The Social Origin of the Concept of God.

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.

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

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.

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.

the first premise is faulty

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...

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.

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.'

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.

Foreshadowing the developmental theme of Darwin's theory of evolution to explain inequality among men

Artifacts found after the 'creative explosion' around 30,000 years ago suggest a very different quality of understanding to typical remains dating from 1.9 million years ago, merely stone tools, butchered bones and the remains of hearths.

Rather, the 'creative explosion' occurring in the Upper Paleolithic was the direct result of making the link between artifact and artificer, and subsequently exploring the abstract thinking inherent to the idea of God. On the basis of Ockham's Razor, it's the simplest adequate explanation to assume that the idea of God occurred in answer to the simple question: 'If I made this hand axe - who made the world?' for it requires of primitive man the minimum conceptual leap - and so requires of us the minimum of assumption.

archaeologists suggest that the Sky God and Earth Mother are the oldest concepts of god.

To talk of some previous god is purely theoretical.

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.

Darwin's theory does not explain the inequality among men. "Survival of the fittest" was H. Spencer, not C. Darwin.

Obviously - 1.9 million years ago Homo sapien did not exist. 30,000 years ago, we have modern man. It is modern man that has managed to make such rapid technological and social changes.

But this explanation is not the simplest, adequate explanation. The first known deities of man, the Sky God and Earth Mother, cannot be accounted for solely on the basis of the artifact-artificer relationship.

Yes, quite possibly, but I think there's a distinction to be made between the bare concept and the attribution of characteristics to that concept. To say that the sky god and mother earth are the earliest manifestations does not explain the origin of the concept.

Right upto realization of the artefact-artificer relationship, 35,000 years ago, (in Europe anyway) man lived in much the same way, huntng, gathering, making primitive tools then discarding them, as did homo habilis.

I hope you might reconsider your suggestion that this is not the simplest adequate explanation given a distinction between the bare bones of the conceptual construct - which is waht I aim to explain, and types thereof.

Anthopologist tell us that monkeys use sticks as weapons or to get particularly tasty ants lurking down their anthills. Does this mean they believe in God or are religious?

Modern humans did not exist 2 million years ago. It was homo habilis I was referring to - an ancestor of homo sapiens. Homo habilis was using tools 2 million years ago - and the point is raised to illustrate the length of time nothing much happened in human development. Right upto realization of the artefact-artificer relationship, 35,000 years ago, (in Europe anyway) man lived in much the same way, huntng, gathering, making primitive tools then discarding them, as did homo habilis.

Perhaps one can understand the origin of religion as an attempt to provide meaning to events or to a need for explanations, since "all men by nature desire to know," or as a attempt to control future events (the yearly flood of the Nile or a good harvest).

To speak of notions of god prior to the Sky God and Earth Mother is idle speculation. If we want to discuss the origin of something, we go to the first known instance of that something.

I understand what you're saying, I really do, but I just don't agree. I think that you have to have a concept of a thing before you can have a type of a thing. Looking for the earliest known example of a thing does not explain the origin of the concept. This is doubly so when the origins of the concept are lost in the mists of history.

In the end I think it comes down to approach - and rather than looking back to the earliest know example, which to my mind is a method that loses validity to the sheer depth of time involved, I adopt an evolutionary understanding of man and explain the occurence in the terms. Both evolution and the concept of God certainly did occur - and by adopting this method of explanation we can put ourselves there to some extent, whereas a histrorical analysis cannot reach.