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When did God......

When did the concept of God come into mans mind? Who brought up God first? What Religion brought God into mans mind? Is there a date when God was accepted and followed?

gracielufreebush 4 July 6
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10

"Religion was invented when the first con man met the first fool." - Mark Twain.

9

"Gods" per se probably arose with the rise of city-states. Prior to that it is likely small bands of hunter-gatherers worshiped or venerated "spirits" responsible for whatever they didn't understand.

Yea that’s a good point. Kind of like the idea of steam coming from a fresh wound of a kill and them believing it to be some “spirit” escaping the body.

8

I forgot who said it but “a god is mankind’s first and worst explanation for things he didn’t understand”

Continuing to this day as "god of the gaps" in sophisticate theology....

7

I am reasonably sure this is one of those unanswerable questions.

...or four.

@Condor5 I see what you did there.

Haha I think your right! The answers I'm reading are all over the place but interesting!

6

Which god do you mean? Since you capitalized it - the Abrahamic god? But other religions have their god(s) as well. I found the attached a pretty good summary....

4

I think it was a Tuesday. ?

Tuesday 25th Dec

4

According to Sumerian Cosmology Humans were a created species. And in so being that the Sumerians are considered to be humanities 1st civilization, they worshipped a group of beings that were from another planet, whom they say were here on the Earth for a time, then left. They believe humans were created by splicing the DNA of the present ape species and themselves, the Anunnaki.
The Sumerians worshipped the Anunnaki as Deities, until they left. Then Continued. As civilizations evolved with different cultures, the deities evolved. The Sumerian High Goddess Inana, became the Egyptian Isis, who became the Phonician Ishtar, who became the Greek Athena/Aphrodite, who became the Goddess Columbia. Who is the inspiration for the statue of liberty.

Washington District of Columbia.
Statue of liberty was donated by French Freemasons

The academic study of mythology looks at the evolution and anthromorphology of cultural deities.

The oldest cults are cults of the Sun, Moon, and Snake.... so those deities might be somewhat older within indigenous population cosmology. Cults of Saturn spring up during Canaanite/Hebrew times. The Sumerians are far older.

And not to mention the civilization that gives humanity 100 Firsts.... like math, law, schools, writing ect..

Etre Level 7 July 6, 2018
4

Define God.

@Scoobs then the answer is whenever we realized we couldn't explain things. 5000 or better years ago.

@Scoobs let me give you a similar parallel. Two cook books are you hungry tonight and a meal fit for a king have varring versions of Elvis's favorite chicken. How do you figure that out thousands of years later? Its like asking about how vast space is.

@Scoobs point is there is no way to know. Cant put an exact time and date on it. Well just assume 3000 bc. 1 pm CST.

2

Every time primitive man tried to understand existence ands of gods, demons, and angels have , someone invented a god or some reason to make life understandable. Humans like reasons for things to happen. We have created angels demons and deities at every stage of our racial infancy because we cannot tolerate ambiguity.

2

IMO when ancient man did not have an explanation for a natural phenomena it was easy to say "God did it."

2

Unknowable, the questions are too woolly and unanswerable. Do you mean deities, gods or the Abrahamic god which the jewish, christian and islamic religions worship?

I am asking about the Christian, Jewish Gods. In my culture our God is called The Creator but to me it is all the same "idea" that people look up to.

1

I posted an article about Daniel Dennett’s book on an evolutionary perspective on religion which answers a lot of these questions which might be of interest.

A Review of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon by Daniel C. Dennet

Denker Level 7 July 10, 2018

Thank you I will certainly look for this book.

1

Define god. The Christian god? God as a deity? My way of looking at it is when out beetle- browed ancestors gained a sense of self, became sentient questions arose such as who am I, where did I come from and conversely where am I going to and what is my purpose. With a limited understanding of the natural world around them, man created god or multiple gods (sometimes in his own image, sometimes not) to explain where he came from and where he goes.

That is a very succinct and accurate description.

1

Deities have been around since mankind attempted to understand his world. If you want one God, look at the Egyptian pharaoh Akhenaten's philosophy around 1343 BCE. He stripped away the pantheons and replaced them with Aten the One God (the idea only lasted for his reign but that's another tale). Being as Abraham (or Abram) and his society are most likely set in the Iron Age around 1200 BCE, there is every possibility that Aten fed into the Hebrew theology.

1

You may find this video interesting.

Betty Level 8 July 7, 2018

Thank you this is very interesting!

1

A really good book to read about that very question is Karen Armstrong’s A History of God.

Karen Armstrong certainly one of the top researchers in the field

I liked her book on the Buddha, I’d be quite interested to read one on God.

Thank you Hermit I will certainly look for this book and read it. I haven't gone that far yet into reading anything on the history or beginnings of God. So thank you!

1

I'm with Herman Hesse who thought the concept of god was/is an insanity, so it was peyote, mushrooms, alcohol, low blood sugar or dehydration.

1

Gods have been around forever, but if you mean a monotheistic God, I think the Persian Zoroastrians may have been the first

I believe the Zoroastrians had a dualistic religion, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman

1

The first concepts of a higher power were found in cave drawings to explain thunder & lightning.

I think the more interesting concept is how did so many different civilizations come up with their own gods. Seems to me that it's less a higher power and more of a human reaction to dealing with the unknown.

must have been a lot of halucinogenic plants and vegetables all over the world - or "it must be the heat, or some rare disease, or too much to eat, or maybe it's fleas..."

1

As jlynn37 stated, it mostly likely can’t be answered as I am sure it extents well before recorded history. The oldest story recovered is “The Epic of Gilgamesh”. About a half man, half god. 1300-1000 B.C. The oldest religion stilled practiced is hinduism. The oldest documented gods I can seemingly find is Tiamat, Enlil, Anu and Enki in Mesopotamia. Tiamat being the primordial god the oceans. Enlil(they are not sure what the god of. Part of name means “haunted” though), Anu(God of heaven) and Enki(God of wisdom). These three make what they call the supreme triad. I also remember reading somewhere that these really, really, really old burial sites had decorations on them, which could lead one to believe that they may have, at least, had some concept of an afterlife.

Sumerian

@Etre Thanks

1

When humankind lived in caves they wondered who made the rain and plants, etc. Knowing nothing about the world they thought it made sense that an all-powerful being did it. That made sense! (To them at the time.)

0

I think Freud said the concept arose as one imagined the imperfections of one's father away. So maybe, naturally, most people developed the concept of such an ideal father. But why should early people have come to believe that such a being exists? I wonder if it could have been by natural selection in that the belief somehow had survival value.

0

Probably started with language. It was likely a concept passed down from the folks we evolved from.

0

Every time primitive man tried to understand existence ands of gods, demons, and angels have , someone invented a god or some reason to make life understandable. Humans like reasons for things to happen. We have created angels demons and deities at every stage of our racial infancy because we cannot tolerate ambiguity.

0

after sex, but before toast.

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