The Social Origin of the Concept of God.

[iconoclast]

35,000 years ago an idea occurred to man, but not any ordinary idea like 'I eat, I sleep, I hit with stick.' This was one of those ideas that changes the way everything is perceived. It was, in short, conscious recognition of the artefact-artificer relationship. It may have been nothing more than a footprint in the mud that triggered the realization, but once this idea occurred it changed everything.

‘If human evolution were an epic, the upper Palaeolithic would be the chapter where the hero comes of age. Suddenly after millennia of progress so slow it hardly seems like progress at all, human culture appears to take off in what the writer John Phiffer has called a ‘creative explosion.’ At a German site called Vogelherd someone picked up a piece of ivory 32,000 years ago and carved an exquisite horse in miniature - mouth, flared nostrils, jowls, curved haunches and swollen belly all breathlessly realistic. Before Vogelherd there were no representational horses…’

‘The Neanderthal Enigma’ James Shreeve.

As Shreeve indicates, this was a sudden occurrence - and thus cannot be attributed to biological evolution, which is a painfully slow process. There is no biological reason for this coming of age. There is not for example, an observed change in cranial capacity that might indicate the mutation of an intellectually superior sub-species that would come to dominate. Further, there are no major environmental changes that occur at this time to account for the sudden change in behaviours evident in artefacts. By elimination, we are left with conceptual development - an idea that changed the world.

We can assert with some confidence that the minds of our primitive ancestors would have been prepared by the struggle to survive, to hit upon the relation between the artefact and the artificer - from linking the sound and sight of certain animals with ideas of danger or food. But this was first an instinctual behaviour, and not abstract conceptual intelligence as such - for there is no further abstract meaning attributed to the phenomena.

From approximately 2 million years ago our ancestors began to use tools, and the simple observation ‘I made this’ contains within it the relation between artefact and artificer, but during this period our primitive ancestors discarded their tools and made new ones wherever they went. Thus, while man made tools, the artefact goes unrecognized beyond its purpose in serving immediate needs. One more conceptual step is required - not some great leap, but the minimal assumption we need to explain the evidence, and can easily imagine would occur within the social group.

From negation: ’I didn’t make this’ - follows the question - ’Who made this?’ and once that question occurred it could be applied to anything. Once man began to ask ‘who made this?’ he found his way into a world of meaning hidden behind the surface appearance of things.

‘Who made me?’ and ‘Who made the world?’ These ideas so enthralled his primitive imagination they caused a revolution - not only exhibited in art. Clearly man began to ask: ‘What can I make?’ And as surely as man made ivory horses it seemed suddenly obvious someone made him and the world he found himself in – an artificer of the world, an all powerful Creator-God.

This is the first concept in an argument about the role of religion in society - there are further concepts that build on this basis. Another tommorow.

iconoclast.

[Grimlock]

This seems a plausible enough explanation for man's first stumble upon the specious cause-effect assumption, his (semantic?) reduction of reality to isolated, individual events rather than seeing it as an unbroken chain. Can I say three cheers for David Hume here?

[sarathustrah]

very interesting!

even without words at all to express "i made this" if you assume man only communicated by body language and tones of voice/grunts/noises... run mostly by instinct... i wonder if it would just be seen that the sun is the ultimate conductor of life... and giving the sun a respect and appreciation... then giving the sun a name and a story when we develop words...

i usually argue the first religion was just appreciation of nature. It counts as religion to me anyway, as religion, to me, would be best to just stay a simple praising of life, not necessarily naming a creator and his design methods, ancient religion as we practice it now was just the first form of government

i dunno if im makin the sense i aim to make... im super tired cause it 3am :P

[Didymos Thomas]

The artifact-artificer is not the sole inspiration for the first notions of God.

The first notions of God were the Sky God and Great Mother. These were not simply artificers, but the artifact as well.

I'm not sure what you are building towards, but the first premise is faulty - its a misrepresentation of the god of early man and of the source of those gods.

[iconoclast]

Grimlock,

Thanks - but I don't agree that cause and effect are entriely specious - just of limited validity. Fascinating question isn't it - a real mindbender, but I think that human beings have free will, original and creative intentionality not determined by the dynamics of the universe per se, and thus the existence of intellect changes the very nature of reality.

It can no longer be viewed, as an unbroken chain of cause and effect from big bang to heat death. There's metaphysical input - we cause things to happen, we inevnt and create and throw rocks into the sea that would otherwise lay on the shore forever.

Three cheers for Hume - Of Superstition and Religion. I've read it, and it was a seminal work in the secular critique of religion, but let's also say three cheers for Thomas Aikenhead.

Less than 15 years before Hume's birth, an 18-year-old University student named Thomas Aikenhead was tried, convicted, and hanged for blasphemy for saying Christianity was nonsense.

Three cheers for Galileo, whom I'm sure you know, and for Anna Goddi whom you probably don't. She was the last 'witch' to be murdered by the Inqisition, Winter Solstice Eve, 22 December 1792, dragged from her little house and burnt alive in frount of the rest of the village.

I'm making this argument to put all this madness in context, and it says something truly profound about contemporary society and the future of this odd thing called man. I hope you'll bear with me while I build on this foundation - but there's some way to go yet.

iconoclast.

[iconoclast]

sarathustra,

Thanks very much. Another insightful comment - but yes, man hit upon this relation before developing spoken language beyond the grunt and gesture stage. Namenclature requires an abstract conceptual mode of thought - to link the particular vocal sound with the object.

I think the Sun as source of warmth, given the emotional effect it has on us, and its position in the sky, relative to the earth, could very likely account for the Sky God - Mother Earth dynamic that Didymos Thomas refers to, but not before the concept of God was arrived at.

You say the first religion was the appreciation of nature - and I agree to some extent, this was primitive man awaking intellectually to marvel at his existence in the world - in the most primtive conceptual terms. Man was in nature and of nature - and the idea of Creation, and his place within it would have seemed very real and immanent. But this wasn't religion as such - it was something far more pure and wonderful. I want to go on to discuss this very question so I'll not give too much away at this stage. Just say thank you, sara, for your comments.

iconoclast.

[iconoclast]

Didymos Thomas,

The artifact-artificer is not the sole inspiration for the first notions of God.

I wouldn't claim to KNOW what the first inspirations for God were. I'm putting forward a theory that seems to explain a great many facts. I'm looking at this question in terms of the evolutionary development of conceptualisation - and therefore looking for the minimal conceptual steps required to construct this idea from a basis in ignorance.

In terms of this approach, as I said to sara:

I think the Sun as source of warmth, given the emotional effect it has on us, and its position in the sky, relative to the earth, could very likely account for the Sky God - Mother Earth dynamic that Didymos Thomas refers to, but not before the concept of God was arrived at.

You say:

I'm not sure what you are building towards, but the first premise is faulty - its a misrepresentation of the god of early man and of the source of those gods.

How do you KNOW? It's 35,000 years ago - we can but speculate, and this particular speculation has a number of merits, not least in that it fits absolutely with an evolutionary conception of man, and that it explains the 'creative explosion' the sudden development of artistic artefacts after millenia of 'progress so slow it hardly seems like progress at all.' (James Shreeve. 'The Neanderthal Enigma.')

I'm not sure what you mean by:

the first premise is faulty

I know you don't refute evolution in defence of your own ideas on religion, because we've had the debate. If you have some determinate knowledge of this question I know of a great many people who would like to speak to you. But you don't - because you can't, and nor can I. We can only look at these questions in terms of what we do know to be true, i.e. evolution, and archeological evidence.

iconoclast.

[Grimlock]

Originally Posted by iconoclast

Grimlock,

Thanks - but I don't agree that cause and effect are entriely specious...

Neither do I.

- just of limited validity. Fascinating question isn't it - a real mindbender, but I think that human beings have free will, original and creative intentionality not determined by the dynamics of the universe per se, and thus the existence of intellect changes the very nature of reality.

It can no longer be viewed, as an unbroken chain of cause and effect from big bang to heat death. There's metaphysical input - we cause things to happen, we inevnt and create and throw rocks into the sea that would otherwise lay on the shore forever.

Wow. I think we're dancing with the same girl at this party, if by "metaphysical input" you mean that energy is added to the system by way of "free will" (sometimes I hate language). The only way to break the causal/deterministic chain (I call it the big kahuna wave), or at least change its trajectory, would be to add energy to the equation. If you believe in free will, that is consciousness in a non-deterministic sense, then the only rational assumption is that we are either the focal points of a recycling of energy (possible...this would perhaps prevent heat death and lead to...eternal recurrence?) or the literal creators of such. Either way...yeah, it's a real whopper - the god-in-itself view of man.

Three cheers for Hume - Of Superstition and Religion. I've read it, and it was a seminal work in the secular critique of religion, but let's also say three cheers for Thomas Aikenhead...

You can tango with the martyrs without me.

I'm interested in watching you make out with truth, so long as you don't believe that you're taking her home at the end of the night, because we both know that's impossible.

[Grimlock]

Addendums, provisos and such...

Given what I now think I know (more than you've written, perhaps) about your conception of consciousness vis-a-vis cause and effect, the artifact-artificer "realization" as the basis of religion would ultimately amount to man's explanation of...himself? A specious (can we finally agree on what is specious?) looking backwards (or behind?) from the perspective of his own creative power. Yes, that one's worth some thought.

Or have I skipped too far ahead?

[iconoclast]

Grimlock,

You ask:

'have I skipped too far ahead?' Yes, you have, but you get me - and that's great. Watch how this chick comes home to roost at the end - free will, identity, backwards looking approach to knowledge - bearing on the metaphysical input to reality. I may not be going home with her, but she's truly tempted.

iconoclast.