I Can't Find An Explanation

[dB-Paradox]

Okay, so I'm still hashing through some issues with my Christian faith. Still not ready to conclude against God. I have been reading through www.religioustolerance.org to get a better understanding of all faiths. Just recently, something stuck out with me. How is it that almost every culture has a God? Where did this "knowledge" come from? Even the North American Indians believed in a deity (The Great Spirit) before the Europeans brought over Christianity. I'm not suggesting that Christianity is the only way, but I am asking how most every nation has a common belief.

[Dhampir]

Every nation does not have a common belief. Some places believed in multiple gods, and the Native Americans believed in numerous different deities, and some believed in Wakan Tanka, which is not a god in any definite way. I understand that it is sometimes referred to as "great spirit" but is not necessarily the same, depending on which group you're talking about.

 

The native Hawaiians believed in the volcano god, until one of their kings decided to test their beliefs and found that there was no volcano god. They lived in a state of atheism until, wait for it, Christians came and converted them to their religion. Considering how many other beliefs have also been so pervasive (local myths, flat earth, etc.) one wonders how you consider it a knowledge to believe in a deity, even if you put the word knowledge in quotes.

 

Besides considering how drastically different the belief has been, I'd say it's really not that significant. I mean, some people have deified the sun. Others deify animals. Yet others have deified bodily functions (pregancy/childbirth, sex), and still others give humans super powers, and call them gods (greek pantheon, norse pantheon, judaism, christianity, so on). There's really no common thread. Most create or sustain life, but many simply enforce rules, or patronize certain talents. The only thing it proves is that humans unanimously shared a need to have answers about the world NOW, and at the time, shared a complete inability to get those answers simply through observation and testing.

[oddbird1963]

How is it that almost every culture has a God? Where did this "knowledge" come from?

 

One reason religions developed was to explain things that occured in nature. Since it is a common human tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-human entities and phenomena, it is not surprising that most cultures in history developed some form of religious belief/gods.

 

Another function of religion is to aid the state (city state, tribal chief, king, emperor, etc.) in giving credibility to calls to arms against a given foe. Since war is so common among human cultures, this is another reason why most cultures have a god or gods. The perpetuation of its existence was enccouraged by the heads of state of the culture in which they developed.

[dB-Paradox]

Every nation does not have a common belief. Some places believed in multiple gods, and the Native Americans believed in numerous different deities, and some believed in Wakan Tanka, which is not a god in any definite way. I understand that it is sometimes referred to as "great spirit" but is not necessarily the same, depending on which group you're talking about.

 

The native Hawaiians believed in the volcano god, until one of their kings decided to test their beliefs and found that there was no volcano god. They lived in a state of atheism until, wait for it, Christians came and converted them to their religion. Considering how many other beliefs have also been so pervasive (local myths, flat earth, etc.) one wonders how you consider it a knowledge to believe in a deity, even if you put the word knowledge in quotes.

 

Besides considering how drastically different the belief has been, I'd say it's really not that significant. I mean, some people have deified the sun. Others deify animals. Yet others have deified bodily functions (pregancy/childbirth, sex), and still others give humans super powers, and call them gods (greek pantheon, norse pantheon, judaism, christianity, so on). There's really no common thread. Most create or sustain life, but many simply enforce rules, or patronize certain talents. The only thing it proves is that humans unanimously shared a need to have answers about the world NOW, and at the time, shared a complete inability to get those answers simply through observation.

The common theme here is god, or gods. And that's what I'm actually referring to. How is it that humans all across the world, with no communication with each other have managed to come up with an invisible being/beings as a means for explaining certain powers and origins? You have to admit, it's quite incredible that humankind all across the world has imagined a deity(s) to explain nature. It doesn't matter what name they give it, or what natural power it possesses. The bottom line is, pretty much all cultures have a history of some kind of deity. So again, I ask...where did this come from?

 

And I get what you're saying, Oddbird. It does make sense, but it's still quite a mystery that all these different cultures have managed to name their deity the sun "god" or the moon "god". Personifying nature is understandable, but so much like other cultures? And believe me when I'm saying, I want to understand. I'm not trying to defend a belief system here. Just trying to figure out if there's something else to all this.

[Ouroboros]

What about the branches of Buddhism who doesn't believe in any supreme being? It's been around for quite some time. I think Zen Buddhism doesn't believe in any supreme being(s) either, or? Does Wicca believe in God, or is it more of powerful spirits, but not really creators of the Universe size gods at all? I don't know. I think it's a stretch to compare apples with oranges, and say fruit trees must be the only "True" tree, and forget the acorns in our comparison...

[oddbird1963]

And believe me when I'm saying, I want to understand. I'm not trying to defend a belief system here. Just trying to figure out if there's something else to all this.

 

I think that common human dependencies account for the commonality of having a deity for different things. For the ancient hunter/gatherer cultures, the moon was the most significant force determining their success in the hunt and their migration patterns. For the agrarian societies that developed later the sun was the most significant force (I may have orbs mixed up, but you get the significance). Thus, you have a god for the moon orb and a god for the orb called the sun.

 

Other powerful and capricious forces in nature also came into play: rivers, lakes, seas, thunder, etc. There doesn't have to be some underlying something behind all that. Human nature (anthropomorphization) and human dependencies combined in the ancient minds to create a belief in deified personages behind the entities that most societies labeled and worshipped as gods. Add to that a dose of conquest and communcation and its easy to see how belief in various deities spread.

[Dhampir]

The common theme here is god, or gods. And that's what I'm actually referring to. How is it that humans all across the world, with no communication with each other have managed to come up with an invisible being/beings as a means for explaining certain powers and origins? You have to admit, it's quite incredible that humankind all across the world has imagined a deity(s) to explain nature. It doesn't matter what name they give it, or what natural power it possesses. The bottom line is, pretty much all cultures have a history of some kind of deity. So again, I ask...where did this come from?

And I'm saying that there's no commonality to what people believed. It is therefore not incredible considering that people unanimously had an insatiable need to know, and unanimously lacked to means to find out conclusively. They created those drastically disparate deities for numerous purposes-- to personify animals, to acknowledge significance of life, to explain why nature didn't always work to their benefit... To cull the gullible masses... And so on and so forth.

 

The point I was trying to make before Paradox, is that the disparate nature of people's deity beliefs is proof that it's not because there's one distant, mystical... something out there inspiring it all. It's not incredible that societies worldwide have imagined deities, any more than it's incredible that societies that have never interacted, worldwide, all have language. Or 2 eyes.

[dB-Paradox]

I see your point now. I just finished watching a documentary on the Bible and archaeology, and how it shows that the Israelites may have actually been a break-away group of Canaanites. Ancient text shows Egyptians to have a name for one of their gods. The name is YHW (what they think may be pronounced Yahoo or Yawoo). Later, the Israelites name their God YHWH (most commonly accepted as being pronounced Yaway). They link the Egyptians to the Israelites, and explain that the break-away group strives to define themselves as a different people. Thus creating a monotheism culture. It was quite an interesting documentary. I'm glad I watched it.

[Dhampir]

I see your point now. I just finished watching a documentary on the Bible and archaeology, and how it shows that the Israelites may have actually been a break-away group of Canaanites. Ancient text shows Egyptians to have a name for one of their gods. The name is YHW (what they think may be pronounced Yahoo or Yawoo). Later, the Israelites name their God YHWH (most commonly accepted as being pronounced Yaway). They link the Egyptians to the Israelites, and explain that the break-away group strives to define themselves as a different people. Thus creating a monotheism culture. It was quite an interesting documentary. I'm glad I watched it.

 

Wow, that's cool. I have heard similar things, such as that the Canaanites and Israelites amalgamated at some point. The mythical fathers of their two religions, Isaac and Jacob were then construed as father and son in order to harmonize the religious tradition. Previous to that, both peoples had polytheistic, or at the very least, henotheistic beliefs in multiple gods, El and Yahweh being among them. Some people think that certain traditions held El and Yahweh up as father and son, with Ashereh (of the maypoles in the bible) to be the consort of one or both of them. I've even read somewhere that El commanded the siblings of Yahweh to bow to him, as a favored son, and one of his brothers, Ba'al, refused. At some point, El and Yahweh became the same person, and monotheism emerged, the bible appearing to go out of it's way to denounce the other characters in the former pantheon.

[Antlerman]

The common theme here is god, or gods. And that's what I'm actually referring to. How is it that humans all across the world, with no communication with each other have managed to come up with an invisible being/beings as a means for explaining certain powers and origins?

This can be an interesting consideration. First, let's not forget that human social groups came from one place originally and spread outward. They all have the use of spoken language in common as well. Plus social groups would interact with each other and ideas spread and evolved in various regions, just as language itself evolved. The world population at the beginning of the agricultural age in 10,000 BCE when cultures were beginning to be formed, was only 1000 people. That's not a lot. It's not like these people of other cultures all sprang up independently.

 

Coming up with abstract explanations for things is a feature of our humanity, as well as the use of symbolic representation. The thing you, or someone may see as having "God" in common", is really more a mythical explanation or representation. Hell, even in science we speak of things like energy, or force, but neither of these are real, actual things. They are a symbolic extraction to explain the results of interactions of matter. Yet there it is, something one can mythologize as "God". Energy isn't mythical because we use it in a scientific context. But we are doing the same thing. It's not evidence of God. It's evidence of how we abstract and think. The commonalities center around that, not the actual features of the gods or forces, or what have you.

 

You have to admit, it's quite incredible that humankind all across the world has imagined a deity(s) to explain nature.

Not all cultures have. But the use of myth and metaphor is pretty universal. That has more to do with the function of symbolic systems of society.

 

 

 

One reason religions developed was to explain things that occured in nature. Since it is a common human tendency to attribute human characteristics to non-human entities and phenomena, it is not surprising that most cultures in history developed some form of religious belief/gods.

 

Another function of religion is to aid the state (city state, tribal chief, king, emperor, etc.) in giving credibility to calls to arms against a given foe. Since war is so common among human cultures, this is another reason why most cultures have a god or gods. The perpetuation of its existence was enccouraged by the heads of state of the culture in which they developed.

To a certain degree this is true, but religion is really more a social feature. Myth can be used to represent the world, such as explaining why something is. But its greater use is as symbolizing abstractions such as the logic of a group's social visions, values, rules, etc, taking all those and representing them within stories of great heroes and super-human beings. It's those myths that become ritualized in social behaviors as mechanisms to reinforce them within the group. That system then can take on feature of a religion through ritualized forms of devotion to the myths. And then finally, at the end of all that, you have the political aspects of society use this force of social religion for personal power.

 

In short it wasn't created in order to take advantage of people. It's really more a matter of taking advantage of something that people created for other reasons.

 

 

 

As far as the Canaanite/Israel connection, yes, the evidence of archeology shows that the Israelites themselves were Canaanites who moved out from the edges of the urban areas into the highlands following the withdrawal of Egypt from rule in that areas and the collapase of the local kings. They blended with other peoples up there, and developed patriarchal mythologies to tell of their various groups significance. Some small percentage of peoples may have come up from Egypt with various stories that got worked into this later epic mythology of them having been a nation enslaved and delivered by their god out of Egypt, the purpose of which myth was to convey the perseverance of a little people in the face of such overwhelming challenges and powers.

 

Of course there is no evidence of any mass exodus of people from Egypt, which there would be. Plus no evidence of the destruction of city after city listed in the conquest stories of Joshua - again, which there would be. What you have evidence of is a later tradition of story-telling that references cities in existence a great deal later than when they are supposed to have been destroyed. 98% of the cities listed as having been destroyed show no signs of battle or destruction, with only a couple showing some fire damage for some more likely less-spectacular reason. Mythmaking. It's all about supporting social ideas and identity.

[Looking4Answers]

Any perceived commonality between people groups, when it comes to a god or gods, would naturally occur. For example, to a fairly primitive people, lightning and rain would be something that could not easily be explained. And if someone or something gets struck by lightning, then that may seem to some people as something that happened on purpose. If it had a purpose, according to their thinking, then there must be someone behind it. Since a human cannot control the lightning, then this person must be very, very powerful and, thus, the creation of a god that controls lightning and rain is created. And because it rains virtually everywhere on planet earth, then wherever there were primitive people, there was the possibility of them coming up with their own god of rain and lightning. Thus we have various storm gods among various people.

 

This concept can be taken to just about everything that mankind did not understand. They planted and got crops. But what if something prevented the crops from growing or a blight of some kind ruined their crops? Could it be some powerful, yet unseen being? So a god or goddess of crops would be imagined and appealed to in order to ensure a good harvest. Sailors would sail the seas. Sometimes the seas were calm. At other times a great storm would come and, to the primitive sailor, a storm my seem directed at them personally! Who sinned? What god did they anger? Oh! It was the god of the sea! And so a sea god comes into being in their imaginations. And on and on it goes.

 

Mankind, throughout history, has common fears and common unknowns. Mankind likes to have answers for these things. When they could not come up with answers, they ascribed them to god or gods. Today one of the great fears, one of the great unknowns, is what happens after a person dies. Because some people fear this and because it is still an unknown, some people attribute what happens to a god of some kind whether this is the Christian god, the Muslim god or whatever.

 

It seems to me that it is ignorance that allows the gods to live.

[Guest HELLBOY]

People prefer to believe the things that they prefer to be true.

 

In my observation of humanity, both before and after my de-conversion from Christianity, I have found this to be nearly universal.

 

There is some weighty evidence of a genetic link to superstition:

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101041025/

 

What we know of evolution and demographics, it appears that this gene is being increasingly de-selected.

 

I cannot seem to divorce preferential belief from insecurity, and honestly believe that people embrace religious faith in direct proportion to the very ignorance that feeds this insecurity.

 

Noting this, it's funny that it is the personification of GOD that will inevitably get HIM in trouble.

 

And we have to do that, don't we? Miserable creatures, subject to natural law and the whims of an 'unknowable' deity - like Dante's virtuous pagans, "in desire, yet without hope" we are simply, not GOD.

 

Of course, Christians have the sorry advantage of shaping GOD into whatever form their imaginations will allow. I suppose this is why GOD is so big. With the burgeoning quality of science, God still "fills the gaps" only this time, instead of merely filling the giant voids of basic misunderstandings, we are forced to stuff HIM into the fractal extrusions of cosmology and physics.

 

GOD is in trouble.

 

...and of course, there is the moral thing.

 

Evolution has, (fortunately) enabled us to understand morality. Before, we needed ten commandments to keep us; then, during the Axial Age,

we saw things a little more clearly. We were going to leave the gods of our fathers. - and now, we can thank Christianity and Islam - and Buddhism and reformed Hinduism - for reigning us in once more.

 

and again, the morality of GOD is called into question, for we can no longer fathom burning witches, or stoning infidels. We have forgiven the Amalekites and realize that Job's children were never restored to him.

 

And are we to imagine that Satan was treated fairly? How is it that a misdemeanor is cause for execution?

 

We now say, "If you love something - set it free..." GOD is hard-pressed to explain HIMSELF, as the righteousness of men eclipses the waning truth of GOD'S love.

[PandaPirate]

And I'm saying that there's no commonality to what people believed.

 

Actually, one of the most common themes in many religions/myths is the serpent.

 

[from Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism)]

 

 

The serpent is one of the oldest and most widespread mythological symbols. Considerable overlap exists in the symbolic values that serpents represent in various cultures. Some such overlap is due to the common historical ancestry of contemporary symbols. Much of the overlap, however, is traceable to the common biological characteristics of snakes.

 

@PARADOX:

 

A good book is RELIGION EXPLAINED by Pascal Boyer.

 

Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought is a book by anthropologist Pascal Boyer that discusses the evolutionary origins of religious concepts. Through an examination of the mind's inference systems - how they work and how they have been shaped over time - Boyer suggests explanations of how it is that we have the religious concepts we do, and why they have been so culturally successful. Boyer presents evidence from many specialized disciplines including anthropology, cognitive science, linguistics and evolutionary biology to support the idea that a naturalistic explanation of religion is possible, and suggests that such an approach is necessary if the field and study of religion is going to make progress.

[Guest HELLBOY]

People prefer to believe - only those things they prefer to be true.

 

Insidious, isn't it?

 

But that's what we're dealing with, by and large. Add to that the phenomenon, "If you torture the data long enough, it'll confess," and you have every reason evolution doesn't do what we'd like it to do.

 

When I was a Christian, I used to tell people that the only proof I could give them was that Jesus lived in my heart. How could I deny GOD's presence in my life? How could I read the tender words of Christ, as he persuaded the prostitute, "Go and sin no more..."? - and NOT believe it?

 

WHO would make this stuff up?

 

Who would make this stuff up, indeed.

 

Later, I read the Enuma Elish:

 

"They set up a throne for Marduk and he sat down facing his forefathers to receive the government.

'One god is greater than all great gods, a fairer fame, the word of command, the word from heaven, O Marduk, greater than all great gods, the honor and the fame, the will of Anu, great command, unaltering and eternal word!

Where there is action the first to act, where there is government the first to govern; to glorify some, to humiliate some, that is the gift of the god, Truth absolute, unbounded will; which god dares question it? In their beautiful places a place is kept for you, Marduk, our avenger.

'We have called you here to receive the scepter, to make you king of the whole universe. When you sit down in the Synod you are the arbiter; in the battle your weapon crushes the enemy.

'Lord, save the life of any god who turns to you; but as for the one who grasped evil, from that one let his life drain out."

 

and in the Bhagavad Gita:

 

"Whatever you do, whatever you eat, whatever you offer or give away, and whatever austerities you perform --do that, O son of Kunti, as an offering to Me." - Krishna speaking.

 

The Ushtavaiti Gatha (Zoroastrianism):

YASNA 31. is a hymn in which Zarathustra praises God, the creation of

individuality and spirit.

 

5: Tell me therefore what ye, O thou Right, have appointed me as the better portion, for

me to determine, to know and to keep in mind, O thou Good Thought -- which portion

they envy me. Tell me of all these things. O Mazda Ahura, that shall not or shall be.

6: To him shall the best befall, who, as one that knows, speaks to me Right's truthful

word of Welfare and of Immortality; even the Dominion of Mazda which Good

Thought shall increase for him.

7: About which he in the beginning thus thought, "let the blessed realms be filled with

Light", he it is that by his wisdom created Right. (Those realms) that the Best Thought

shall possess those dost Thou exalt, O Mazda, through the Spirit, which, O Ahura, is

ever the same.

8: I recognize Thee, O Mazda, in my thought, that Thou the First art (also) the Last --

that Thou art Father of Vohu Manah; -- when I apprehend Thee with mine eye, that

Thou art the true Creator of Right [Asha], and art the Lord to judge the actions of life.

11: When Thou, O Mazda, in the beginning didst create the Individual and the

Individuality, through Thy Spirit, and powers of understanding - when Thou didst

make life clothed with the body, when (Thou madest) actions and teachings, whereby

one may exercise one's convictions at one's free-will;

 

- and it goes on and on and on.

 

Why do people remain Christian?

 

The same reason they remain Mormon, Muslim, Hindu, Satanist...

 

1. Emotional manipulation

2. Demographics

3. Preference

 

Truth has nothing to do with belief.

 

Why GOD?

 

Because without him, insecure mankind would be crushed under the weight of so great an emptiness.

[FirstInTheDance]

I think having gods served several purposes. 1. It provided answers to the causes of natural phenomena , thereby satisfying mankind's need to know. 2. It provided a sense of comfort and security. Life is short - and, in the past, the life expectancy was much lower for most people. War, famine, disease, natural disasters, etc. were constant threats. I think it gave people a sense of control over circumstances to believe that if they made the proper sacrifice, prayer, whatever, that such and such God would favor them by not erupting that volcano. 3. Many times, belief in a God went hand in hand with belief in an afterlife. So, when the inevitable death would occur, people were comforted by the idea of being reunited with loved ones and living on.

 

So, the desire for answers, the need to have some sense of security/control/safety, and the fear of death are universal to humans. The invention of Gods to satisfy these needs is not surprising. People want to believe their lives have a purpose. They don't want to think that, when someone they love dies, it was just random chance. So they need to explain this, and there is a certain logic to it: If there is a purpose, someone must be planning it. That person can't be seen, but is obviously very powerful. Perhaps, if they appease it, bad things can be avoided. Hence, you have a "God".

[nightflight]

Humans seem to have a tendency to ascribe agency to physical phenomenon. But you might want to check out The God Part of the Brain by Matthew Alper. His hypothesis is that religion and spirituality are hard-wired in our brain. Its an evolutionary adaptation that serves to take the pressure off man's knowledge of certain death. Its a pain-avoidance function.

 

http://godpart.com/html/the_premise.html

[PandaPirate]

From the book Religion is Not about God

 

If religion is not about God, then what on earth is it about (for heaven's sake)? It is about us. It is about manipulating our brains so that we might think, feel, and act in ways that are good for us, both individually and collectively. Religious traditions work like the bow of a violin, playing upon the strings of human nature to produce harmonious relations between individuals and their social and physical environments. Religions have always been about this business of adaptation, and they will always remain so. This is not to say, however, that any particular religious tradition will remain adaptive. Religions sometimes outlive their adaptive utility and occasionally, therewith, become positive threats to human survival.

 

http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/Author/Rue/excerpt.html

[hereticzero]

Most religions were born out of fear of the unknown--in every culture we find curious people that want to know what everything is all about. Before science we had religion that tried to explain the natural world through acts of spirits and gods. As time goes on, we make more progress in learning about the sun, the moon, the universe and we become less afraid of the unknown. I find it amazing that in modern times there are still people who believe that someone born thousands of years ago know more about living in the 21st Century than I do.

 

Religion is about control and imposing one person's will upon another in the name of an invisible being, who only talks to one person, because that person either claims he has a special relationship with the supreme being, or the person belongs to some special class of aristocracy and believes it is his right to be worshiped. Most religions exist because the followers do not trust science, primarily because science reveals the working order of the universe. Science exposes the supernatural works as fraud. No one likes having their invisible friends made fun of.

[PandaPirate]

Well said.

[AKR]

Okay, so I'm still hashing through some issues with my Christian faith. Still not ready to conclude against God. I have been reading through www.religioustolerance.org to get a better understanding of all faiths. Just recently, something stuck out with me. How is it that almost every culture has a God? Where did this "knowledge" come from? Even the North American Indians believed in a deity (The Great Spirit) before the Europeans brought over Christianity. I'm not suggesting that Christianity is the only way, but I am asking how most every nation has a common belief.

 

 

 

Actually, NA indians have a vast number of different religions and beliefs. The fact that so many groups have such different religious should be proof alone that the Christian god is not an idea naturally found in nature or the hearts of humans, nor is any god(s). Just look the children of each group. What do they believe? Do they believe some religion they've never heard of or do they believe as they were raised? Most of the time, they believe as they were raised and continue to believe for the rest of their lives. If they don't, they only change religions after being exposed to them, or they simply make up their own which is quite easy to do after you already have the idea of spirits/gods in your culture.

 

 

It really doesn't matter how many groups believe in some sort of god(s) as it's quite meaningless when they're contradictory. I'm not sure why anyone would think there was any significance to that, as if some god or gods give people the natural desire to believe in some sort of god, but it was so vague that they believe in fake ones. That seems quite silly, but it's a common argument in Christianity.

 

The fact is that it is not an innate believe to believe in any sort of god. There are various groups that have no concept of an afterlife or gods. It's easy to look at the world now and see so many different religions, but a lot of these religions came from previous ideas about gods and the spiritual realm. Legends and myths spread and morph over the centuries, especially when they help to comfort people. They love that shit.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Okay, so I'm still hashing through some issues with my Christian faith. Still not ready to conclude against God. I have been reading through www.religioustolerance.org to get a better understanding of all faiths. Just recently, something stuck out with me. How is it that almost every culture has a God? Where did this "knowledge" come from? Even the North American Indians believed in a deity (The Great Spirit) before the Europeans brought over Christianity. I'm not suggesting that Christianity is the only way, but I am asking how most every nation has a common belief.

 

I have an answer. It is anthropomorphism, or the attributing of human characteristics to the inanimate. You give a human face to the moon and it becomes a goddess. You give a human face to the sun and becomes a god. You give a human face to the volcano and it becomes a god. Do you see a pattern? That's all the gods are, the results of a natural human tendency to transpose our own humanity on everything.

[Reverend AtheiStar]

Okay, so I'm still hashing through some issues with my Christian faith. Still not ready to conclude against God. I have been reading through www.religioustolerance.org to get a better understanding of all faiths. Just recently, something stuck out with me. How is it that almost every culture has a God? Where did this "knowledge" come from? Even the North American Indians believed in a deity (The Great Spirit) before the Europeans brought over Christianity. I'm not suggesting that Christianity is the only way, but I am asking how most every nation has a common belief.

 

 

 

Actually, NA indians have a vast number of different religions and beliefs. The fact that so many groups have such different religious should be proof alone that the Christian god is not an idea naturally found in nature or the hearts of humans, nor is any god(s). Just look the children of each group. What do they believe? Do they believe some religion they've never heard of or do they believe as they were raised? Most of the time, they believe as they were raised and continue to believe for the rest of their lives. If they don't, they only change religions after being exposed to them, or they simply make up their own which is quite easy to do after you already have the idea of spirits/gods in your culture.

 

 

It really doesn't matter how many groups believe in some sort of god(s) as it's quite meaningless when they're contradictory. I'm not sure why anyone would think there was any significance to that, as if some god or gods give people the natural desire to believe in some sort of god, but it was so vague that they believe in fake ones. That seems quite silly, but it's a common argument in Christianity.

 

The fact is that it is not an innate believe to believe in any sort of god. There are various groups that have no concept of an afterlife or gods. It's easy to look at the world now and see so many different religions, but a lot of these religions came from previous ideas about gods and the spiritual realm. Legends and myths spread and morph over the centuries, especially when they help to comfort people. They love that shit.

 

Polytheism was the first type of religion. History tells us that. Monotheism evolved much, much later. Shouldn't the first revelations be indicitive of religious truth, if any is to be found?