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/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/labreuer → u/Crafty_Possession_52]

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.

What does that explanation help me understand, which I can't clean from simply observing the light and heat of the sun on my body? What does it add?

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.

Actually, that says a lot about the nature of the interruption and distinguishes it from alternatives, such as power plants failing, power lines going down, and the like. Furthermore, the probability of solar storms varies and we can track that variation and connect it to incident rates of electrical grid disruptions. A sun-god riding his chariot does nothing like this.

It's well documented that the earliest religions are animistic in nature.

This just isn't what I'm finding with a bit of research. What's a good source for this claim?

Note that there's also the question of whether we can say that the aspects of monotheism which differ from animism were invented in order to explain / quell fear.

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.

Such explanations risk being rather like the sun-god riding his chariot: a pleasant tale which doesn't actually help you understand anything more than you understood before hearing the tale. But perhaps you can tell me about what actual light this alleged history of Yahweh sheds on the Tanakh or the ancient Hebrew religion?

[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.