Was religion invented by man?

[PumpkinCookie]

Now you are using courtroom procedure as your standard of life and thought.
Something being hearsay does not make it false. The witness is simply not here in person to give the witness. The courtroom uses a standard of evidence that doesn’t apply to human relationship.

Of course hearsay isn’t necessarily false, but it is unreliable. I would not vote to put a man to death based on hearsay, so I will not worship a man that others claim is also God based on hearsay.

I don’t understand what you mean by your last sentence of this quote.

Fundamentalists uses rigid literalism to rob the life out of scripture and tradition, locking it into the words on the page, subject to their individual understanding.
Fundamentalism clings to certainty and closes it’s mind to nuance, trust, faith.
It tries to fit life into proofs using literalism and strict physical evidence.
It twists nature into that which can only be seen and proved.
You have to answer your own question I suppose.

For me personally, Christianity is not only questionable from a historical perspective, but a spiritual one. Regardless of whether Jesus existed, or whether the early Christians were reporting facts, I find the message to be spiritually bankrupt. I don’t want to live forever. I don’t desire eternal life. I don’t want my “enemies” to be tortured forever. I don’t see the dualistic tension of Satan/God. I don’t desire a “personal relationship” with an anthropomorphized God group. “Ask and it shall be given” is empty to me: I’m happy and grateful for what I have. I embrace pain, suffering, and death and so Christianity comes before me with empty hands. Jesus was an inferior moral teacher to Cicero, Socrates, Epictetus, Buddha, and Kant. He does not motivate me to be a good person. “Turn the other cheek” and “sell everything you own” and “do not resist one who is evil” are madness, and cannot be the root of a sustainable civilization. They’re the ramblings of an end-times preacher, an end times preacher whose forecast of doom has failed utterly. The predictions of God cannot fail, can they? I suppose you could then say the early Christians were putting words in Jesus’ mouth, that he never made a failed prediction, rather over-enthusiastic disciples did this. Indeed, I agree. Similarly, his claims to be God, his miracles, his resurrection, his claim to be Messiah, etc. Over-enthusiasm.

Accuracy is not the same thing as truth.

??? I will agree that “truth” is a broader concept than “accuracy,” but I can’t understand what you mean in this context.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

And Abraham Lincoln was never assassinated?

If you cannot defeat history, you rewrite it.

Of course Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, we have contemporary documented eye-witness testimony.

LOL at your second statement. Are you saying that in front of a mirror? How about this: why don’t you pull three assertions from that article and PM your counter-arguments and evidence, and I’ll examine them.

 

[Cheiron]

No.
You cant explain their experiences because their experiences are of divinity.
How can you explain supernatural experiences without reference to the supernatural?
You are presuming from the outset that their experience is NOT supernatural - that’s bias on your part.
Like you, I too can explain natural events "without reference to something supernatural or divine"

There are lots of people claiming to have had supernatural experiences and every case I’ve looked at was completely false. Seances, ghosts, etc. A girl from my high school class wanted to sleep with a handsome guy from the pentecostal church. Within weeks she had a religious experience, converted to Christianity and slept with him. The track record is so poor and so often served by self-interest that I have zero confidence that any religious experience is really supernatural. I need more than personal testimony.

Christianity is not native to most parts of the world. It didn’t originate in Australia or England or America, etc. Why do you persist with this genetic fallacy that I’m a Christian because of where I live? You are apparently an atheist. Surely you aren’t going to claim that your atheism is an inherited belief?

I insist on this point because it proves that religion is local and that people interpret their experiences through the lens of culture. Most approved marian apparitions are in countries that, at least at the time, were very, very catholic. France, Ireland, Portugal. Belgium. If there was a Marian apparition in a culture that did not know of Christianity, that would be a strong mark against my position.

Nobody is claiming that martyrdom makes ones testimony necessarily true. But you seem oblivious to the huge weight of numbers of people who ARENT willing to endure torture/death because they realise they might be mistaken. This is the context in which we can apply the test of reasonableness as to whether it is likely that a person is probably reporting the evidence truthfully.

We can only say that the person enduring torture and facing death is convinced that his beliefs are true, not that they are actually true.

Moreover, you seem to think that you can impose your personal skepticism on an event experienced by another person and claim that they didn’t experience it. How is it that you can make counter-claims against another person’s experience when you weren’t there?

Because I’ve heard, read and seen stories about supernatural experiences that all turned out to be false. All of them. There is such a long history of fraud, lies or sincere mistakes that I need more than personal testimony.

Exactly. And the only reason you would refuse to recant is if you thought the truth of the evidence mattered more than your life.

Or if I thought I would gain entry to heaven. If I were a Christian, that would be important to me.

What question is being begged?
The only ‘contention’ is your out-and-out gainsaying contradiction of their claims.

You said that people who cling to the truth are more likely to give credible evidence. How do you know the guy clings to truth in the first place? You need evidence for that. And you judge the evidence, provided by the guy, as credible because he clings to the truth.

What the martyr says is true because he gave credible evidence and his evidence is credible because he speaks the truth. You assume what you need to prove and that is called begging the question. Which is what you did.

I’m asking what makes you think it’s a lie and you just assert - oh well because other natural[sup]TM[/sup] explanations are possible.
I ask why would they lie and you just say - oh well other people lie too.

I can’t remember giving that reply. Can you point out to me when that was? I think I’ve always assumed that people could simply be mistaken.

I assert that torture gives them a HUGE incentive to recant/lie and you just reply - so what, they still might not be telling the truth.
So it seems to me that your ‘contention’ is little more than hand waving.

What is wrong about my objection? Do you not agree that the case for God should be judged on its own merits and not by the piety, loyalty and faithfulness of the people who believe in Him? I also gave you the reason for my objection: because if I grant this argument to you, I must also grant it to Islam and to the vikings dying in battle in the hope of reaching Valhalla. Which means I end up with a contradictory worldview. And I don’t want that.

The only reason the honesty/sincerity of these people comes into question in the first place is because YOU disbelieve the evidence. It’s you who is calling their honesty/sanity into question. And then when I try to defend their honesty by appealing to reason (folks don’t deliberately lie for no reason and torture is a huge disincentive to lie) you blatantly reject the logic. You say - oh well maybe they are just deluded. But if you thought that why bother arguing against their evidence? How many other insane people do you waste your time trying to persuade?

I don’t try to persuade insane people. If I thought you, or anyone else on this forum, was insane then I wouldn’t be here. Again, I don’t doubt the Christian martyrs were honest. They probably were honestly mistaken about what they thought was true.

Really? I thought he was a polemic ‘trollish’ comedian and the lizard thing was part of his anti-religion mockery schtick. And that he makes his living off the back of his attention-seeking and media celebrity.

I thought he was for real. Yet the point remains that beliefs are necessarily true because they’re sincerely held.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Of course Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, we have contemporary documented eye-witness testimony.

So the apostles were not contemporaries of Jesus?

 

[Charlemagne_III]

The only testimony for Stephen’s martyrdom is in Acts. There is no record of Jesus’ execution other than the gospel accounts. If Jesus were executed by the Romans for conjuring up a new religion, why did the Romans have no record of this? They had records of other executions from the same time period.

So you might as well argue that Jesus never lived because the Romans did not record his life or his death?

The implication of your remarks is that Christianity is a total fraud. Right?

Do you have any evidence from the early Christian era that it was a total fraud, a total made-up man-made religion?

 

[Cheiron]

I thought he was for real. Yet the point remains that beliefs are necessarily true because they’re sincerely held.

Edit: are NOT necessarily true. Stupid mistake.

 

[JapaneseKappa]

No.
You cant explain their experiences because their experiences are of divinity.
How can you explain supernatural experiences without reference to the supernatural?
You are presuming from the outset that their experience is NOT supernatural - that’s bias on your part.
Like you, I too can explain natural events "without reference to something supernatural or divine"

Sure, but it is possible to mistake natural events for supernatural ones, or supernatural events for natural ones. For example, primitive people might mistake alien technology for supernatural power. No one here is assuming their experiences aren’t supernatural, they are assuming that the probability of actual supernatural experiences is incredibly low. Of course the “God did it” explanation of events IS a possible explanation. “Aliens did it” is another possible explanation. “The whole thing was invented by humans” is a possible explanation.

The issue here is that non-theists think that the “God” explanation is about as likely as the “aliens” explanation, and so they would require very strong evidence to believe the “God” explanation. There is barely enough evidence to believe that the players in the NT actually existed at all, let alone that the stories they told or were attributed to them are correct. We reject contemporary accounts of alien events from sincere, reliable people like this, so why do we accept the accounts of supernatural events from people 2000 years ago when we’re not even sure which of them existed?

Indeed, the answer to that question lies in the responses I’ve gotten so far in this thread. In defense of the “God” theory, Christians have basically just offered “common sense” and “well everyone believes our religious account.” Naturally, this doesn’t actually constitute evidence for their version of events, but it does explain what’s happening. Christians think that there is something better about the “God did it” account that puts it in a separate category from the “aliens did it” account. Before we even look at the evidence, Christians are more inclined to believe there is a supernatural explanation than there is an extraterrestrial explanation. Indeed, from the get-go Christians seem to think that the “God did it” explanation is approximately as likely as the “it was made up” version of events. The reason for this is the other line of reasoning that’s been demonstrated here. Specifically, it seems that Christians feel that if they can demonstrate some aspect of the “they made it up” account is a little unlikely, or poorly understood, that the “God did it” explanation will win by default.

Basically, it seems like Christians come into the discussion thinking that “God” and “fabrication” are evenly balanced on a probability see-saw, so that any doubts about the “fabrication” account will tip things in God’s favor. But that’s not the way non-christians think about things. Non-Christians start out with the see-saw almost fully tilted towards the “fabrication” side, and it takes more than a few you can’t explain that assertions by Christians to tilt things in the other direction.

If you think that this is an unfair thing for non-Christians to do, take a look at your “God” and “aliens” see-saw before you complain.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Here is the case for invented belief/theism.

• Martyrs are so foolish that they voluntarily subject themself to torture and/or death while stubbornly insisting that it’s impossible they are mistaken.
• Many people are deluded/liars on a wide range of issues - therefore all theism is probably based on untruths/delusion. (Except for the belief that God doesn’t exist. That’s obviously not an invented idea.)
• People inherit their religion from the society in which they grew up. (Except for atheists and agnostics and people who convert/deconvert and people who live in pluralistic societies and people who invent their own religions and…)
• Aliens.
• Religions don’t unanimously agree on stuff therefore they are all probably wrong. (Apart from all the religions which unanimously agree that atheism is false.)
• Theism is probably invented because I disbelieve everything unless I obtain first-hand direct proof that something is true. (That way nobody can accuse me of being “honestly mistaken” about the evidence I saw.)

…have I missed anything Cheiron? JappaneseKappa? PumpkinCookie?

 

[Lion_IRC]

The one thing I could never understand is WHY invent religion in the first place?

How does an imaginary God remedy very real human existential angst?

An invented God(s) doesn’t explain the existence of anything. Nor does an invented afterlife bring comfort to the person who fears there is no life after death - or the person who fears there might be such a thing as hell.

If I have a real toothache, inventing an ‘imaginary’ pain killer doesn’t help.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Some people say religion was invented as a means of controlling people. But Palaeolithic humans were perfectly capable of being atheists if they wanted to. And who wants to subjugate themself to a religion that enslaves?

If some shaman wandered into camp and told the group of cave people…"I’m on a mission from God and you must all obey me" the tribe could either throw him off a cliff or they could say …“prove it” and still throw him off a cliff later anytime they liked.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

So you might as well argue that Jesus never lived because the Romans did not record his life or his death?

The implication of your remarks is that Christianity is a total fraud. Right?

Do you have any evidence from the early Christian era that it was a total fraud, a total made-up man-made religion?

No. The Romans did not record absolutely everything of course. I agree with the scholarly opinion that Jesus truly did exist and was truly executed by the Romans for sedition or some other crime. That doesn’t seem far-fetched to me at all.

No. Christianity is clearly not a total fraud. Few things are total frauds. I think it is part fraud, part politics, part hallucination, part enthusiasm, part misunderstanding, part hysteria, part in-group dynamic, and part cross-cultural pollination. Just like most other religions.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Here is the case for invented belief/theism.

• Martyrs are so foolish that they voluntarily subject themself to torture and/or death while stubbornly insisting that it’s impossible they are mistaken.

Yes, this has happened throughout history continuously for a variety of causes. Martyrs are sometimes noble, and certainly committed to their ideas and principles. But, that doesn’t mean they’re right about what is true.

• Many people are deluded/liars on a wide range of issues - therefore all theism is probably based on untruths/delusion. (Except for the belief that God doesn’t exist. That’s obviously not an invented idea.)

The idea that many people (ourselves included) are incorrect on a wide range of issues is the first discovery of philosophical thought. Unfortunately the Christian must hold that all religious traditions are man-made folly…except for his of course. His is the infallible and unchanging truth. It’s an unenviable position to argue. I should know, I tried for many years before I gave in to reason.

• People inherit their religion from the society in which they grew up. (Except for atheists and agnostics and people who convert/deconvert and people who live in pluralistic societies and people who invent their own religions and…)

Of course most people inherit their religious beliefs from their parents. It’s part of childhood education. I believe the data supports this thesis. Religious conversion is quite rare, although it is accelerating in the developed world (from various theisms to secularism).

• Aliens.

?

• Religions don’t unanimously agree on stuff therefore they are all probably wrong. (Apart from all the religions which unanimously agree that atheism is false.)

At most, only one religious tradition could be 100% correct about reality as such. This seems exceedingly unlikely to me because each of them have been contradicted by observable reality and/or reason. Some of them are self-contradictory, and they’re all mutually exclusive.

• Theism is probably invented because I disbelieve everything unless I obtain first-hand direct proof that something is true. (That way nobody can accuse me of being “honestly mistaken” about the evidence I saw.)

…have I missed anything Cheiron? JappaneseKappa? PumpkinCookie?

I’m a theist. I don’t need first hand proof of everything. I believe reason points us to God…but here’s the kicker: I think it also points AWAY from all forms of Christianity with which I’m familiar. Further, I think it is reasonable to demand proof for outlandish claims about reality, like God being three and also one and also a 1st century Palestinian man, OR that extra-terrestrials built the ancient Egyptian pyramids. Those claims are indistinguishable to me, in terms of their outlandishness.

 

[Charlemagne_III]

No. Christianity is clearly not a total fraud. Few things are total frauds. I think it is part fraud, part politics, part hallucination, part enthusiasm, part misunderstanding, part hysteria, part in-group dynamic, and part cross-cultural pollination. Just like most other religions.

I could do the same for you and give a nasty list of nasty reasons why people choose atheism, but I will in Christian charity resist the temptation.

 

[Bradski]

• Martyrs are so foolish that they voluntarily subject themself to torture and/or death while stubbornly insisting that it’s impossible they are mistaken.

Nobody said martyrs were foolish. It has been said ad nauseum that they die for what they believe. Pretty much the definition of a martyr. Again, that has no implications at all as to whether their beliefs are true.

• Many people are deluded/liars on a wide range of issues - therefore all theism is probably based on untruths/delusion. (Except for the belief that God doesn’t exist. That’s obviously not an invented idea.)

No-one has said that theism is based on lies. But if you come to the conclusion that it is almost certainly not true, based on ALL the evidence supplied, then it goes without saying that individual facets of the evidence are not going to be accepted as true.

This appears to be a monstrous problem for Christian apologists. I have never come across one that would admit that any piece of evidence that they bring to the table could be wrong. It is always all or nothing.

‘But 500 people saw the risen Christ!’
‘No. It was SAID that 500 people saw him. Period. Nothing more than that.’
‘OK. Fair enough. We’ll pass on that.’

When was the last time anyone saw a conversation along those lines? It is human nature to more readily discount any personal evidence for any given proposal if the person giving it will not admit to the weakness of some of the arguments against it.

The weaker the evidence, the stronger the belief in it, the less credible the argument.

• People inherit their religion from the society in which they grew up. (Except for atheists and agnostics and people who convert/deconvert and people who live in pluralistic societies and people who invent their own religions and…)

This is so undeniably correct that I am surprised that anyone would even attempt an argument against it.

• Aliens.

I really don’t think that anyone has understood what JK has been trying to say. All the arguments against his point are entirely superficial.

• Religions don’t unanimously agree on stuff therefore they are all probably wrong. (Apart from all the religions which unanimously agree that atheism is false.)

Again, it is impossible to deny the basic premise. If there had been just one god and one religion and one denomination of that religion from Day One, then the argument wouldn’t exist. Even if there were just two religions with conflicting beliefs, it stands to reason that at least one of them must be wrong.

Anyone heard any Christian suggest that they themselves may be the ones following the wrong path?

• Theism is probably invented because I disbelieve everything unless I obtain first-hand direct proof that something is true. (That way nobody can accuse me of being “honestly mistaken” about the evidence I saw.)

A straw man argument. No-one has said this. It’s a nonsensical position. Maybe you were just looking for another point to flesh out your post.

…have I missed anything Cheiron? JappaneseKappa? PumpkinCookie?

Quite a bit. Contradictory evidence. Wishful thinking. Evolutionary psychology. Misrepresentaion. False miracles. Lack of knowledge. It’s not the shortest of lists.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

I could do the same for you and give a nasty list of nasty reasons why people choose atheism, but I will in Christian charity resist the temptation.

I wasn’t attempting to give reasons why people in 2016 believe in various versions of Christianity, I was attempting to explain by what mechanisms it was invented by man from 1700-1950 years ago.

I assume the reasons people believe in Christianity today are similar to the reasons people believe in Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, or any other tradition: they think it is true and it resonates with them. No shame in that.

 

[goout]

I wasn’t attempting to give reasons why people in 2016 believe in various versions of Christianity, I was attempting to explain by what mechanisms it was invented by man from 1700-1950 years ago.

I assume the reasons people believe in Christianity today are similar to the reasons people believe in Islam, Mormonism, Buddhism, or any other tradition: they think it is true and it resonates with them. No shame in that.

You can trust the history of religion or discard it as deceitful mechanisms of ancient people.

But in any case there is a history. Faith has entered into the human condition. Somehow the unseen and the supernatural has made an entrance into the human condition.

To deny it or equate it with the action of aliens is like rejecting the moon landing as some fundamentalists Christians do. It is a radical mistrust of humanity and human witness.
Faith and religion are a substantial part of what it means to be human.

Theist, atheist, etc…all seeking answers to questions of being, meaning, identity, purpose.

 

[Cheiron]

• Many people are deluded/liars on a wide range of issues - therefore all theism is probably based on untruths/delusion. (Except for the belief that God doesn’t exist. That’s obviously not an invented idea.)

I vaguely recall that the original argument was that it was very unlikely that so many people with religious experiences could all be wrong, to which I replied that whatever way you cut it, billions of people will be wrong about the reality they live in. I gave the example that if the world’s largest religion, Christianity, was true, then 5 billion non-Christians are mistaken. And the numbers only get bigger from there.

• People inherit their religion from the society in which they grew up. (Except for atheists and agnostics and people who convert/deconvert and people who live in pluralistic societies and people who invent their own religions and…)

I can’t remember making an exception for atheism. If I did, I was wrong. It’s obvious that a lot of communist or former communist countries have large numbers of atheists because the church was repressed during the Cold War and evangelization was hard. Religiosity is often tied to political expediency as well. Take for example the American Christian capitalist versus the godless commie paradigm.

Also, religions can die out as society changes. In 395 Theodosius I started persecuting polytheists and decreed that all pagan temples such as the Oracle of Delphi, were closed. We haven’t heard of Apollo since. The same happened to the mighty Quetzalcoatl. Hearts were being ripped out in his name! He ruled heaven and earth. Yet since the decline of his followers, Quetzalcoatl has fallen silent too.

The same happens in Scandinavia and Western Europe. Where there are no Christians, God doesn’t seem to be there either. It’s very telling.

• Aliens.

JapaneseKappa’s position is basically that the evidence for both aliens and Christianity is about the same. So if you don’t accept the stories about aliens, you shouldn’t accept Christianity and if you accept Christianity, you’ll have to accept the alien stories as well. The fact that Christians accept one story but not the other proves their bias and inability to apply the same standards of scepticism and evidence to their religion as they do to the alien-theory.

That’s how I understand JapaneseKappa.

• Religions don’t unanimously agree on stuff therefore they are all probably wrong. (Apart from all the religions which unanimously agree that atheism is false.)

If a religion came into existence independently in more than two places, then that would be a strong mark in the favor of revelation or religious experience as a reliable way of obtaining truth. An Aztec temple depicting stories of Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Jesus and others, would make me doubt my atheism.

• Theism is probably invented because I disbelieve everything unless I obtain first-hand direct proof that something is true. (That way nobody can accuse me of being “honestly mistaken” about the evidence I saw.)

I don’t disbelieve everything, because not all claims are the same. If you tell me you have pet dog, I’ll believe you without ever hearing, seeing or smelling the animal.

…have I missed anything Cheiron? JappaneseKappa? PumpkinCookie?

Yes, the grave consequences of the idea that all religious experiences are in some way true. That argument is possibly a fatal blow to missionary work and evangelization everywhere. How could a missionary say that Catholicism is the right way to Heaven instead of dying on the battlefield while raiding a monastery in Northumberland? If the Divinity has revealed to various peoples various ways of gaining acces to Heaven (or Valhallla or how you want to call it), surely a mere man can’t correct the teachings of the Divinity on such an important matter?

So, if you go with the argument that all religious experiences originate from the same Divine source, then you can’t claim that your religion is the only correct one. Nor can you claim that salvation through Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

The weaker the evidence, the stronger the belief in it, the less credible the argument.

This deserves to be rendered in Latin but I don’t have the ability…

invalidum testimonio, fortis fide, pauper argumentum

 

[PumpkinCookie]

You can trust the history of religion or discard it as deceitful mechanisms of ancient people.

But in any case there is a history. Faith has entered into the human condition. Somehow the unseen and the supernatural has made an entrance into the human condition.

To deny it or equate it with the action of aliens is like rejecting the moon landing as some fundamentalists Christians do. It is a radical mistrust of humanity and human witness.
Faith and religion are a substantial part of what it means to be human.

Theist, atheist, etc…all seeking answers to questions of being, meaning, identity, purpose.

Not deceitful, mistaken. Big difference. The irony here is that you yourself must believe this, about all religions, except yours. Unless of course you suppose the mutually contradictory religious traditions of man are not his own folly but the creation of the bad half of the cosmic duality (satan).

Radical mistrust of humanity (everyone included) is the foundation of philosophy, in my opinion.

 

[Cheiron]

This deserves to be rendered in Latin but I don’t have the ability…

invalidum testimonio, fortis fide, pauper argumentum

Omnia dicta fortiora si dicta Latina.