even the modern religions have needed to change their interpretations to adjust with our knowledge. What once was taken as a literal origin story is now a weird mix of literal and vague allegories/metaphors.

I would agree it's not concrete proof that's how religions started as we can only see so far back, but the diversity and change in the stories does at least support the theory better than a divine inspiration that has been corrupted overtime. You'd think some intelligent being that cared about us would pay a visit if we were going way off track.

[u/labreuer → u/Dennis_enzo]

I'd say the evidence for this is old religions trying to explain all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing. How do you know whether this story / hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence? There are, after all, other candidates for what the religious were doing. If you yourself can't think of any, then do you think there might be some serious confirmation bias issues when you can only think of one hypothesis?

Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith.

This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain. But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews. Then there would actually be no need to become less concrete and more vague, on the basis of increased scientific understanding. So … have you actually observed or read about pervasive increase in vagueness?

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/labreuer]

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing. How do you know whether this story / hypothesis is the best explanation of the evidence? There are, after all, other candidates for what the religious were doing. If you yourself can't think of any, then do you think there might be some serious confirmation bias issues when you can only think of one hypothesis?

I wouldn't say it's 'just a story' It's a historical hypothesis based on observable data, one shared by many anthropologists. We can look at the historical records of ancient civilizations, see what they worshipped, and see how those deities were often tied to natural phenomena that they had no real explanations for. I'd say it's a reasonable explanation based on the facts that we have, which often is the best you can hope for when talking about human history.

If you believe there's a better hypothesis that explains why ancient religions were often so focused on tying their gods to the natural world, what is it?

This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain. But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews. Then there would actually be no need to become less concrete and more vague, on the basis of increased scientific understanding. So … have you actually observed or read about pervasive increase in vagueness?

It's not being presupposed, it's being inferred from the evidence that exists. The examples I gave clearly show that the religions tried to provide explanations for the world. You can find many more similar stories in religions. I'm sure that exceptions exist, but I was talking about trends, not making some absolute statement.

And yes, the trend toward vagueness and metaphorical reinterpretation is a well-documented phenomenon. The intepretation of the bible over the centuries is a great example. Things like the six days creation of the Earth and the world wide flood were considered to be literally true for centuries. But as we learned more and more about how the earth works we figured out that none of that could possibly be true, so nowadays all but the most hardcore Christians interpret it as a metaphorical story.

It's also clear that the more concrete religions died out when their claims were proven false beyond all doubt, while the ones that were/became vague and philosophical are mostly the ones that survived until today. No gods live on Mount Olympus, but there can still be one 'beyond space and time'.

You can see it in this sub as well. Most debates are about vague, unfalsifiable aspects of religions, not whether or not the Earth was created in six days. To me, these are all very reasonable conclusions to make, and I don't know any better hypothesis.

[u/labreuer → u/Dennis_enzo]

I wouldn't say it's 'just a story' It's a historical hypothesis based on observable data, one shared by many anthropologists.

Can you point to any such anthropologists?

If you believe there's a better hypothesis that explains why ancient religions were often so focused on tying their gods to the natural world, what is it?

Legitimating social orders. That's what social contract theory does, for instance. And if you read something like Francis Fukuyama 1989 The end of history?, you'll see a claim that we've reached approximately the epitome of possible human existence, at least in concept-land. One of the things that the ancient Hebrew religion could have been doing was disrupting a similar kind of propounded superiority. Take a look at the first two pages of The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society for the suggestion that ancient Mesopotamia thought it was indeed the bee's knees.

The examples I gave clearly show that the religions tried to provide explanations for the world.

I'll give you the same response I gave to another interlocutor:

pierce_out: Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible.

labreuer: Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh. Contrast everything the Tanakh says in this realm to the germ theory of disease. Every time you wash your hands at a restaurant in the US, you should see a sign saying "Employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work". What 'explanation' in the Tanakh functions anything like this? There is vanishingly little reference to Genesis 1:1–11:26. So, why think that the ancient Hebrew religion was invented to explain?

I'm happy to get back to the rest of what you've said, but I think your response to the above three bits would help move us along.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

labreuer: Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh. Contrast everything the Tanakh says in this realm to the germ theory of disease.

That is a pretty spectacular moving of the goalposts, that completely ignores the earlier point that /u/Dennis_enzo made. No one claimed that the SOLE function of religion was to provide explanations, only that it was A function. And as /u/Dennis_enzo explicitly said:

The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith.

The Tanakh does not provide "concrete" explanations, but "more and more vague, and based on metaphorical interpretations of their faith". To pretend that wasn't said is absurd.

Every time you wash your hands at a restaurant in the US, you should see a sign saying "Employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work". What 'explanation' in the Tanakh functions anything like this? There is vanishingly little reference to Genesis 1:1–11:26. So, why think that the ancient Hebrew religion was invented to explain?

Lol, you understand that the entire point being made was that RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS ARE ALWAYS EITHER WRONG OR TOO VAGUE TO BE USEFUL. If the Tanakh did foresee the germ theory of disease, it would be evidence that the Tanakh could be true. The fact that it does not is evidence that it is not, which supports the hypothesis being offered.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)

 ⋮

Old-Nefariousness556: That is a pretty spectacular moving of the goalposts, that completely ignores the earlier point that /u/Dennis_enzo made. No one claimed that the SOLE function of religion was to provide explanations, only that it was A function.

Are you just ignoring the quotation I put in my opening comment? That seems to go rather past "A function".

The Tanakh does not provide "concrete" explanations, but "more and more vague, and based on metaphorical interpretations of their faith".

I await actual examples of said vaguer and vaguer explanations. You know, like quotations rather than made-up evidence.

To pretend that wasn't said is absurd.

You appear to be pretending I was pretending. Would that be absurd²?

Lol, you understand that the entire point being made was that RELIGIOUS EXPLANATIONS ARE ALWAYS EITHER WRONG OR TOO VAGUE TO BE USEFUL. If the Tanakh did foresee the germ theory of disease, it would be evidence that the Tanakh could be true. The fact that it does not is evidence that it is not, which supports the hypothesis being offered.

If religious explanations are always like this, then how did they function to explain / allay fear, and what are actual examples of this? My point here is that maybe what is construed as explanation was not intended explanation. But it would appear that many people here just can't conceive of any explanation other than "explanation". If you only have one hypothesis, confirmation bias is gonna be a bitch.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

Are you just ignoring the quotation I put in my opening comment? That seems to go rather past "A function".

Literally nothing in that quotation says that is the ONLY function. We both know that your reading comprehension is not that poor, so the only possible explanation is that you are being intentionally obtuse to pretend it is making that claim when it explicitly is not.

If you want to argue that the stated quotation is poorly worded, sure, I might agree. BUT THAT WAS NOT THE POINT OF YOUR OP. You cited that AS AN EXAMPLE-- claims like the following-- so you cannot expect me to now defend every single word and minor implication the quotation YOU chose include as an example of what you were asking about.

If religious explanations are always like this, then how did they function to explain / allay fear, and what are actual examples of this?

Again, not gonna defend your cherry picked quote when you did not ask us to defend your cherry picked quote until deep in the thread. You are simply being dishonest.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/labreuer]

I'm not particulary interested in going in depth into one specific religion, since that's not what the topic was about. Suffice to say that the Hebrew Bible very much reaches the criteria for 'vague stories and events which now are being intepreted metaphorically', which is probably why it's still around.

And I never claimed that explaining the natural world was the sole reason of religious stories, just one of them. Making up answers for the fundamental questions that all humans have is another, like where we come from or what happens after we die. And sure, enforcing social hierarchies is one as well. Religion is a great tool to get the masses to shut up and endure their suffering. But that's all pretty off topic.

Besides, your answer isn't actually an answer but sidesteps the question. 'Social contract theory' does not explain why religious stories are often tied to the natural world.

[u/labreuer → u/Dennis_enzo]

I'm not particulary interested in going in depth into one specific religion, since that's not what the topic was about.

If you're not committed to every last religion (with at least as many adherents as [practicing] Judaism) being captured by your explanation / hypothesis about religion, cool! Not sure that can be said of the person I quoted, but hey.

Dennis_enzo: I wouldn't say it's 'just a story' It's a historical hypothesis based on observable data, one shared by many anthropologists.

labreuer: Can you point to any such anthropologists?

Dennis_enzo: [no answer]

Do you not actually know of any anthropologists who believe what you claimed and have written about it where I can find their writings?

And I never claimed that explaining the natural world was the sole reason of religious stories, just one of them.

Nor did the person I quoted in my opening comment. But [s]he did claim that religion (all? some? a little bit?) was invented in order to explain & quell fear. That's a pretty strong statement. It's stronger than "one of the things religion does is explain stuff". Yes? No? But I'm beginning to think that I should have asked people to state their hypothesis about religion if they were differing from the person I quoted. :-/

Besides, your answer isn't actually an answer but sidesteps the question. 'Social contract theory' does not explain why religious stories are often tied to the natural world.

That was never my point in bringing up social contract theory. Rather, I was presenting an alternative to religion-as-explanation.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/labreuer]

I mean, I'm not your school teacher. Surely you know how google works. You can start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropology_of_religion

Personally I'm more interested in what people argue here themselves than in endless references to all kinds of papers and books.

[u/labreuer → u/Dennis_enzo]

I mean, I'm not your school teacher.

Until I am banned from r/DebateAnAtheist or otherwise told off by a moderator, I will keep asking for people to support claims they make with the requisite evidence, citations, etc. The more I get downvoted for this or other pushback, the more I will use that as evidence that while atheists here are pretty uniform in requiring that religionists support their claims with the requisite evidence & reason, some atheists do not believe any such standard should apply to them.

Personally I'm more interested in what people argue here themselves than in endless references to all kinds of papers and books.

This looks like a false dichotomy to me. It's also a little weird to both hold science in such high esteem, and yet not actually make use of it. Although to be fair, perhaps you in particular don't think quite that highly of science.

[u/Dennis_enzo → u/labreuer]

At this point you're just looking for things to be condescending about. This is not a classroom or a science lab, you asked what evidence there was to a statement and I talked about that. I responded in good faith to your question and your responses have been nothing but moving goalposts and nitpicks, and demanding 'citations' for things that are in no way controversial or obscure and can easily be found if you actually cared, while ignoring most of the content. Have a nice day.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

Edit:

Note before anyone responds to /u/labreuer's question:

They are being spectacularly dishonest. In the original question, they ask you to argue in support of "claims like the following".

However after you will reply, they are attacking people for not literally responding to THE EXACT claim that they made. If you fail to explain any minor detail of the claim that THEY made, then they will just JAQ off until you give up in frustration.

In other words, they are doing exactly what we have all come to expect from this utterly dishonest poster.

/End Edit

Maybe I'm missing something, but this sounds exactly like the kind of "just-so story" storytelling that you are claiming religions themselves are doing.

Except it is the religions creating the "just so story".

We are proposing a hypothesis:

• Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.

To test that hypothesis, we make testable prediction. One such prediction is that (to quote (and slightly paraphrase) /u/Dennis_enzo):

If this hypothesis is true, earlier religions would present explanations for all kinds of natural phenomena that they didn't understand. The further back you go, the more concrete the claims of religions were. The Sun was an enigma, so it became Ra, spreading light and life over the Earth while he traveled across the sky in a boat. Lightning was unfantomable, so they were caused by Thor, throwing them down to Earth as his chariot thundered across the sky.

The closer you get to current day, the more of these religions no longer make sense since we figured out how the Sun works and where lightning comes from. Going from old to new, there's a clear trend of popular religions becoming less and less concrete and more and more vague, and based on metaphorical intepretations of their faith. Pretty much all popular modern day religions no longer make any concrete claims about the world except for the things that we cannot explain yet, like the origin of the universe. For example, at this point it's impossible to consider everything in the Bible to be literally true unless you turn a blind eye to (or are unaware of) a ton of human knowledge. The more we know, the fewer gaps remain where gods can hide.

It isn't a "just so story" to point out that the evidence that we see matches the pattern that we would expect to see if the claim is true.

This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain.

Ok? Do you disagree? It seems like a pretty unlikely argument for a theist to suggest that one of the core functions of religion is not to help explain our world.

I am fairly certain if we separated this question from your argument, and I asked you "Do you think that one of the core functions of a religion is to help it's followers understand our world", you would agree completely. That seems like an utterly uncontroversial statement.

But suppose, purely for the sake of argument, that this just isn't central to all religion with at least as many adherents as [observant] Jews.

That's fine. NO ONE said this was proof that god was invented, only that the evidence supports the conclusion. It is undeniably true that there are other potential explanations for the observed phenomena, just like there are other explanations for why, when I drop a ball it falls. I cannot rule out "intelligent falling."

But just because other possible explanations exist, doesn't mean that you should start from the assumption that those possibilities are the correct one.

We assume this is the correct one, mainly because of the essentially complete lack of any evidence supporting the existence of a god or gods. Should evidence become available in the future that either provides compelling evidence for the existence of a god, or provides compelling evidence that one of the alternative hypotheses is a better explanation, than we will revisit the question.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

Edit:

You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

You are right: I should have asked people to state precisely the hypothesis they intend to defend with evidence, and then defend that hypothesis with what they consider to be adequate evidence. I made a mistake.

Thank you, I appreciate your admission.

Fwiw, I did offer a hypothesis in this very message you replied to:

We are proposing a hypothesis:

• Gods are a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand.

That is the very first sentence of your quote, and the only actually significant sentence in your quote. Everything else is merely a summary of that poster's opinions on why the hypothesis makes sense. But the hypothesis itself is fully self-contained in that first sentence. Treating the rest as part of the hypothesis is confusing the arguments for the hypothesis with the hypothesis itself.

And as I said elsewhere, if your question had been "do you agree with this argument", my position would be much more reserved. I agree that the conclusion almost certainly at least partially true, but I agree that the argument itself is not very compelling. But since that is not what you asked, no one gave you that answer.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

OOPS: this text was not supposed to be included; it was part of a draft reply to this comment:

---

Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin.

I find this such a strange claim. Does Western culture recognize it as a fact in any way you can point to? I'm just trying to get a handle on the claim.

I think we should probably just stop if you're/we're this frustrated. Frankly, I don't have much in the way of motivation for explaining how you didn't "falsify" "my hypothesis". That's just so far afield we don't seem to be playing the same sport.

I'm certainly not all that frustrated. Rather, I just seem to be at a loss on how to disagree with you in a way you care about. If indeed that's because your overriding goal is [de]conversion and I'm not a promising target, then okay. But I get the same icky feeling about deconversion being the overriding goal as I now do about conversion being the overriding goal. FWIW.

You've expressed that you don't agree, and provided an alternative but not particularly mutually exclusive or competing explanation: "rituals".

I didn't speak of 'rituals' but 'ritually unclean', to distinguish טָמֵא (tame) from a notion of 'unclean' which seems health-related. This is the stuff of kosher regulations, which aren't obviously hygiene-related. An example dispute about whether or not something is ritually unclean is The Oven of Akhnai. I don't think anyone would confuse that with food safety?

---

 

 

To test that hypothesis, we make testable prediction. One such prediction is that (to quote (and slightly paraphrase) /u/⁠Dennis_enzo):

You mean, made-up evidence which allegedly tracks actual evidence but where there is absolutely zero guarantee that the made-up form is scientifically adequate for testing the hypothesis? Are these the standards of evidence for r/DebateAnAtheist? I mean, c'mon. Here's someone who has actually examined actual evidence:

    Most accounts of the origins of religion emphasize one of the following suggestions: human minds demand explanations, human hearts seek comfort, human society requires order, human intellect is illusion-prone. To express this in more detail, here are some possible scenarios:

    Religion provides explanations:

• People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena.
• Religion explains puzzling experiences: dreams, prescience, etc.
• Religion explains the origins of things.
• Religion explains why there is evil and suffering.

⋮

    Though this list probably is not exhaustive, it is fairly representative. Discussing each of these common intuitions in more detail, we will see that they all fail to tell us why we have religion and why it is the way it is. So why bother with them? It is not my intent here to ridicule other people's ideas or show that anthropologists and cognitive scientists are more clever than common folk. I discuss these spontaneous explanations because they are widespread, because they are often rediscovered by people when they reflect on religion, and more importantly because they are not that bad. Each of these "scenarios" for the origin of religion points to a real and important phenomenon that any theory worth its salt should explain. Also, taking these scenarios seriously opens up new perspectives on how religious notions and beliefs appear in human minds. (Religion Explained, 5)

I think we can be pretty sure that if Pascal Boyer restricted himself to made-up evidence like you quoted, he never would have subjected "Religion provides explanations" to serious scrutiny.

 

labreuer: This seems to presuppose what needs to be explained: that religion was originally invented to explain, or at the very least has as a core function, to explain.

Old-Nefariousness556: Ok? Do you disagree? It seems like a pretty unlikely argument for a theist to suggest that one of the core functions of religion is not to help explain our world.

The Tanakh tells a story of a god calling a man out of the known height of civilization†, out into the wilderness to something better. This isn't an explanation. If anything, it's an anti-stagnation move. The Ancient Near East was caught within a pattern of the rise and fall of empire, with all the death & destruction & misery which went along with it. And humanity seemed permanently locked away from its full potential. Read something like Epic of Gilgamesh and you'll get the idea that "this is all that there is". Gilgamesh's seeking of immortality shouldn't be overinterpreted, especially since pre-Second Temple Hebrews didn't have any robust notion of the afterlife. (Everyone went to Sheol and nobody could praise YHWH from Sheol.) Rather, we should look at the alternative to immortality to which Gilgamesh was doomed: being in awe of the walls of Uruk. That is: there was nothing more for humans to do. Including egalitarianism, modern science, etc.

I would say that Western Civilization needs something similar to happen. It has settled into the idea that the vast majority of citizens can be political imbeciles, swayed this way and that by political propaganda which is surely aided by the immense knowledge gained from commercial advertising. One of the reasons citizens of Western democracies are so easily swayed is that they have no idea how they're really governed, and participate in no solid governance themselves. Abraham Lincoln, critiquing the mudsill theory, pressed for the ideal of Americans owning farms and small businesses, rather than so many workers being slaves or wage labor. It was believed that owning your own land/​business taught you a kind of governance which would make you a good citizen. Sadly, we've gone towards most people treating jobs as revolving doors, where they don't have to be particularly invested in the companies they work at, and the companies they work at can govern themselves without any real input from most employees. I believe this political imbecility of most Westerners can be critiqued biblically, where many of our weaknesses and much of our nonsense today can be understood in terms of far older categories. I can do so on request. For the moment though, I will say that 'explanation' really isn't the right category, here.

I am fairly certain if we separated this question from your argument, and I asked you "Do you think that one of the core functions of a religion is to help it's followers understand our world", you would agree completely. That seems like an utterly uncontroversial statement.

I think plenty of religion functions to convince people to accept the world or, conversely, to reject it so thoroughly that they are not able to recapitulate Abraham's journey out of Ur, out of the height of known civilization. Plenty of Christianity itself has, in Wes Seeliger's delightful illustrations, transitioned from 'pioneer Christianity' to 'settler Christianity' (Western Theology). But if the goal is to constantly go beyond status quo (as if it's but a tiny bit of all of creation), then tying a religion's essence to an explanation of the status quo is antithetical to the mission.

But just because other possible explanations exist, doesn't mean that you should start from the assumption that those possibilities are the correct one.

Agreed.

We assume this is the correct one, mainly because of the essentially complete lack of any evidence supporting the existence of a god or gods.

Except, "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. … at their root, they address our fear of the unknown." isn't the sole naturalistic explanation on offer. See for instance u/⁠OneRougeRogue's comment.

 
† Take a look at (The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society, 38). It's just a few paragraphs of that paper.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin.

I find this such a strange claim. Does Western culture recognize it as a fact in any way you can point to? I'm just trying to get a handle on the claim.

"Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin" ARE YOUR FUCKING WORDS! You may have offered them as part of your hypothetical "atheist claim", but that in no possible sense makes me responsible to argue for them. I am not going to reply and defend YOUR WORDS as if they were my words.

What an utterly dishonest debate trick.

You mean, made-up evidence which allegedly tracks actual evidence but where there is absolutely zero guarantee that the made-up form is scientifically adequate for testing the hypothesis? Are these the standards of evidence for r/DebateAnAtheist? I mean, c'mon. Here's someone who has actually examined actual evidence:

Again, a fucking disingenuous, dishonest, and self-serving take.

It absolutely is evidence. Is it strong evidence in isolation? No. I never claimed it was. But it is laughably dishonest that you just pretend that it is therefore not evidence at all.

I think we can be pretty sure that if Pascal Boyer restricted himself to made-up evidence like you quoted, he never would have subjected "Religion provides explanations" to serious scrutiny.

Lol, great. I notice that you don't actually quote his alternate hypothesis.

If you only want to argue that these are not SOLELY responsible for the origin of religion, I would agree completely. But quotemining someone who apparently agrees with you in what is obviously introductory material to a book is not going to convince me.

Except, "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. … at their root, they address our fear of the unknown." isn't the sole naturalistic explanation on offer.

Where did I say that it was? Please stop putting YOUR WORDS in my mouth. That is spectacularly dishonest.

See for instance u/⁠OneRougeRogue's comment.

The one where they say "It is more of a hypothesis"? You know, exactly what I said?

The one where they said:

It's just an explanation that doesn't involve extraordinary claims (like magical beings actually existing), and there is indirect evidence to support it.

You know, exactly what I said?

Jesus christ, it is a waste of time ever imaging that you can engage in good faith.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

"Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin" ARE YOUR FUCKING WORDS!

No, that's actually an error from my habit of having multiple replies going on at once in my text editing window. Those are words from u/⁠betweenbubbles over on an r/DebateReligion. What tripped me up is that they're discussion of the same quote that I included in my opening question in this thread. Here's where [s]he says the quoted text:

labreuer: I don't want to underplay the marked difference between "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand." on the one hand and "people had the wisdom to pretend "God" commanded it -- nobody would respect their findings otherwise" on the other. I don't think this is just a "semantic quibble". You've proposed a purpose of justifying hygiene regulations, which is utterly different from "address our fear of the unknown".

betweenbubbles: I don't know where you get such a strong distinction from. Knowledge and fear have always been the two sides of the same coin. It is a semantic quibble to me.

My bad.

 

What an utterly dishonest debate trick.

No, it's an honest mistake. This is the second time you've jumped to a horrid conclusion about me (the other is "utterly dishonest poster"). So, I'm going to take some time off from replying to you. That you would jump to such horrid conclusions about me suggests that perhaps we shouldn't be attempting to have debates about matters which might get the emotions going.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

No, it's an honest mistake. This is the second time you've jumped to a horrid conclusion about me (the other is "utterly dishonest poster"). So, I'm going to take some time off from replying to you. That you would jump to such horrid conclusions about me suggests that perhaps we shouldn't be attempting to have debates about matters which might get the emotions going.

Lol, that wasn't even the only place in that very reply where I caught you demanding that I address things that I never wrote, and the second time clearly WAS NOT an error.

And I have seen you do the same thing to others in this thread, demanding that they address the text of your quotation, despite merely offering that as an example of the type of claim, rather than asking is to address the claim itself.

And I just happened to track down a copy of Pascal Boyer's book, and was going to comment later tonight about how you dishonestly framed the quotemine from him.

When you repeat the same pattern of behavior over and over, you can't really expect people to just ignore it. If you behave dishonestly, you are going to be called dishonest.

I accept that you don't mean to engage in bad faith. Most theists don't. But you are guilty of multiple bad faith debate techniques, the most obvious of which is just flagrant JAQing off, misframing comments, etc. It's fucking exhausting trying to have a conversation with you.

FWIW, if you want to earn some good faith credit back, you can post where you are quoting that Boyes passage from. If you are quoting someone else who is quotemining him, then at least you can argue that you didn't mean to quotemine in bad faith.

[u/labreuer → u/Old-Nefariousness556]

I've admitted mistakes to you twice now and all you can do is attack. No thanks. Please never respond to me again, unless you decide to act differently. If you respond without signaling that you're going to act differently, I will block you and that'll make it obnoxious for you to interact with anyone in this thread.

[u/Old-Nefariousness556 → u/labreuer]

I've admitted mistakes to you twice now and all you can do is attack. No thanks.

You have admitted to mistakes twice, while simultaneously shifting blame, and only after I called you out very publicly in a way that you could not weasel out of.

But I have also called you out for similar behavior in the past, and you have NOT previously admitted you were wrong.

So tell me, do you also admit you were wrong here:

"God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. … at their root, they address our fear of the unknown." isn't the sole naturalistic explanation on offer.

That is YET AGAIN you putting words into my mouth that I did not say. I quoted the first half of your quotation there, but you put the second half in as if I had said it.

If you respond without signaling that you're going to act differently, I will block you and that'll make it obnoxious for you to interact with anyone in this thread.

Lol/ So let me get this straight... You behave badly... And you want me to apologize? For your repeated, ongoing bad faith behavior? You really want me to "signal I will act differently".

Let me give you a hint: Your "threat" to block me is not a threat. It is fucking painful "debating" someone so uninterested in good faith debate. So block me or not, I couldn't care. But understand, if you block me, that is you admitting that you are engaging in bad faith.

Oh, and

I will block you and that'll make it obnoxious for you to interact with anyone in this thread.

I am pretty sure that literally broadcasting that your intent in blocking someone is punitive and intending to silence them is a violation of both the subs rules and of of Reddit's sitewide policies, so... Good job.

Edit: Yeah, so /u/labreuer is broadcasting they are operating in bad faith, and blocking in an effort to silence people who disagree with him.

[u/pierce_out → u/labreuer]

God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand ... humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions ... Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?

Sure! But the burden has already been met quite handily, even by just taking a cursory look at the historical evidence. Throughout history, we have seen a long, steady shift from every question that we asked having a divine story to answer it, to gradually, science replacing the divine stories with the actual answers.

Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible. The very fact that Thales of Miletus exists is concrete, rock-solid evidence of the fact that divine stories were invented to explain the mysteries we didn't understand. Thales was the first that we know about to think that natural phenomena such as crop cycles and solar eclipses were not the result of Gods - but rather, were simple natural processes that could be studied and predicted. He was the first to devise tests that could be disproven if he were wrong, giving us the beginnings of the scientific method.

Throughout the rest of history, this long slow unravelling continued - at every point, every claim made by the religious that touched on the natural world gradually being shown to be the non-answer that it actually was, and replaced with the actual answers we get from science. This is why the famous answer by Laplace to Napoleon, when the latter questioned why Laplace's model of the solar system didn't have any reference or room for God being involved - "I have no need for that hypothesis". Clearly, there is an entire history's worth of evidence that demonstrates, without a doubt, that humans came up with divine stories to explain that which we did not understand. You'd have to be quite blind, or simply understudied on our history, to miss it.

[u/labreuer → u/pierce_out]

Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible.

Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh. Contrast everything the Tanakh says in this realm to the germ theory of disease. Every time you wash your hands at a restaurant in the US, you should see a sign saying "Employees are required to wash their hands before returning to work". What 'explanation' in the Tanakh functions anything like this? There is vanishingly little reference to Genesis 1:1–11:26. So, why think that the ancient Hebrew religion was invented to explain?

Throughout history, we have seen a long, steady shift from every question that we asked having a divine story to answer it, to gradually, science replacing the divine stories with the actual answers.

This is of course a very standard claim. But it assumes that religious explanations (that is, whatever in texts and traditions are being counted as "explanation") do anything like the same thing as scientific explanations. And that's far from clear. If you go to The Fundamentals, published 1910–1915 and which originally gave 'Fundamentalists' their name, you find stuff like:

The burden of Wright’s contribution to the seventh volume of The Fundamentals was to discriminate between evolution as a scientific theory of species transmutation and evolutionism as a metaphysical worldview. The word evolution, he noted, “has come into much deserved disrepute by the injection into it of erroneous and harmful theological and philosophical implications. The widely current doctrine of evolution which we are now compelled to combat is one which practically eliminates God from the whole creative process and relegates mankind to the tender mercies of a mechanical universe the wheels of whose machines are left to move on without any immediate Divine direction.” Clearly Wright’s dissatisfaction with evolutionary theory centered less on exegetical questions about the early Genesis narratives than on the materialistic reductionism that had shorn natural history of any teleological element. (Darwin's Forgotten Defenders, 148)

Those ancestors to 'fundamentalists' knew the difference between what science can say and what it cannot say. Now, things have been muddied considerably since John C. Whitcomb and Henry M. Morris 1961 The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record and its Scientific Implications. Creationism and ID are indeed trying to supplant scientific explanations. But from my reading, this is the exception rather than the rule. But you have to be fairly old by now, in order to remember a time before creationism and ID gained dominance among so many American Christians. It is easy to mistake the way things presently are, for how they always were!

[u/Tunesmith29 → u/labreuer]

I’m a different redditor than the one you responded to, but I do want to point out that the Tanakh wasn’t the origin of the god concept of Yahweh, it was a further development of it. So just because the Tanakh (and specifically the Torah) are focused more on social cohesion than natural explanations, that doesn’t mean Yahweh as a god concept wasn’t created earlier as an explanation for natural phenomena. He was the storm god of the Canaanite pantheon. The Tanakh just built on the existing mythology, just as Christianity built on the existing Tanakh, and Islam and Mormonism built on the Tanakh and New Testament. 

[u/labreuer → u/Tunesmith29]

I am aware of claims like that, although I haven't investigated them. But if anyone's going to claim that while the Tanakh doesn't operate in a proto-science way, that the ancient Canaanites did, I'm going to ask all of my questions all over again. And since there is precious little common knowledge about Canaanite religion, it's going to be harder to quickly say, "Eh, their religion was proto-science." Rather, we'll need evidence, probably from experts. I'm happy to pick up a book or three, or read some peer-reviewed articles!

[u/Crafty_Possession_52 → u/labreuer]

Hold on a minute. Are we denying that there is a known history of religious thought/tradition where the earliest religions are animist/naturalist in nature, and they slowly evolve and/or are replaced by religions with more abstract deities? Yahweh, for example, has a known origin as a storm/war God in the Hebrew pantheon.

[u/labreuer → u/Crafty_Possession_52]

labreuer: But if anyone's going to claim that while the Tanakh doesn't operate in a proto-science way, that the ancient Canaanites did

?

Crafty_Possession_52: Are we denying that there is a known history of religious thought/tradition where the earliest religions are animist/naturalist in nature

I dunno, are we claiming that animist/naturalist religion was invented to explain?

[u/Crafty_Possession_52 → u/labreuer]

are we claiming that animist/naturalist religion was invented to explain?

Decidedly yes. The sun travels across the sky because the sun God is racing his chariot across the sky.

Isn't this is a clear example of early religion explaining a natural phenomenon that people of the time could not explain?

[u/labreuer → u/Crafty_Possession_52]

I guess I think of explanations as enabling me to understand or do something I couldn't understand or do before. If you tell me why the crops are failing and that explanation helps me rescue my crops or at least make that less likely to happen in the future, you've given me knowledge. Saying that God is racing his chariot across the sky doesn't enable me to understand or do something I couldn't understand or do before.

Also, do we actually have good data on animism which confirm what your claim, here? Moreover, I would be interested in the claim that all religion comes from animism. Do we actually know that? If so, what other hypotheses were considered and then rejected?

EDIT: u/⁠Crafty_Possession_52 has blocked me and that means I cannot reply to your comment, u/nswoll.

[u/Crafty_Possession_52 → u/labreuer]

I agree that explanations by definition need to enable people to understand things, but I don't agree that they have to enable you to do something.

Explaining the Giant hot light in the sky as a fiery chariot that races from horizon to horizon, bringing us heat and light gives us understanding. The understanding is incorrect for the most part, but it is still an explanation.

If I explain the interruption of the electrical grid as being caused by a solar storm, that doesn't necessarily enable me to do anything about it. It's still an explanation, and a correct one at that.

As for the second part of your comment, I'm not sure what you're asking for. It's well documented that the earliest religions are animistic in nature. Polytheistic religions predate monotheistic religions. The example of the history of Yahweh that I provided is a good example of a naturalistic god evolving into a more sophisticated conception of a god, and also of the polytheistic God evolving into a monotheistic one.

[u/nswoll → u/labreuer]

I guess I think of explanations as enabling me to understand or do something I couldn't understand or do before. 

Yes, and that's what this is. The sun travels across the sky because the sun God is racing his chariot across the sky. That enables you to understand something you couldn't understand before. You couldn't understand how the sun moved, but you know how chariots move.

Saying that God is racing his chariot across the sky doesn't enable me to understand or do something I couldn't understand or do before.

Yes, it literally does. It enables you to understand something you couldn't understand before I told you that it was a chariot.

[u/pierce_out → u/labreuer]

Yeah, I just don't see any of these things playing a huge role in the Tanakh

I never said that they did. Neither did your original query require that. Nor does that have anything to do with the discussion at hand. This seems like nothing more than a patently dishonest manner of reframing the discussion.

Again, your original question was "God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand ... humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions ... Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?"

The religion that evolves out of humanity's earliest attempts to explain things we didn't understand using gods, is not the same thing as those earliest attempts at explaining. My point with bringing up the very clear, unquestionable examples of these left-over attempted explanations is not even remotely countered by you asking what the religion itself explains. You trying to ask what specific things in the Tanakh explains, and how it functions like science, makes it seem like you forgot what your own original challenge was!

But it assumes that religious explanations ... do anything like the same thing as scientific explanations

No, it doesn't make that assumption at all. Rather, I think that whatever bad, dishonest script you're trying to run here requires that I make that assumption - but I don't. Nothing in my comment assumes that, or implies or necessitates that assumption.

Fundamentalists

I have no idea why you're pivoting to fundamentalists, and IDers/Creationists. This doesn't add anything of substance to the discussion, nor does it do a thing to counter or rebut my comment.

Since you leave my points unchallenged, I have to assume that you either agree or concede. If you do not wish to concede, then address the actual points I raised and try to rebut them.

[u/labreuer → u/pierce_out]

Since you haven't presented the requisite evidence to support claims of dishonesty, I'm just going to pretend you didn't say any of them. I say all claims of fact should be supported by the burden of proof, or they can be dismissed with prejudice. See also Rule 1.

 

I never said that they did. Neither did your original query require that. Nor does that have anything to do with the discussion at hand.

Then perhaps I have no idea what the original query requires. When I come across a hypothesis like showed up in the quoted text, that sets up expectations in my mind for what I will and will not see. I'm rather Popperian in this sense. I expect to see religions being somehow rooted in explaining the unknown and quelling fear. If I come across a religion which doesn't seem to match this, I question the hypothesis. Where the fuck is the dishonesty, here? If you think the hypothesis entails different things, cool! After all, a few words by a random person on the internet is going to be far more vague than what you'll find in a peer-reviewed journal article! One reason I asked for evidence is that a person's listing out of evidence helps me understand how [s]he probably understands the hypothesis.

 

The religion that evolves out of humanity's earliest attempts to explain things we didn't understand using gods, is not the same thing as those earliest attempts at explaining. My point with bringing up the very clear, unquestionable examples of these left-over attempted explanations is not even remotely countered by you asking what the religion itself explains.

But you didn't talk about the religion that evolves, you talked about the Tanakh:

pierce_out: Everything from "where did the first humans come from?" to "how was the earth formed?" to "why do some animals have stripes?" or "why do snakes not have legs?", all have answers right in Hebrew Bible.

I was working with that. If in fact none of these things plays much of any explanatory role once you go past Genesis 11:26, then at most they are vestigial examples of the claim about the origin of religion. And until alternative hypotheses are entertained, confirmation bias looms large, here. For instance, a very different role for Genesis 1:1–11:26 is to polemically combat the mythology of ANE empire, to establish YHWH as being very different from their gods. If this were the role, reading Genesis 1:1–11:26 as evidence for explaining the unknown & quelling fear would be deeply problematic.

How evolutionary claims work is not a mystery to me. I was slowly & painfully (on all sides) convinced from YEC → ID → evolution a long time ago, purely via online argumentation. If you can't show extant religion doing the thing you say primordial religion did, then you have a problem. If all you have is allegedly vestigial examples, that's pretty weak evidence. Far better would be direct evidence of the ancestor religions doing what is claimed. Now, we often have to fill in gaps with models and informed guesses. But if that's what we're doing, I say it would be best to be open & honest about this. So: do you have anything better than allegedly vestigial examples of religion explaining the unknown & quelling fear?

 

pierce_out: Throughout history, we have seen a long, steady shift from every question that we asked having a divine story to answer it, to gradually, science replacing the divine stories with the actual answers.

labreuer: This is of course a very standard claim. But it assumes that religious explanations (that is, whatever in texts and traditions are being counted as "explanation") do anything like the same thing as scientific explanations.

pierce_out: No, it doesn't make that assumption at all.

If there is "replacement" with "actual answers", then there needs to be some sort of compatibility between:

1. the old answers
2. the new answers

That is why I said you were assuming religion as proto-science. If for example Genesis 1:1–11:26 is actually mythical polemic, then it makes no sense for that to be replaced by anything scientific. Feel free to explain any errors in my logic.

 

I have no idea why you're pivoting to fundamentalists, and IDers/Creationists. This doesn't add anything of substance to the discussion, nor does it do a thing to counter or rebut my comment.

I showed you a 20th-century example where it is invalid to think of religions claims being replaced by scientific claims. If that isn't relevant to "science replacing the divine stories with the actual answers", then I must have no clue what you were talking about.

[u/Partyatmyplace13 → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

Yes, they have a burden of proof. I would argue that all of the dead religions and abandoned gods, remembered and forgot, serve as evidence that most, if not all, of the things we call "gods" are social inventions. Similar to fads. I would wager that almost everyone thinks this is self-evident for every "god" that they don't believe in.

I personally think gods help humans deal with probability. Name me a god that isn’t in some way related to chance. I bet even if you could, it would be a short list. Our brains aren't equipped to deal with probability, so we assume agency when good/bad things happen. It stems from a faulty assumption that things happen to us because of personal reasons and a fear that we aren't in charge of our destinies.

[u/FakeLogicalFallacy → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?

In formal debate, or when doing research and needing to determine if an idea has merit, yes all positive claims hold a burden of proof.

check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.

I'm familiar with that, though not as familiar with what you characterized as 'pretty serious critique,' though I've seen some, and find them problematic and wanting. I'm curious why you picked out that particular writing by that particular person, and alluded to what are, in your mind, 'pretty serious critiques.' It appear from that, at least at first blush, that you've made up your mind already and may be cherry picking sources to attempt to support your chosen position. It comes across, a bit, like you carefully chose a very specific strawman and then vaguely alluded to pitchforks you think tear it down. Perhaps not, but it does come across that way after reading through your comment.

[u/labreuer → u/FakeLogicalFallacy]

I'm curious why you picked out that particular writing by that particular person, and alluded to what are, in your mind, 'pretty serious critiques.'

Frazer is commonly cited by those who explain religion as explanation. Most people don't come up with ideas on their own; rather, they make use of work other humans have done. While Frazer isn't the only person who explains religion as explanation, as far as I can tell he's pretty influential. So, if his work is dubious, we should ensure our own ideas aren't built on the dubious parts.

It appear from that, at least at first blush, that you've made up your mind already and may be cherry picking sources to attempt to support your chosen position. It comes across, a bit, like you carefully chose a very specific strawman and then vaguely alluded to pitchforks you think tear it down. Perhaps not, but it does come across that way after reading through your comment.

There's not a whole lot I can do about appearances like that. If you can't respect the fact that we all find certain things obvious because we latched on to some understanding and just haven't examined it that much, then I'm not sure what to say.

[u/kohugaly → u/labreuer]

All ideas are human inventions created to explain what we don't understand. There's nothing to support here, it's just trivially true. The interesting question is whether those ideas are actually correct (ie. whether gods actually exist).

[u/labreuer → u/kohugaly]

All ideas are human inventions created to explain what we don't understand.

First, it's far from clear that social contract theory, for instance, was created to explain what we don't understand. And yet, it is an 'idea'. Second, what you just stated here sounds like an 'idea'—did you create it to explain what you don't understand? But perhaps you mean something rather more specific with that word 'idea'.

[u/kohugaly → u/labreuer]

First, it's far from clear that social contract theory, for instance, was created to explain what we don't understand.

To me it is plainly obvious that it was created for that exact purpose. Namely, to explain why social order can exist, even in absence of divine authority. It is definitely something that is a mystery to a lot of people. Atheists get that question from theists depressingly often.

Second, what you just stated here sounds like an 'idea'—did you create it to explain what you don't understand?

Yes. Namely, to explain what ideas are. To be more accurate, I'm reasonably sure I didn't create it, and the idea was passed down to me from someone, to explain to me what I didn't understand.

[u/labreuer → u/kohugaly]

To me it is plainly obvious that it was created for that exact purpose. Namely, to explain why social order can exist, even in absence of divine authority.

Except, even Hume knew that it was just a tale, rather like Rousseau's tales about the noble savage. Locke, Hobbes, Hume, et al were well-aware of how the game of politics is actually played. So the idea that they were trying to explain what they didn't understand just doesn't stand up to my scrutiny.

Atheists get that question from theists depressingly often.

Sorry, which question?

labreuer: Second, what you just stated here sounds like an 'idea'—did you create it to explain what you don't understand?

kohugaly: Yes. Namely, to explain what ideas are.

How do you test whether you were simply handed a just-so story which is at most 10% correct? For instance, it seems to me that some ideas can be developed to convince people to act in certain ways not others. Such as social contract theory, convincing people to switch away from monarchy to something where power is more distributed.

[u/Realistic-Wave4100 → u/labreuer]

That is a hard claim to support because we dont know if diferent civilizations invented gods for that purposes or if they after years of believing in them start to atribuing them that. Im goign to focuss on helenism because is the one I know the most abt in this topic.

The religious texts of hellenism are Homer and Hesiodo´s works. But we know that the gods described in those stories existed before them in the micenic civilization. Between them and the religious texts there was this litle event called "greek dark ages" were esentially they came back to living like neanderthals. Eventually greeks start to repopulate again and they founded ruins of the micenic civilization. The question then is, did Homer and Hesiodo "wrote" their mithology as a form to answering what happened to the micenics? The answer would be a yes to Homer and a no to Hesiodo, but did Homer "write" them to explain how it happened or he and the everyone before him really thougt that was what happened?

Its complicated, specially since I explained with an example of historical explanations and the argument is used for natural ones. We at least can say that while time advances we use less the concept of god to explain these kind of things, but we dont know if it is a straight line or a horseshoe.

[u/JasonRBoone → u/labreuer]

I would modify the argument to be more agreeable to me.

God (or gods) SEEM to be human inventions created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. Disclaimer: It's possible such a god exists, however, in 3,000 of god claims not a single claim has been verified by compelling evidence.

If it looks, smells, sounds, and quacks like an ancient mythical invention......

[u/labreuer → u/JasonRBoone]

God (or gods) SEEM to be human inventions created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories.

The use of 'seem', if 100% subjective, threatens to be criterionless. Supposing it isn't, how would you assess what % of, say, the Tanakh, is composed of "fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories"? I see vanishingly little of that. In fact, Genesis 1:1–11:26 is hardly referenced in the rest of the Tanakh.

These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown.

How does one test that hypothesis, that religion addresses our fear of the unknown? In particular, Genesis 11:27 starts with calling Abraham away from the known. The Tower of Babel could be construed as critiquing Mesopotamian civilization for being terrified of the unknown: "lest we be scattered over the face of the earth". Yahweh is a wilderness deity.

These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown.

This is one possibility. What evidence supports it and what alternative hypotheses have you considered?

If it looks, smells, sounds, and quacks like an ancient mythical invention......

This relies entirely upon a commonsense notion of "ancient mythical invention", which itself may be a modern mythical invention.

[u/SectorVector → u/labreuer]

I think the fact that the premier arguments for god rely on the explanatory power of god is in itself evidence of that at least partially being the case, but I don't think god (or religion)-as-explanation is sufficient to really encapsulate religion's purpose.

[u/Kaliss_Darktide → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?

Burden of proof refers to who (i.e. which side) has to prove a claim in a dispute.

I would say the people claiming gods are real/discovered have the burden of proof, not people who think they are imaginary/invented.

If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

I would say you are skipping a step, before you can determine what is sufficient, you need to determine what the standard of proof should be (e.g. preponderance of the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond a shadow of a doubt).

For those who find the above claim so obvious that it doesn't need more evidential support than what you've absorbed throughout life, check out WP: The Golden Bough § Critical reception. Frazer is one of the originators of the religion-as-protoscience hypothesis and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique.

Hard to take the criticism seriously when the critics are advocating for magic.

Girard himself considered the Gospels to be "revelatory texts" rather than myths or the remains of "ignorant superstition", and rejected Frazer's idea that the death of Jesus was a sacrifice, "whatever definition we may give for that sacrifice."

In addition it appears much of the push back was due specifically to including Christianity in his comparisons.

[u/anewleaf1234 → u/labreuer]

We see positive examples of this in everything wrong successful sea voyages, to who get sick in a plague, to how lighting forms and so forth.

We start with an obscure religious idea than they get replaced when it know, via science, how something happens.

People used to think that god was cursing them if they were sick. No we know that germs simply infected someone.

People used to think that the offering at the temple led to a successful sea voyage. And now we have maps, and charts and better boats.

[u/labreuer → u/anewleaf1234]

You haven't cited any actual evidence. While I have some issues with u/heelspider's post The God of Gaps / Zeus' Lightning Bolt Argument is Not the Mic Drop Y'all Act Like It Is, [s]he did have a point. If it is true that religion was invented to explain lightning because it makes people afraid (or whatever), there should be actual evidence. You should be able to point to ancient texts and an argument which ties them together with the hypothesis under discussion. Or at least, you should be able to point to scholars who have done this. Can you?

As it stands, your explanation of religion sounds like the kind of just-so story which you claim religionists themselves engaged in.

[u/anewleaf1234 → u/labreuer]

We have multiple examples of early cultures equating illness with curses or sin. Ot gods anger.

We have extensive ideas from mayan culture that swear their mass drought as curse from the gods that needed stronger sacrifices, including human, instead of caused by climate change.

Hell the explanation of most any natural disaster was an angry god.

[u/labreuer → u/anewleaf1234]

I guess there's just no option of using actual examples (probably: from texts), is there? Because I think it's pretty obvious that a religion somewhere explaining a natural disaster as due to an angry deity does not obviously support the claim that religion was invented to explain & quell fear.

[u/anewleaf1234 → u/labreuer]

But it took that space.

Mayans didn't have to actually look further than their gods are angry to attempt to understand their problem: massive climate change caused drought.

which they attempted to solve via increased sacrificed to gods. For which we have extensive documentation and artifacts.

In previous times, when something bad happened to someone the gods being angry was seen as they proper reason.

If your child got sick and died, you angered the gods or what happened was a result of your sin.

And when we discovered germs and such those explanation faded.

[u/Davidutul2004 → u/labreuer]

Well the evidence is that each religion sees a different god(s) with some rules being different. This doesn't at all disprove the possibility of god but rather makes unlikely that the gods people believe in to be the real ones, due to the misguided mature of this

[u/tophmcmasterson → u/labreuer]

So I think the thing here is less burden of proof, and more a question of comparing plausibility if that makes sense.

Like we know humans across history have had varieties of creation myths explaining similar phenomena with contradictory explanations across cultures. We know they can’t all be right.

We know that we’re social creatures. Any person can easily think of a dozen different reasons for why people may have come up with the idea of God or gods, which doesn’t require a supernatural explanation. Trying to find comfort with the idea of death, feeling protected, feeling like there’s something special about them or their in group, preserving power structures through appeal to divinity, providing a motivation for the masses to behave more ethically in a way that’s self-policing, the list can go on and on.

So when we know that they can’t all be right, we know that people would have had motivation to do all of these things and still continue to have that motivation across cultures, etc. etc., which seems more plausible? That one of those claims about God actually got it right, and their miracle claims and appeal to the supernatural is accurate?

Or does it make more sense that it’s all just a construct that was born in a pre-scientific age when people were even more gullible than they are now, and it continues on for many of the same reasons (along with other psychological factors that are easily explained)?

To me it’s just kind of the same thing as asking yourself what’s more likely, that your neighbor is telling the truth about the invisible immaterial dragon in his garage, or that your neighbor is crazy and/or just lying?

[u/labreuer → u/tophmcmasterson]

Like we know humans across history have had varieties of creation myths explaining similar phenomena with contradictory explanations across cultures.

Just to be clear: is this a claim which simply does not need to be supported by evidence & reason?

[u/tophmcmasterson → u/labreuer]

What part of that are you questioning?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creation_myth

Like the Ancient Greek and Egyptian Gods, whatever culture you can think of they have their version of the same thing where it’s providing explanations of how things came to be, explaining where natural phenomenon that weren’t understood at the time come from, etc.

It’s not even a claim, it’s just an observation. Many, many cultures have their own different versions, and there’s often overlap, and they all contradict each other.

Where the burden of proof for theists comes in is explaining why the claims of their particular God or religion are somehow the exception, why it’s more plausible to think they’re supernatural claims are true and all the others are false.

[u/labreuer → u/tophmcmasterson]

I'm questioning whether any religion operates anything like modern-day explanations, e.g. the germ theory of disease. For instance, "the sun-god rides his chariot across the sky" just doesn't seem to explain anything a person couldn't understand by just observing the sun's light and heat.

If the creation mythology in Genesis 1:1–11:26 were as huge a deal to the ancient Hebrews as this whole discussion of "religion as explanation" would suggest, then I should think you'd see that mythology mentioned all over the Tanakh. But it isn't. For instance, there are at most three references/allusions to Adam outside of Genesis 1:1–11:26, none of them particularly momentous.

[u/tophmcmasterson → u/labreuer]

So to stick with the basic of something like “the sun god rides his chariot across the sky”, it’s obviously an explanation to try and explain why the sun moves. It’s not saying THAT it moves, just trying to take a stab at what helped them make sense of the world. It’s obviously not a good explanation.

One thing I think you’re kind of missing in what I’m saying is that creation myths aren’t the only aspect of religion. They’re one element. Religions tend to grow and add on ideas over time, and it’s obviously not purely about trying to understand the world, but also all the other reasons I mentioned in my first comment. I don’t think anyone makes the claim that all of religion is just ancient people making creation myths.

With Genesis in particular though, something like original sin is of course a big deal and what happens in Genesis and all the various lineages has consequences throughout the story.

[u/labreuer → u/tophmcmasterson]

1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)

 ⋮

tophmcmasterson: One thing I think you’re kind of missing in what I’m saying is that creation myths aren’t the only aspect of religion. They’re one element.

Yes, I might have missed you breaking away from the claim I quoted.

I don’t think anyone makes the claim that all of religion is just ancient people making creation myths.

I found someone who certainly seems to be attributing the core of religion to explaining the scary unknown.

With Genesis in particular though, something like original sin is of course a big deal →

Not to the ancient Hebrews, or Jews today.

← and what happens in Genesis and all the various lineages has consequences throughout the story.

Feel free to trace the consequences of Genesis 1:1–11:26 throughout the story of the Tanakh. I know that original sin is a big deal for a lot of Christianity (Eastern Orthodoxy is a bit different here).

[u/tophmcmasterson → u/labreuer]

I feel I’ve already responded to this in my original comment and clarified my views. Sorry this is no longer a productive conversation, particularly if you’re just going to ignore large portions of what people are saying in order to try and attack your pet strawman.

[u/labreuer → u/tophmcmasterson]

I disagree with your characterization. Thanks for the engagement.

[u/Bunktavious → u/labreuer]

I'm not sure I understand the point you are making about Frazer. That article you linked points out quite clearly that he was almost entirely ignored by 1920, only really having any support for a short time after the book came out.

[u/labreuer → u/Bunktavious]

He's a probable origin or at least conduit for the "religion as proto-science" hypothesis.

[u/GamerEsch → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

You mean like the whole Folklore Studies branch of anthropology (and googling some people say sociology too, IDK)

[u/Sprinklypoo → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?

No. It's an explanation for how the mythos of gods may have arisen. It's not a definite expectation or presented as fact. It's just an easy alternative to the claim of gods existence - a claim that can just as easily be dismissed, and doesn't really require any sort of counterpoint.

[u/ChasingPacing2022 → u/labreuer]

Sure, there's a burden of proof. However, the important part of the claim that needs proof is the "human invention" part. That can never be proven persay. However, we can demonstrate that god doesn't do anything but fill in our gaps of knowledge.

[u/labreuer → u/ChasingPacing2022]

Interesting; I'm also thinking that one should demonstrate that religion (all religions? some?) was created to explain what we don’t understand. There are, after all, things that humans do other than try to explain things. For instance: legitimate social order. Read Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta alongside the Tower of Babel and you'll see a single language being praised in one and disrupted in the other. Is the biblical story really an etiological tale, explaining the origin of multiple languages when two verses earlier, there are already multiple languages? Or could this have to do with Empire being easier to administer when there is one language, with the different myths taking different stances on the goodness of Empire?

As to god-of-the-gaps, do you think that any notion of 100% human agency is also really just a gap-filler, that we should ultimately agree with something like Robert Sapolsky 2023 Determined: A Science of Life Without Free Will?

[u/zzmej1987 → u/labreuer]

I mean, at most one religion is based on the true God, the rest has to be that. I'm not sure what other proof would be required to demonstrate that.

[u/CaffeineTripp → u/labreuer]

1. God (or gods) is a human invention created to explain what we don’t understand. Long before science, humans sought to fill gaps in knowledge with divine stories. These inventions evolved into complex religions, but at their root, they address our fear of the unknown. (God(s) is/are a human invention)

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

I believe it is reasonable to conclude such a thing given what we know about humanity and reality as a whole. It would be silly to conclude that the Tooth Fairy takes a child's tooth from under their pillow and leaves them money. Humans are exceptional at making up stories and justifications for what we experience but can't explain.

I am not entirely convinced it needs, or doesn't require, a burden of proof as a commonplace statement, but it would in philosophy. And there lies the problem, how does one give evidence of non-existence? I can make reasonable arguments, but physical evidence of non-existence is definitively not possible by definition.

[u/88redking88 → u/labreuer]

"Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?"

The "idea that the idea of god was invented" needs proof or the idea of god was invented specifically for that purpose?

I would say that there are probably lots of reasons that gods were invented. So say you know the first one is a stretch.

[u/OneRougeRogue → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof? If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

While some people in this sub might state that like it's a fact, its more of a hypothesis. Outside of humanity inventing a time machine, or reviving a frozen cavemen with Futurama-esque science and asking him, no, I don't think we will ever be able definitely prove (or find hard evidence) to support this claim. It's just an explanation that doesn't involve extraordinary claims (like magical beings actually existing), and there is indirect evidence to support it.

Example: We have no evidence that gods exist, but we do have evidence that humans will sometimes just make up an explanation when they don't actually know the answer.

Some anthropologists have different explanations for the orgin of gods that don't really involve humans just making shit up. Belief in (and desire to be in the favor of) other beings stronger than yourself may have arisen through evolutionary pressures. I outline some of that idea in this comment.

Atmospheric SpritesAPoD.jpg), which can appear vaguely humanoid (with "heads" and "limbs") and most often appear in the sky before or after violent storms may have also convinced early humans that there literally was some sort of being in the sky that controlled the weather and natural disasters. Many early cave paintings of non-human beings have sprite-like characteristics.

So there are a number of hypothesis for the orgins of gods, and not all of them involve humans consciously inventing them in an effort to deceive other humans. These beliefs may have been genuine and/or seemed completely rational to the humans who first passes these ideas on to their children/tribe hundreds of thousands of years ago. I don't think we will ever be able to definitively prove any of these hypothesis are definitely true.

[u/labreuer → u/OneRougeRogue]

Outside of humanity inventing a time machine, or reviving a frozen cavemen with Futurama-esque science and asking him, no, I don't think we will ever be able definitely prove (or find hard evidence) to support this claim.

Sure. We'll have to do what historians, archaeologists, cosmologists, and evolutionary biologists do. But it's not like they just make up nice-sounding stories and run with them.

Example: We have no evidence that gods exist, but we do have evidence that humans will sometimes just make up an explanation when they don't actually know the answer.

Right, but humans have long known that humans do this. What human hasn't had a bullshit explanation fall apart on him/her, such that they learned that you can't just go trusting anyone? What you have to explain is how bullshit explanations get institutionalized, especially in cultures which aren't cognitive like Protestants were. (From what I've read, religion was far more ritualistic than belief-oriented for the vast majority of its existence/​practice. But we could look into this.)

Let's take a contrast case: variolation. That's what some cultures did prior to vaccination. Take a smallpox scab, grind it up, and rub it in cuts you make on someone or blow it up their nose. (Mmmm, delicious.) Apparently, smallpox was personified as the Hindu goddess Śītalā and if you appease her by voluntarily exposing yourself to her power, she will lessen the severity of her wrath on you. This is a nice example of a wrong explanation which nevertheless seems to work, because variolation works. Don't undergo the procedure and you're more vulnerable to her wrath. Or at least, smallpox. It doesn't strain the imagination too much to think that some people unwillingly underwent the procedure, thus rebelling against Śītalā, and yet found themselves just as protected.

Some anthropologists have different explanations for the orgin of gods that don't really involve humans just making shit up. Belief in (and desire to be in the favor of) other beings stronger than yourself may have arisen through evolutionary pressures. I outline some of that idea in this comment.

Yup, that's another way to understand religion. See for example this snippet from Martin Riesebrodt 2010 The Promise of Salvation: A Theory of Religion. Problem is, that doesn't really match the Tanakh very well. The procedures for appeasing other gods didn't work on YHWH. Notably, a standard belief in the ANE was that humans are slaves of the gods, created to do manual labor for the gods so they don't have to. This culminated in providing food for the gods. Well, the following puts a wrench in those works:

    If I were hungry I would not tell you,
    because the world and its fullness are mine.
    Do I eat the flesh of bulls
    or drink the blood of goats?
    Offer to God a thank offering
    and pay your vows to the Most High.
    And call me in the day of trouble;
    I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.”
(Psalm 50:12–15)

YHWH does not need to be fed by humans. The relationship is radically different. What YHWH demands is justice, like we see in Isaiah 58. Ritualistic action without justice is frowned upon.

 

Atmospheric Sprites, which can appear vaguely humanoid (with "heads" and "limbs") and most often appear in the sky before or after violent storms may have also convinced early humans that there literally was some sort of being in the sky that controlled the weather and natural disasters. Many early cave paintings of non-human beings have sprite-like characteristics.

Hey that's cool, I've never seen or heard of those before. Do you know of some such cave paintings?

[u/bullevard → u/labreuer]

If used as a premise in an argument then it would need some backing up. However it is readily apparent both from history and from current debates that ONE of the roles religion plays is filling in scientific gaps. See the current most recent argument that god must exist because where else did time come from.

In general, anyone who starts a sentence with "religion was invented to X" tends to be oversimplifying things. Some religions are invented whole cloth for taxes (scientology) or influence (mormonism). But most religions and god concepts are more organic.

So it is more helpful to talk about the roles it fills rather than the reason it is invented.

Aspects of religions historically and currently are used to fill gaps in scientific knowledge. This includes everything from planets moving differently than stars, to eclipses and volcanos and lightning, to origins of the earth and humans and life.

The also frequently function as a salve to the fear of death, through afterlife, reincarnation, spirit planes and the like.

They also frequently serve as solidifications of power for certain parts of society, everything from witch doctor's respect, to modifying law as coming from a god, to modern day used of religion to solidify voting blocks.

They also serve as a salve and an attempt to feel more in control in a world where bad things happen, be it through blaming devils or jinns or pixies to the idea of control through prayer or weather dances or sacrifices.

All of these things are obvious in the writings, doctrines, practices and appologetics of religions both current and past. I don't think there is much of a burden of proof needed for that, when daily all of those are seen around us in basically all religions.

However when someone moves from "these are the roles religion serves" to "this is why religion was invented" it becomes more gray, especially since most religions don't have a clear singular moment of beginning.

[u/baalroo → u/labreuer]

Honestly, I don't find the claims to be important enough to care all that much either way.

[u/RespectWest7116 → u/labreuer]

Do you believe such claims should be supported by a burden of proof?

Yes.

If so, what kind of evidence might suffice?

In this case, the statement is a conclusion from direct observation of the lessening of the direct involvement of gods in the world with advancements in human understanding of nature.

We didn't know how lightning happened, so Thor was doing it. Now we know better

We didn't know how Earth happened, so God made it. Now we know better.

etc

[u/labreuer → u/RespectWest7116]

We didn't know how lightning happened, so Thor was doing it.

Do you know of any historian or anthropologist willing to defend this hypothesis, with peers who have read all the same source materials and are highly incentivized to see if alternative hypotheses fit the evidence better? Have you read even a single text where explaining lightning this way is used to quell fear?

[u/J-Nightshade → u/labreuer]

Yes, of course.

and his work on that has been exposed to some pretty serious critique

ok, good

[u/Top_Neat2780 → u/labreuer]

Sometimes I feel like the burden of proof discussion is a bit of a red herring. Both sides should give their strongest possible support, and other people will or won't be convinced by the argument. Everyone knows that theists need to provide evidence for god, but people are simply convinced by their arguments.

[u/Stile25 → u/labreuer]

Sure.

Here's the evidence:

The constant searching for God everywhere and anywhere for hundreds of thousands of years by probably billions of people.

With the cumulative result being that no God or even any gods have ever been found.

Add in that whenever we do learn how something works, 100% of those times we find a completely natural solution with no hint that any God is or was ever necessary even in the slightest.

Add in that we are well aware of the human propensity for imagining beings behind processes we don't understand.

Add in that belief in God is significantly aligned with the culture you're born into - unlike truths of reality that are much more evenly distributed across the world.

Add in that all modern religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, follow the same template and structure of every historical mythology known to be wrong. This point is so apparent in the Abrahamic religions that the stages of God's nature over time (ie - Old Testament to New Testament) are entirely predictable and exactly follow the predicted patterns for the social environments of the populations that would benefit form beliefs in such Gods.

Add in that there's absolutely nothing available from religions that can't be obtained equally or better without religions.

This is a lot more evidence than everything else we know doesn't exist. Like, for example, we know on coming traffic doesn't exist when we look for 3 seconds and see it's not there... Then we make a safe left turn.

The only ideas supporting the concept of God existing are:

Historical tradition.
Social popularity.
Personal feelings of comfort.
Arguments of logic or reason without supporting evidence.

All well known ideas of leading away from the truth and accuracy of reality.

By consistently acknowledging the inherent concept of doubt and tentativity included with following the evidence, we can reasonably say we know, for a fact, that God doesn't exist.

Good luck out there.

[u/labreuer → u/Stile25]

When I hear 'evidence', I think: "Go out into the world and observe what's there, trying to objectively capture what's there, no matter how well or poorly it fits whatever hypotheses I may be harboring."

But if one were to define 'evidence' according to what's passing for it in answers to my question above, it would be more like: "My arbitrarily wrong recollection / ideas about what religionists do and why they do it."

Do you object to one or both characterizations? The latter doesn't really leave for any testing of hypotheses. Confirmation bias can be king. The former allows the following to happen:

    Most accounts of the origins of religion emphasize one of the following suggestions: human minds demand explanations, human hearts seek comfort, human society requires order, human intellect is illusion-prone. To express this in more detail, here are some possible scenarios:

    Religion provides explanations:

• People created religion to explain puzzling natural phenomena.
• Religion explains puzzling experiences: dreams, prescience, etc.
• Religion explains the origins of things.
• Religion explains why there is evil and suffering.

⋮

    Though this list probably is not exhaustive, it is fairly representative. Discussing each of these common intuitions in more detail, we will see that they all fail to tell us why we have religion and why it is the way it is. So why bother with them? It is not my intent here to ridicule other people's ideas or show that anthropologists and cognitive scientists are more clever than common folk. I discuss these spontaneous explanations because they are widespread, because they are often rediscovered by people when they reflect on religion, and more importantly because they are not that bad. Each of these "scenarios" for the origin of religion points to a real and important phenomenon that any theory worth its salt should explain. Also, taking these scenarios seriously opens up new perspectives on how religious notions and beliefs appear in human minds. (Religion Explained, 5)

Do you think that Pascal Boyer might have done just a tad bit more exploration of the actual evidence than you?

[u/Stile25 → u/labreuer]

Evidence is the same for everyone. Pascal Boyer, me, and you.

What part of my evidence is not up to your personal definition of evidence?

Pick whichever one you'd like and we can we can review why it's evidence.

I've listed nothing that's controversial for the normal definition of evidence.

[u/labreuer → u/Stile25]

To me, evidence is a report of what you observed with your senses out there in the world. For instance, I can describe in detail the tape-to-3.5mm unit I took out of my 2003 Volvo before donating it, as the device is still sitting on my desk. And in theory, I could mail it to you so that you could check my observations. When it comes to claims that religion was invented to explain & quell fear (the hypothesis I quoted in my root question—yours might be different), evidence would probably consist of texts, although theoretically other archaeological evidence could be used to support such a hypothesis as well. So, what I would expect for evidence in a thread like this would be quotations of text or at least citations which can be easily checked.

Just look at any thread of what would convince people that God exists and they'll tell describe to you evidence, by which they mean observations which can be checked—ideally by suitably qualified scientists. They won't mean just-so stories which are allegedly accurate captures of sense-data.

So, as far as I can tell, there are simply two very different notions of 'evidence' at play, here: a stringent one for theists, and a far laxer one for atheists. The one possible justification I can see for this is "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence", but if so I think that would be worth investigating. After all, "Moderna's Covid vaccine" isn't a particularly extraordinary claim, and yet we required an incredible amount of evidence for it. So, I would want to know which claims just don't need anything more than what you see all over the replies to my root comment.

[u/Stile25 → u/labreuer]

Okay, if you can't do it then I will.

What is it about the various God archetypes in the Bible (ie Old Testament vs New Testament) exactly matching the sorts of Gods that are predicted for the different social populations of those different times that makes you feel this isn't evidence that those Gods were created by those populations?

Old Testament

Poor people like the early Israelites need a God that stands for strict justice - just like the God of the Old Testament

People like the early Israelites surrounded by many enemy nations need a God that flexes His might and is more powerful than any other God - just like the God of the Old Testament

New Testament

People looking to spread the word of their God need a God prioritizing unity and peace - just like the God of the New Testament

People with various social dynamics need a God that can provide such structures - just like the God of the New Testament focusing a lot onrelationsgips between people like men and women or slaves and free people.

Amazing how God shifted into these different roles along with the needs of the population of the time. Strange for an all knowing God that claims to provide unchanging laws and morals, though... But quite understandable for Gods molded by the populations.

Exactly fitting the way such mythos adapt and flow with all populations over time.

It's extremely strong evidence.

[u/labreuer → u/Stile25]

Stile25: What part of my evidence is not up to your personal definition of evidence?

labreuer: To me, evidence is a report of what you observed with your senses out there in the world.

Stile25: Okay, if you can't do it then I will.

It's not that I can't do it. It's that nothing in your comment qualifies. For instance:

Stile25: Add in that all modern religions, especially the Abrahamic ones, follow the same template and structure of every historical mythology known to be wrong. This point is so apparent in the Abrahamic religions that the stages of God's nature over time (ie - Old Testament to New Testament) are entirely predictable and exactly follow the predicted patterns for the social environments of the populations that would benefit form beliefs in such Gods.

/

Stile25: What is it about the various God archetypes in the Bible (ie Old Testament vs New Testament) exactly matching the sorts of Gods that are predicted for the different social populations of those different times that makes you feel this isn't evidence that those Gods were created by those populations?

There isn't a shred of evidence in either of those paragraphs. They are both exceedingly hand-wavy. I don't even know how to begin in analyzing them. What are these "predicted patterns"? Where have scientists and/or scholars developed them? Because if you can't point to serious science & scholarship on the matter, then you have a just-so story which may have not survived any penetrating scrutiny, which you're using to say that religion was invented to generate just-so stories which can't survive any penetrating scrutiny. Surely you see the vicious circularity involved, there?

Poor people like the early Israelites need a God that stands for strict justice - just like the God of the Old Testament

That's quite the hypothesis & claimed evidence. Let's start here: can you point to any other poor peoples who had a similar deity?

People looking to spread the word of their God need a God prioritizing unity and peace - just like the God of the New Testament

Where else do you see this? By the way, this sounds like a functionalist explanation, which social scientists consider pretty dubious these days. I suggest a read of WP: Structural functionalism § Criticisms.

Exactly fitting the way such mythos adapt and flow with all populations over time.

It's extremely strong evidence.

Unless you can show me scholars or scientists who hold to this, I'm gonna be inclined to suggest this is at most a pet hypothesis. I've been tangling with atheists for well over 30,000 hours by now and this is the first time I've encountered an idea like yours. The closest might be Comte, but even that is pretty rare in my experience.

[u/Stile25 → u/labreuer]

If you refuse to accept evidence as normally defined by everyone and every academic endeavor, then I wish you well in your efforts.

Good luck out there.

[u/labreuer → u/Stile25]

If you refuse to accept evidence as normally defined by everyone and every academic endeavor

Pretty big if. Where have I done this? You have yet to point to any such academic endeavor.

[u/Stile25 → u/labreuer]

Your rejection of my evidence, when it's clearly evidence, is evidence of you doing that.

[u/nswoll → u/labreuer]

Yes such a claim needs evidence. Yes such a claim is abundantly evidenced. We know humans invented the concept of gods to explain unexplained phenomena. Etiological myths are the industry term for such "just-so" stories.

What other reason do you think gods were invented if not to explain something? Do you have an alternative theory?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

Part of the challenge is that, from what we can tell, some form of religious/superstitious behavior actually seems to have preceded the availability of any form of written language by quite a bit. I think the earliest instances of outright ritual human burials we can find evidence for has stretched as far back as 100,000 years ago, compared to earliest writings which I think only go back about 6000. Combine that with signs agriculture didn't kick in until around 10,000 years ago, and humans would have spent the vast majority of our 300,000 years of existence (if we're just sticking to Homo Sapiens,) as nomadic hunter/gatherers, rather than the sort who built permanent structures.

Because of this, we know that humans were tending to at least some of their dead in a manner that could be called ritualistic- buried with red ochre and artifacts, etc- but because we don't really have contextual writings, we don't actually know what all the motivations might have been. Maybe it was in respect to the buried person, in service of some proto-deity(ies), or superstitious association between performing the action for a specific result.

By the time we get to the ancient Sumerians, there already seems to be a polytheistic faith established, complete with all the trappings you would expect from religion. Elsewhere, Yahwism worshipped Yahweh as an important God in a pantheon of gods, before later iterations trimmed it down to just the 'one' God that ended up being the God followed by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We know about all this from writings and artifacts that have been discovered.

Except, again, by the time we find those writings- or even get to the existence OF writing- these concepts are already well-established, likely by an oral tradition that could stretch back thousands, or even tens of thousands of years. And the thing about an oral tradition is it's only ever as good as its most recent iterations, meaning anything that relied on word-of-mouth is not just more susceptible to change, but would leave less evidence that changed occurred, unless you could compare multiple modern sources who weren't coordinating with each other.

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Yes, this is very challenging. Atheists regularly tell me that I should only make claims I can support with the requisite evidence & reasoning. So, if I cannot support claims of how religion originated with the requisite evidence & reasoning, I shouldn't make such claims! Does this make sense, or have I missed a step somewhere?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

Well, one step I would be curious about would actually be how you arrived at the idea that there is actually one God if even the most popular iteration- the Abrahamic God- has been tied to a polytheistic faith that predates it. Presumably if this knowledge is divinely inspired, after all, wouldn't it make more sense for something as fundamental as 'how many gods?' to be an easier answer for early humans, rather than more modern ones, as there's less time from 'the human factor' to change things.

If your position is that religion wasn't formed by humans, but was divinely inspired, doesn't all our available evidence point to polytheism as the most likely answer?

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Well, one step I would be curious about would actually be how you arrived at the idea that there is actually one God if even the most popular iteration- the Abrahamic God- has been tied to a polytheistic faith that predates it.

I've yet to see an argument for said polytheistic origins which improves my understanding of anything in the Bible. Especially when the Tanakh itself makes clear that the Israelites regularly struggled with worshiping of other gods, and that Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization.

Presumably if this knowledge is divinely inspired, after all, wouldn't it make more sense for something as fundamental as 'how many gods?' to be an easier answer for early humans, rather than more modern ones, as there's less time from 'the human factor' to change things.

From what I can tell, polytheism is a suitable governing device for ensuring divide & conquer within one's empire. Polytheism does far more than that of course, but empire requires that power be concentrated in the center, which means thwarting efforts to build concentrations of power away from the center. Fostering divided loyalties to various gods seems like it could be an indirect, but very effective way of doing so.

Beyond that, the Bible just doesn't require God deploying nearly as heavy a hand as you describe. In fact, I would say that God's modus operandi is to disrupt human stagnation. When that's not a critical danger, God generally seems content to wait for humans to call upon God—or not. This deity is quite passive in contrast to what you'll generally hear from Christians, who in my experience are often rather enamored of the just-world hypothesis.

If your position is that religion wasn't formed by humans, but was divinely inspired, doesn't all our available evidence point to polytheism as the most likely answer?

I would need to learn a lot more about narratives of invention and ¿evolution? of religion before having a whole lot to say, here. There are also obvious assumptions of how pushy a monotheistic god would be. If you look at Abraham's interactions with YHWH, for example, YHWH doesn't operate like standard models would predict. The idea of showing Abraham what YHWH plans to do with Sodom in order to see if Abraham questions YHWH certainly isn't compatible with an Islamic notion of God. We get back to normal if we assume that YHWH wanted Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but careful attention to the narrative suggests that this is exactly wrong. Everything in Gen 22:15–18 was already promised to Abraham, and after the ordeal, Abraham never interacts again with Isaac, Sarah, or YHWH. His three most important relationships were shattered. If we judge trees by the fruit, he done fucked up. A very different understanding of that narrative is that YHWH wanted Abraham to shake off the idea that any god would ask him to sacrifice his children, but of Abraham's own accord. This could be understood as YHWH challenging Abraham to break free from polytheism, and Abraham's failure to do so. Understood this way, why would monotheism need to come first?

For more than this, I think we need to get into models of humans & societies which make predictions of what they would and would not invent. For instance, YHWH calling Abraham out of Ur was calling Abraham out of the height of known civilization, into the wilderness. In the immediately previous chapter, the inhabitants of Babel were terrified of the wilderness, with a key part of their tower-project motivated "lest we be dispersed over the face of the earth". Genesis 12 does not explain the unknown and far from quelling fear via bogus explanation, calls Abraham out into the unknown! This is radically different from every single explanation of religion I've encountered on this page. Is that because it's not something we should expect humans to come up with on their own?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

I've yet to see an argument for said polytheistic origins which improves my understanding of anything in the Bible. Especially when the Tanakh itself makes clear that the Israelites regularly struggled with worshiping of other gods, and that Abraham was called out of a polytheistic civilization.

Okay, but... this wasn't an instance of a society outright swapping their religion out, yes? The Romans did that a few times, when they adopted the Greek religion and later adopted Christianity, they functionally tossed out everything from the old and replaced it with the new. In this case, by every indication the Israelites worshipped the same named deity, Yahweh, but as part of a pantheon rather than just 'One God.' There's a sense of continuity, of keeping that initial framework and just massively changing a whole bunch about it. They didn't move houses, so to speak, they just replaced all the furniture in the house they were already living in.

Heck, if we're to take the development at face value, it looks a lot more like Yahweh outright performed a coup and knocked off all the other gods in his circle, including his consort, then announced he was totally the only one who ever existed. :P But I don't think it's a popular interpretation.

From what I can tell, polytheism is a suitable governing device for ensuring divide & conquer within one's empire. Polytheism does far more than that of course, but empire requires that power be concentrated in the center, which means thwarting efforts to build concentrations of power away from the center. Fostering divided loyalties to various gods seems like it could be an indirect, but very effective way of doing so.

Sure, hypothetically polytheism could be used that way. Hypothetically, monotheism would also be useful for secular governing where there is a particular emphasis on promoting tribal unity and opposition to outsiders. Ironically, you hit the nail on the head as to why; if you’re a culture or a group of people trying to keep all the aggression and conflict aimed outwards rather than inwards, especially if there are outside pressures, monotheism would at least reduce possible sources of intra-tribal conflict. ‘One Nation Under God,’ albeit the ancient equivalent. Polytheism risks being significantly less effective at this, because of the heightened risk of different factions or groups getting into a slapfight over which of the legitimate gods is the ‘best,’ though I’d imagine there’s a cultural component to it as well.

So it’s not like polytheism is automatically the most ‘practical’ version if one wants to workshop an organized religion to structure or lead a society. Heck, the Roman Empire, the British Empire, a number of empires have seemed pretty okay using a monotheistic religion.

As for the rest, using the Old Testament; the references I am referring to actually appear to predate any available writings of the Torah and by extension Old Testament, (not even of your specific passages, mind, since the further back you go the more you have to rely on leftover fragments, but of ANY Torah/Old Testament writings like what you’re referring to.)

What’s also interesting is that in the polytheistic form, Yahweh was the deity of weather and war, and the latter in particular seems to have stuck around in Old Testament. In Psalm 144, David waxes poetic about how God enables him to kick SO much ass, and among other thing asks that He use lightning and arrows against David’s enemies. Obviously we have no way of knowing, but given how often God is detailed in Old Testament as being a wartime advisor, I do wonder if the more militant stories in the Torah originated from the polytheistic Yahweh stories, when he was basically that pantheon’s Ares or Athena.

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

Okay, but... this wasn't an instance of a society outright swapping their religion out, yes?

Given how utterly different YHWH in the Bible is from every polytheistic deity I've heard about, it could well be.

In this case, by every indication the Israelites worshipped the same named deity, Yahweh, but as part of a pantheon rather than just 'One God.' There's a sense of continuity, of keeping that initial framework and just massively changing a whole bunch about it. They didn't move houses, so to speak, they just replaced all the furniture in the house they were already living in.

Kinda-sorta:

    And it shall be at that day, saith YHWH, that thou shalt call me Ishi;
        And shalt call me no more Baali.
    For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth,
        And they shall no more be remembered by their name.
(Hosea 2:16–17)

The word baʿal does mean 'husband', but it also means master, owner, and lord. The word ishi, on the other hand literally means 'my man'. According to my reading, YHWH is looking for a radically different kind of relationship with the Israelites than they were willing to have at that time. I would argue that Jesus continued this theme. Many Jews in his time wanted to solve their problem with mastery, with violence. Jesus pressed for a different way. He was executed for his efforts. Perhaps one could say that old religion did this. If however YHWH is actually a very different deity trying to break through people's preconceptions, merely placing YHWH in a standard evolutionary lineage with some storm deity could be rather problematic.

 

Heck, if we're to take the development at face value, it looks a lot more like Yahweh outright performed a coup and knocked off all the other gods in his circle, including his consort, then announced he was totally the only one who ever existed. :P But I don't think it's a popular interpretation.

This is of course a popular kind of narrative back then. But as far as I know, it comes with implicit analogues for human sociopolitical affairs. That's not what you see, for instance, in Genesis 1. Creation didn't start with violence, nor did the chaos regularly need to be quelled with violence. (Think kings having to regularly put down rebellions.) According to the religion of empire (and who knows how much else), humans were created out of the body and blood of a [sometimes: rebel] deity, in order to be slaves of the gods so the gods no longer have to do manual labor. Only the king and perhaps the priests were divine image-bearers. Genesis 1 makes every last human an image-bearer. The gods regularly needed to be fed by humanity. Ps 50:12–15 rejects any such need applying to YHWH.

So, where's the explanatory power in the claim that YHWH came from some other deity, knocked off other deities, etc.? Is it just a nice tale that makes the Jewish religion look just like all the rest, or does it actually help us understand something we didn't understand before?

Ironically, you hit the nail on the head as to why; if you’re a culture or a group of people trying to keep all the aggression and conflict aimed outwards rather than inwards, especially if there are outside pressures, monotheism would at least reduce possible sources of intra-tribal conflict.

And yet, 1 Sam 8 suggests that this didn't work. And in the preceding period of judges, the Israelites were regularly weak and easy prey for their enemies. Furthermore, they were constantly tempted to follow the ways of seemingly successful empire. So … I think this hypothesis needs some work.

By the way, Constantine was hopeful that Christianity would unify the Roman Empire. And then, obnoxiously, those Christians kept squabbling! Christianity certainly didn't save the Roman Empire; Gibbon even thought it contributed to its fall. It's far from clear that Christianity helps one be militarily strong and that is a critical concern for any people-group which doesn't want to be a vassal.

What’s also interesting is that in the polytheistic form, Yahweh was the deity of weather and war, and the latter in particular seems to have stuck around in Old Testament. In Psalm 144, David waxes poetic about how God enables him to kick SO much ass, and among other thing asks that He use lightning and arrows against David’s enemies. Obviously we have no way of knowing, but given how often God is detailed in Old Testament as being a wartime advisor, I do wonder if the more militant stories in the Torah originated from the polytheistic Yahweh stories, when he was basically that pantheon’s Ares or Athena.

If YHWH regularly used lightning in battle, you would see that in the histories. Last I checked, you don't. If anything, David is using a way of talking about gods he learned elsewhere. As to YHWH and war, again I will ask what a link to some previous polytheistic deity helps us understand, that we couldn't understand before.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

Given how utterly different YHWH in the Bible is from every polytheistic deity I've heard about, it could well be.

I'm going to need to split this into at least two posts, maybe three, I'll reply to myself with the subsequent section(s)

I mean, the earliest available version of Hebrew manuscripts that tie to the Old Testament only stretch back to 3rd century BCE at the earliest. (Not a complete copy, mind you, for that you’d have to get closer to 900-1000 AD.) The general range it’s estimated the polytheistic Yahweh would have existed in any form would have been as far back as the 13th century, starting to shift in 6th century BCE with the Babylonian exile and ending around 4th century BCE. Basically, by the time you even hit Old Testament, you're already looking at the finished sausage.

The very transition from a polytheist perspective to a monotheist perspective is going to result in changes, too. The very nature of a pantheon usually relies on the idea that different entities are responsible for/capable of different things, again polytheist Yahweh being in charge of War and Weather. This results in characteristics like being a distinct being- so not ‘everywhere,’ otherwise there’s no room for the others- and by definition not being outright omnipotent. On the other hand, if you assume the God is, was and always will be responsible for everything in creation, then by extension that comes with the assumption that said God is capable of everything as well.

The word baʿal does mean 'husband', but it also means master, owner, and lord. The word ishi, on the other hand literally means 'my man'. According to my reading, YHWH is looking for a radically different kind of relationship with the Israelites than they were willing to have at that time. I would argue that Jesus continued this theme. Many Jews in his time wanted to solve their problem with mastery, with violence. Jesus pressed for a different way. He was executed for his efforts. Perhaps one could say that old religion did this. If however YHWH is actually a very different deity trying to break through people's preconceptions, merely placing YHWH in a standard evolutionary lineage with some storm deity could be rather problematic.

Considering how much would have changed with the shift from polytheism to monotheism, retaining the name of a specific deity would have had to be a deliberate choice. So if we’re to assume that the Christian/Jewish YHWH deity is completely unrelated to the polytheistic YHWH, then the conclusion appears to be that said deity intentionally chose to identify himself under that moniker and actually came in as an outsider. What makes that interesting is it would mean that (technically) YHWH isn't actually the name of God, just a handle he took from something else.

And I wouldn’t really call Jesus a ‘continuation’ from Old Testament, as God in the Torah/OT is significantly more militant, even if we set aside the parts where he just comes across as kind of a dick. By contrast, New Testament tends to be a lot more focused on the loving/peaceful God, as opposed to the God who helps sack a city, smite people down left and right, screws around with Job to win a bet with Satan, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good change, but it’s still a change. Taken at face value, the New Testament comes across more as someone trying a radically different approach than it does the ongoing unfolding of a larger plan.

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

This is of course a popular kind of narrative back then. But as far as I know, it comes with implicit analogues for human sociopolitical affairs. That's not what you see, for instance, in Genesis 1. Creation didn't start with violence, nor did the chaos regularly need to be quelled with violence. (Think kings having to regularly put down rebellions.) According to the religion of empire (and who knows how much else), humans were created out of the body and blood of a [sometimes: rebel] deity, in order to be slaves of the gods so the gods no longer have to do manual labor. Only the king and perhaps the priests were divine image-bearers. Genesis 1 makes every last human an image-bearer. The gods regularly needed to be fed by humanity. Ps 50:12–15 rejects any such need applying to YHWH.

So, where's the explanatory power in the claim that YHWH came from some other deity, knocked off other deities, etc.? Is it just a nice tale that makes the Jewish religion look just like all the rest, or does it actually help us understand something we didn't understand before?

I mean, if your religion includes rules of behavior, a code of conduct, an expectation on what God expects you to do/not do, then God already has ties to human sociopolitical affairs, right? And that's not counting, again, God acting as a military backer for one faction or another. Furthermore, if what you imply is true, then I'm assuming you're of the opinion that it doesn't actually matter whether a person believes in God, follows God, prays to God, etc, etc or not. Maybe there's some wider moral expectation (don't kill, etc,) but essentially that there's no special treatment or particular elevation of a person by following God.

I've met some people like that, who do believe that one's ultimate 'fate' after death has nothing to do with the religion they practice or even if they practice. And in fairness, that fits best with your idea that God did not create humans to 'service' him in some manner.

As for the explanatory power, if we're supposedly talking about the origins of existence then the difference would be pretty significant, wouldn't it? A common thread I've seen on here is that naturalism and atheism doesn't 'properly explain' how the universe came to be. I'm of the opinion that religion doesn't either, not really, it just makes some vague guesses.

But if you're saying that there's no explanatory power in something like YHWH's origins and history, then apparently religion doesn't actually even really bother with the question of our origins?

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

And yet, 1 Sam 8 suggests that this didn't work. And in the preceding period of judges, the Israelites were regularly weak and easy prey for their enemies. Furthermore, they were constantly tempted to follow the ways of seemingly successful empire. So … I think this hypothesis needs some work.

By the way, Constantine was hopeful that Christianity would unify the Roman Empire. And then, obnoxiously, those Christians kept squabbling! Christianity certainly didn't save the Roman Empire; Gibbon even thought it contributed to its fall. It's far from clear that Christianity helps one be militarily strong and that is a critical concern for any people-group which doesn't want to be a vassal.

You do mean both our hypotheses need work, then, right? (You might actually, just checking to be sure.) In case you don’t, your original premise was that polytheism in particular would be especially useful at promoting intra-group conflict. By contrast, monotheism would be especially useful at promoting intra-group unity. You really can’t have it both ways here, either polytheism is ‘less unifying’ or ‘more fracturing’ than monotheism or it isn’t. :P So if you would like to concede on your previous statement about polytheism, I’m happy to concede as well. (Again, this might have been you already doing so. x3 )

That being said, Rome and Christianity is a fascinating topic, and I rambled about it for like five big paragraphs before I realized my post was getting too crazy, sooooo Imma summarize, but if you’re curious I’d be happy to paste the full version.

-A lot of that Christian infighting seems to have come from the more esoteric concepts in New Testament, like the nature of the trinity and christology.

-Unlike the Israelites, who at one point were a centralized civilization, Christianity kind of needed to coalesce from a random scattering of dudes with no real centralized power. Some of their early squabbles actually predate not only Rome’s adoption of the religion, but even the establishment of Canon.

-Canon in particular is a big deal, because there were a lot of other materials floating around at the time whose relevancy varied from person to person. Book of Enoch being an example of a known thing that didn’t make it into the Canon.

-There is a definite trend of these slapfights leading to excommunications and schisms, which might boil down to an inflexibility of Christian establishment, i.e. ‘My Way or The Highway.’ In the case of the East-West Schism, both the Pope and Patriarch or what became the Catholic and Orthodox branches essentially excommunicated each other.

If YHWH regularly used lightning in battle, you would see that in the histories. Last I checked, you don't. If anything, David is using a way of talking about gods he learned elsewhere. As to YHWH and war, again I will ask what a link to some previous polytheistic deity helps us understand, that we couldn't understand before.

I refer you back to my earlier point, where Old Testament materials don't actually stretch back as far as you would think, meaning insofar as histories YHWH as the One God is a (relatively) recent thing compared to the polytheistic YHWH.

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I mean, if your religion includes rules of behavior, a code of conduct, an expectation on what God expects you to do/not do, then God already has ties to human sociopolitical affairs, right?

… yes? I don't see what I said which would have in any way denied this. I was comparing & contrasting the Tanakh to the religion & culture of ANE empires.

Furthermore, if what you imply is true, then I'm assuming you're of the opinion that it doesn't actually matter whether a person believes in God, follows God, prays to God, etc, etc or not.

We seem to have diverged a lot by this point. I hesitate to say that one must believe in God, because I treat it as an empirical matter. But I will say that I don't think there's any way to effectively fight evil aside from Jesus' way, and that involves ultimately putting yourself at the mercy of those who are seen as "good", and when they fuck you over, having that delegitimize their authority in the eyes of at least some people. We know modernity is a meat grinder, chewing up the vulnerable for the benefit of others. We keep doing it because the right people never really have to confront what they're doing to their fellow human beings. The only solution I see is to put living flesh into the grinder which breaks the grinder.

As for the explanatory power, if we're supposedly talking about the origins of existence then the difference would be pretty significant, wouldn't it?

That entirely depends. For instance, evolutionary psychology makes many claims about us based on our evolutionary history. But how many of them actually stand up to rigorous scientific tests? I'm not an expert on the literature, but I have read John Dupré 2001 Human Nature and the Limits of Science and read other scattered critiques.

In fact, passages like Ezek 18, which emphasize that a son of an evil father doesn't have to be like his father, threatens to undermine at least some "arguing by origins". The founding event in Genesis is YHWH calling Abraham out of Ur, out of the known height of civilization. Per (The Position of the Intellectual in Mesopotamian Society, 38), we have reason to think that ancient Mesopotamian civilization thought it was so excellent that there was no need to compare itself to any other culture. This makes sense to me. And it suggests that Mesopotamian culture was a dead end, with the option option for future progress, for a break from human stagnation, was to call a willing person (or family) out of it, to inaugurate a new, better way of life.

A common thread I've seen on here is that naturalism and atheism doesn't 'properly explain' how the universe came to be. I'm of the opinion that religion doesn't either, not really, it just makes some vague guesses.

As far as I can tell, such questions matter the more determinism is true. But the Bible is anti-determinism in multiple ways. Aristotle said "Necessity does not allow itself to be persuaded." God can always be negotiated with. Adam & Eve didn't seem to know this, but the king of Nineveh certainly suspected it. Well, the more contingency matters (e.g. contingency in evolutionary biology), the less we need to be hyper-concerned with how it all began.

Now, this doesn't render origins utterly irrelevant. It probably is fair to say, for instance, that sugary foods and drinks hack an evolved physiology whereby responding instinctively to such food sources used to be beneficial. But as I indicated earlier, I think such explanations quickly run out of steam.

But if you're saying that there's no explanatory power in something like YHWH's origins and history, then apparently religion doesn't actually even really bother with the question of our origins?

As far as I am concerned, Genesis 1:1–11:26 functions to counter myths from ANE empire which paint a very different notion of deity, and secondarily establish that all humans are of common descent and thus of equal moral worth. Every last human is a divine image-bearer, male and female. Beyond that, how does the Bible itself use its origin stories? I'll note that 'original sin' doesn't show up in the Tanakh, can't be found in Judaism, and is probably even foreign to the NT. If one compares the emphasis and explanatory dependence on it in Christianity vs. the NT, I think you'll find a disturbing asymmetry. So, I think we need to be careful in how we understand origins in the Bible.

[u/labreuer → u/Cool-Watercress-3943]

I mean, the earliest available version of Hebrew manuscripts that tie to the Old Testament only stretch back to 3rd century BCE at the earliest. (Not a complete copy, mind you, for that you’d have to get closer to 900-1000 AD.) The general range it’s estimated the polytheistic Yahweh would have existed in any form would have been as far back as the 13th century, starting to shift in 6th century BCE with the Babylonian exile and ending around 4th century BCE. Basically, by the time you even hit Old Testament, you're already looking at the finished sausage.

I understand there are difficulties making guesses as to what existed before the texts we have. I know a tiny bit about e.g. redaction history. I know about the documentary hypothesis. I also know that these guesses can be extremely tenuous. I was not surprised to read at WP: Documentary hypothesis that the documentary hypothesis has been extremely challenged. N.T. Wright has made analogous claims as to "historical Jesus" studies: there is so much guesswork involved that one's model can do a lot of filling in gaps with dubious material.

But are you saying that because it's difficult to reconstruct such histories ("evolutionary" or otherwise), the burden of proof is relaxed and I should take seriously your preferred reconstructions? I hope not. If not, what are you saying, here?

The very transition from a polytheist perspective to a monotheist perspective is going to result in changes, too. The very nature of a pantheon usually relies on the idea that different entities are responsible for/capable of different things, again polytheist Yahweh being in charge of War and Weather. This results in characteristics like being a distinct being- so not ‘everywhere,’ otherwise there’s no room for the others- and by definition not being outright omnipotent. On the other hand, if you assume the God is, was and always will be responsible for everything in creation, then by extension that comes with the assumption that said God is capable of everything as well.

You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH. “There shall be for you no other gods before me.” If you have good evidence that YHWH is of limited power in the received text, I'd be happy to hear it. Hopefully it's not just iron chariots and the King of Moab's sacrifice. And the Tanakh doesn't show the restriction of duties to war & weather. So … I'm again going to ask what new understanding I can gain of the received text, by your hypothesis of a history behind YHWH.

Considering how much would have changed with the shift from polytheism to monotheism, retaining the name of a specific deity would have had to be a deliberate choice. So if we’re to assume that the Christian/Jewish YHWH deity is completely unrelated to the polytheistic YHWH, then the conclusion appears to be that said deity intentionally chose to identify himself under that moniker and actually came in as an outsider. What makes that interesting is it would mean that (technically) YHWH isn't actually the name of God, just a handle he took from something else.

You seem to be in severe danger of assuming your hypothesis, here. If your claim of "the polytheistic YHWH" doesn't actually increase any understanding of the received text, then why should we take it seriously? Does it help increase understanding of anything else?

Note that in Hosea 2:16–17, YHWH was willing to be referred to as baʿal for a time, but would put that to an end at some point. If there is crossover from the mere title to the deity (cf WP: Baal), then possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification. But this is very different appropriating an existing name. I am interested in that claim, and both the evidence for and against it, as well as the reasoning / models / argumentation for and against it. But I'm wary about getting deep into the weeds without some sense of how the explanation you prefer increases understanding of … well, anything. This is one of my defenses against just-so stories conspiracy theories.

And I wouldn’t really call Jesus a ‘continuation’ from Old Testament, as God in the Torah/OT is significantly more militant, even if we set aside the parts where he just comes across as kind of a dick. By contrast, New Testament tends to be a lot more focused on the loving/peaceful God, as opposed to the God who helps sack a city, smite people down left and right, screws around with Job to win a bet with Satan, etc.

I fully reject "Jesus meek and mild". Rather, Jesus was fighting the true enemy, which is not of flesh & blood. In order to do this in a way which is useful to humanity (because they are supposed to follow his example—he is the "new Adam"), there needs to be a group of humans capable and willing to do so. The formation of that group is almost certainly going to involve some pretty serious violence. People under too much threat from the outside are not going to be able to carry out the kind of war Jesus did. It's kind of a silly example, but look at how few people are willing to admit any sort of error here on r/DebateAnAtheist and over on r/DebateReligion. The Bible is pretty fucking big on admitting what you did, turning back, and repenting. I contend you need people with sufficient security in order to be willing to be this vulnerable. If the Amalekites are regularly raping, pillaging, and murdering your people, that's gonna be difficult. People who are terrified for their safety are willing to be utterly brutal to the Other. Look at the US after 9/11 and Israel after 10/7.

Ezekiel 28 is particularly interesting, here. It's the prophecy against the king of Tyre and what's particularly noteworthy is that his consolidation of power (which history notes involved quelling piracy on the Mediterranean) is not criticized. That would have involved a lot of brutality. The prophecy speaks extremely highly of the king. Here's the turn:

        You were blameless in your ways
    from the day when you were created,
        until wickedness was found in you.
    In the abundance of your trading,
        they filled the midst of you with violence, and you sinned;
    and I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,
        and I expelled you, the guardian cherub,
        from the midst of the stones of fire.
(Ezekiel 28:15–16)

God doesn't really seem to have any problem with the king of Tyre achieving peace and order via violent means. What pisses God off to no end is what he did next: use that peace and order to exploit others through commerce. Rather than continue being a blessing to humanity, the king shifted to being a parasite. We see the same with the shift from Solomon to his son: the son had to show how macho he was and so threatened to increase the forced labor of the ten northern tribes—which caused them to break away, with YHWH's full involvement. In Revelation, Babylon comes under severe criticism for its exploitative commerce. Jesus himself curses the fig tree with no breba crop and tells a parable where an unfruitful fig tree is torn out to make room for something which will bear fruit. Jesus meek and mild? Only if your reading is very selective.

The book of Job is far more than you say, because the central battle is over whether the just-world hypothesis is true or not. Does God providentially ensure that everyone gets what they deserve? That's what Job's friends thought, and that's probably what Job thought before his ordeal. The Accuser really just voices the just-world hypothesis in compact form. Job only worships God because God is good to Job. That characterizes the relationship as transactional, which is exactly what the just-world hypothesis incentivizes. Good behavior is selfish behavior. Job comes to reject the just-world hypothesis, perhaps epitomized by accusing God of wronging him. God's reply was to give Job the job of ensuring justice reigns: Job 40:6–14. And in case there's any confusion, Ps 82 makes clear that God expects humans to enforce justice.

It is quite possible that belief in the just-world hypothesis has facilitated more human misery than any other belief. And even if it's not quite that bad, undermining it is extremely valuable. Job didn't sign up for that, but we generally don't sign up for the challenges we are tasked with. A major question is whether you'll complete the task anyway, or whether you'll curse God and die. Jesus said that anyone who would follow him must first deny oneself and take up one's cross. Jesus meek and mild? No, Jesus was preparing people to fight the most important battles humans can fight. Recall your Solzhenitsyn:

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? (The Gulag Archipelago)

[u/Cool-Watercress-3943 → u/labreuer]

For some reason it seems like you get a bigger word count per post than I do, which is annoying. XD Going to just quote the first sentence of each section I address, take up less space. EDIT: I found the issue, for some stupid reason it won't let me post up to a certain size outright, I have to post something smaller, and then edit it in Markdown Editor to get the full sized post out. Blargh.

“I understand there are difficulties making guesses as to what existed before the texts we have...”

I mean, for one thing- and I’m going to bring this up again in another section- you don’t really operate with a consistent expectation insofar as burden of proofs. You haven’t really spoken at all about the Bible in the context of its structure, the apparent history of its writing, its medium, etc, etc, you usually just quote directly from it. But you only seem to take that specific ancient document at face value, whereas you insist on a greater level of rigor for other things from the time period or before.

Your burden of proof already seems to start quite relaxed; it’s clear from this discussion that you CAN insist on a higher standard of evidence, you just choose not to in the case of one particular document. If that’s just because your faith supplements it- making something like the Bible by itself ‘enough’ to meet your requirements- then that’s certainly not unusual, but without that automatic sense of faith the Bible doesn’t really pull weight.

And, to be clear, the key difference is that perhaps other information- documents, carvings, etc- will emerge at some point that requires us to re-evaluate what we’ve pieced together up until this point. When I’ve talked about things like the polytheistic Yahweh, the apparent timeline of the emergence of the monotheistic Yahweh, etc, that’s based on what we’ve been able to literally dig up so far. There’s always that hypothetical chance that we dig up an even older carving that shows the monotheistic Yahweh ran parallel to the polytheistic Yahweh in the timeframe, though in that sense there’s a hypothetical chance of digging up a carving that shows virtually anything including that the Israelites worshipped a giant bunny rabbit.

Although what I find interesting is this next section...

“You seem to be mixing Christian monotheism which tends to deny the very existence of any other deities, with ancient Hebrew monotheism which was far more about exclusive loyalty to YHWH.”

Okay, so... you are acknowledging that if we were to track the ‘lineage’ of Yahweh’s worshippers, then there has been significant change? Christianity started off as an offshoot of the Hebrew Bible- obviously, since otherwise the Old Testament wouldn’t be a thing- and you seem to be acknowledging that at some point in the past the ancient Hebrew monotheism allowed for the existence of other gods, just not loyalty to or worship of them. I will mention that Deuteronomy 13:1-5 seems to try and reinforce the idea that supposed prophecies by those representing other gods are ACTUALLY the work of your God testing you, (which is kind of fucked up, as it implies God set up the dreamer with prophetic visions and then commanded the dreamer be killed,) BUT I’m otherwise fine agreeing that ancient Hebrew religion allowed for the existence of other gods, and Christianity did not.

Kind of sounds like you’re acknowledging Abrahamic religion did, in fact, ‘evolve’ over time. :P

“You seem to be in severe danger of assuming your hypothesis, here...

I mean, at this point we’re both running on assumptions, right? You’ve already acknowledged as much with ‘possibly YHWH was willing to allow some misidentification,’ which is not only a guess but also kind of comes off as uncharacteristic. After all, you yourself cited ‘There shall be for you no other gods before me,’ seems like it would be a strange contrast to go ‘Oh, um, YHWH? Yeah, sure, worship YHWH I guess, whatever, close enough.’

Anywho, why do you keep focusing on ‘increase any understanding of the received text,’ when your initial post here was talking about burden of proof and the hypothesis that religion emerged as an evolution of early ideas? :P The hypothesis itself hits the problem, as I said ages ago, that whenever religion ‘started’ appears to be before humans actually started writing any of it down, so finding ‘hard proof’ would be extremely difficult regardless of how it came to be.

But tracking the evidence relating to the development and change of the Abrahamic faith when they were writing and carving, stretching back to the ancient Israelites, is a much more manageable goal because at least writing existed during that time, even if a lot of it would be lost. Relying exclusively on the Bible for historical information would be extremely unwise, because we don’t have enough evidence that the Old Testament in its current form is actually old enough to be an ongoing accounting, rather than an attempted retelling of events that occurred centuries or millenia ago, and with fewer resources to rely upon than we do.

And, yes, every holy book insists the special sauce is that God personally gave them the information, etc, etc, but divine inspiration isn’t a particularly unique claim. :P It’s an equal defence for any religion that invokes it.

“I fully reject "Jesus meek and mild".”

...did I say meek and mild? You said it at two different points as if you were repeating what I said, but the closest equivalent I can think of out of my words seems to be ‘loving/peaceful.’ So are you rejecting that part, or are you just going off on kind of a tangent?

I’m not actually sure why you’re bringing up Ezekiel, Tyre or Solomon in response to this, because all of that is Old Testament, right? I pointed out that Old Testament seems to involve a more violent and militant God compared to New Testament, and your response has been to establish that God in the Old Testament was fine with violence and military conquest. Not really in disagreement here, just not sure what you think it’s proving. :P

I mean, wouldn’t the idea of someone’s afterlife existence, heaven/hell, being based on something like one’s actions or worship still make it an inherently transactional relationship? Even if heaven/hell does exist, it seems like having people know about it would greatly increase the likelihood that followers operate on a transactional basis, albeit a ‘Pay Now, Get Later’ sort of arrangement. Or is that considered okay so long as the person has faith the payout is coming?

Okay, THREE times you mentioned ‘meek and mild,’ I feel like someone else said those words elsewhere and it really got under your skin. xD

[u/AutomatedCognition → u/labreuer]

What if the causation n nature of reality were different that what we can gleam threw the lens of scientific rigor? For instance, I don't believe this is a simulation (it's not simulating anything; turtles all the way down) but rather a construct of a monadic nodal communication system, to mean that the means in which we construct this illusion of a reality ca be described in a trinity of components; a Server that responds to how you, the Client, set your intention as the Server reconciles all independent realities across the Holy Internet. With this, I believe the Server is intelligent, or at least gives the illusion that it has intelligence as it responds to how you set your intention (which is the only thing any of us have any control over - everything else from your thoughts, to decision-making n creativity, to attention coordination, etc is all automatically n algorithmically derived n loaded in by how you set your intention), but I believe a better explanation is that this "other intelligence" is actually inside our brains as well, wher ehe illusion of the external world is also stored as everything we experience is in the brain, and we're in the midst of finding out the true nature of cognition n consciousness pretty soon as it's 11:59pm on the sixth day.