How did acient civilzations develop the notion of god?

Ancient peoples had little understanding of how the universe "works". Because of this lack of understanding, they attributed events that they did not understand, as something that happened through the work of a higher being or beings, whom they named as "gods" or later, "god".

The best way to increase your vocabulary is to keep on writing, and always look up words that you do not understand.

http://www.answers.com/main/product_info.jsp

This is a wonderful little program that I use to look up words that either I don't understand, or am unsure of the spelling. Check it out!

Ancient civilizations developed a belief in God after God suggested that they do so. Whenever there was resistance God through down lightning bolts and caused heavy flooding rains. Occasionally God would turn women into pillars of salt or send storms of locusts. Once God even had a man get eaten by a whale. After a while the people knew there must be something out there and they came to believe.

You might get a feel of how these beliefs came about by doing a google/AltaVista/Dogpile....or some other search engine search. Enter in key words of "Ancient civilizations belief in God" then sit back and watch the hits come in. It will be worth it, if not for the sake of this song...I mean topic but for the sake of your own peace of mind. The fact of the matter is, that not being there myself, I have no idea how they came to believe in God or a group of Gods and Goddesses. Perhaps it was similar to how it happened with me...I just had a sense of it and I knew internally. I can't explain the exact manner in which this belief became a part of me...it just did.



And follow Phoenix's advice with regards to vocabulary building.

Well the concept of god had to have some sort of initial event or incident that occurred or something similar to the notion of god right? You won't just magically come out with an idea without something giving rise to that idea right? For example, where did we get the concept of flight without seeing birds or other creatures who are capable of flight?

As soon as we became smarter than the animals, smart enough to ask questions. The age old one of course being, where we came from.

How exactly you do come up with an idea without something giving rise to it? Now im not questioning the existence of god, but I was just curious about how you come to the idea of god without anything hinting the possiblity of god existing?

alright crayon, it's really quite easy. Imagine living 5000 years ago. You do not know anything in relation to what we know today. Lets say you spot a buffalo or whatever. You hunt it and use it and then the next thing you think is, where did that buffalo come from? Why do you think that? because the buffalo gave you life, and the answer to that question could ensure your survival. So God is just the answer to a caveman asking where the trees come from. That the idea is still supported to this day is just testament to the power of ignorance.

We think we're smart animals. If we cant answer a simple question such as where we came from, then we dont think we're smart anymore and that's just too much for our ego. So we make up our own answer so as to not feel so hopeless, us stupid humans feel like we belong in a postion of power, and admitted ignorance would certainly undermine that. Unfortunately the truth is we are simply minions of nature, alive so as to ensure survival in the future.

crayon,
No one knows the answer to this question. Everyone has their own answer for it.

Study and look around and give it a gander yourself.

Thanks Phoenix, that is the update for Guru which i had used for years. i'm glad to have it updated.

crayon, another very helpful tool if you are using Internet Explorer is ieSpell.

A FREE Spell Checker for Internet Explorer -- lets you check your spelling before submitting your Questions, Answers or other information on Internet sites. It places an icon on your IE Tool bar that makes spell-checking a snap. It also lets you add words to its vocabulary.

http://www.iespell.com/download.php

It is something that i use every day. It gives you suggestions of possible words when it comes across a word that it thinks you have misspelled.

You really need to think about what your saying, man. What is God supposed to be the creator of? Life. The people saw life and wondered where it came from. It's actually really quite simple.

My brain hurts -_-, and I wasn't trying to prove anything, just wanted to know your opinions on things ^^

I find a nice cup of tea is good for a brain that hurts. :wink:

Anyway, the notion of God and the questions that lie there in appear to be perfectly natural ones. I can't remember where I picked up this example but it's simply within our nature to seek cause. You roll a ball of string into a room and the cat dives straight for it (unless it's lazy or smarter than we give it credit for, in which case it tends to roll it's eyes ). Roll a ball of string into a room with a person sitting in the middle of it and he'll look to the direction it came from.

As a group, we also like to build, create and destroy things. Again, we create a chair, a building, a city, a network of paths to interlink cities to create countries, it's only natural to then ask the biggest question of all, who created the world? To people, the intricacies, wonders and spectacles of life hint towards a creator, we simply look to ourselves as an example. The concept of 'God' (including the rejection of such an idea) is a very general one and it's diversity is representative of humans in general.

mark