When did humans create God?

[E. Nato Difficile]

Originally Posted by fallingblood

As with language, the same thing goes. We can point to people creating various languages. We may not be able to pinpoint the first language, but we can see other languages being created by humans. Even today, languages are sometimes created, look at Klingon for example. My point again is that we can see humans creating such.

When it comes to God or gods, we simply don't see that evidence. I can't point to a time or place that a god was created. We don't see people actively creating gods. And if humans had a long history of creating gods, one would expect humans to continue creating gods. But that also doesn't happen. New religions generally rely on gods who have already existed, or reconstructing an ancient religion.

By and large, we see people relying on preexisting languages too. And there's just as much evidence of the development of modern cults (like cargo cults and cults of personality) and contemporary religions like Scientology as there is evidence of the development of artificial languages like Esperanto and Klingon.

-Nato

[Gjallarhorn]

All human children pass through a stage of egocentrism and animism during their cognitive development. Gods have been around since at least the first humans, if not earlier in other apes, mammals, or perhaps even reptiles.

[fallingblood]

Originally Posted by E. Nato Difficile

By and large, we see people relying on preexisting languages too. And there's just as much evidence of the development of modern cults (like cargo cults and cults of personality) and contemporary religions like Scientology as there is evidence of the development of artificial languages like Esperanto and Klingon.

-Nato

Modern cults still usually rely on older gods. If we look at a variety of cults that rely on Christianity, we still see God being at the center, or being used. They aren't creating new gods.

Even cults of personality, one is only creating an idealized person, not a god. As for Scientology, there is no god really.

So yes, we do have modern cults, and religions such as Scientology, but they either don't involve a god, or usually rely on older gods.

[loverOfTruth]

Originally Posted by fallingblood

It has been mentioned on this forum a number of times that humans created God, or gods. However, I have never seen evidence of such. When it comes to the variety of different gods, there is generally no specific time period in which we can point to when a specific god first appeared.

If we look at the Abrahamic god for example, we can't point to a time of origination. If humans created God, we should logically have some evidence of such. We really can't say what caused people to first start worshipping God, or even when people started to do so.

Now, some will also argue that the way God is described shows that God was created. However, that really only shows that human perception changes. This shouldn't be surprising as we can look at human ideas regarding any number of things and see that human perception changes quite a bit. So it would only be natural for human perception concerning God to have changed as well.

So, if humans really created God, what is the evidence? And I think it should go without saying that this is directed towards individuals who believe that humans created God/gods.

Obviously after God created the humans

[E. Nato Difficile]

Originally Posted by fallingblood

So yes, we do have modern cults, and religions such as Scientology, but they either don't involve a god, or usually rely on older gods.

Okay, it usually doesn't happen. But there are cults like that of Haile Selassie, whose followers revere him as a god, right? So why is this not persuasive of human creation of gods, while a couple of artifical languages are enough to convince you that humans create language?

In any case, I'm not sure you're right in thinking that humans would go on creating gods. Most extant religions are the products of thousands of years of assimilation and adaptation. The origins of most of the myths and rituals may never be truly known, but that's no onstacle to people gaining inspiration and direction from them. The traditional, cultural aspect of a religion is one of the things that are supposed to ensure its survival in the marketplace of beliefs.

-Nato

[fallingblood]

Originally Posted by E. Nato Difficile

Okay, it usually doesn't happen. But there are cults like that of Haile Selassie, whose followers revere him as a god, right? So why is this not persuasive of human creation of gods, while a couple of artifical languages are enough to convince you that humans create language?

In any case, I'm not sure you're right in thinking that humans would go on creating gods. Most extant religions are the products of thousands of years of assimilation and adaptation. The origins of most of the myths and rituals may never be truly known, but that's no onstacle to people gaining inspiration and direction from them. The traditional, cultural aspect of a religion is one of the things that are supposed to ensure its survival in the marketplace of beliefs.

-Nato

I'm not talking about just a couple of artificial languages. We can look back into history, and see the development of a variety of languages. We can see new languages being developed and expanded on.

As for cults that deify a human being, that is different from creating a god. We know people deify humans. There really is no question about that. However, that is different from creating a god.

[outhouse]

Originally Posted by Jayhawker Soule

When did humans create song? When did ...

There is a good deal of work that clearly shows that we presume agency. When, where, and how often this got promoted to Agency does not strike me as a meaningful or answerable question.

I hate to agree with you.

But that makes a excellent point.

[outhouse]

Originally Posted by fallingblood

I'm not talking about just a couple of artificial languages. We can look back into history, and see the development of a variety of languages. We can see new languages being developed and expanded on.

As for cults that deify a human being, that is different from creating a god. We know people deify humans. There really is no question about that. However, that is different from creating a god.

its exactly the same and what they did with the jesus charactor

[E. Nato Difficile]

I don't think we would expect new gods to be created in each era. Isn't one of the survival adaptations of existing religions that they discourage leaving the faith? Aren't apostasy and blasphemy grave sins in religious communities?

I'm just asking why you'd expect new gods to be popping up all the time. And it seems when we do see new cults arise, you disqualify them because they're not enough like the old ones.

-Nato

[outhouse]

as children we make imaginary friends, who said we ever stop because we grow up??



imagination is a powerful trait that our mammal brains developed to keep us alive, to imagine that lion that could be waiting in the grass to eat us, so we can avoid the trap.