Geologic time, cultural differences and religion

[bedstuy]

I'm wondering how religious people grapple with the following problems.

For most of human history, the religions we have today did not exist.  Archaic human-like creatures have been around millions of years, anatomically modern humans have been around for 200,000 years and the oldest religions are about 3,000 years old give or take.  If God was real, why would he wait for most of human history to show up?  And, for that matter, why wait through most of geologic time to show up?

Why is religion totally culture specific?  If you take any isolated culture, they never find out about Christianity or Islam on their own from their own revelation from God.  Moreover, there is a huge variety in beliefs on what God(s) there are.  Native Americans, ancient Egyptians and Christians really don't share too much in the way of beliefs.  Doesn't that indicate that religion is just made up by people on their own?  It seems strange to think every other culture just made up myths and tall tales, but one, recent culture which you belong to got it right.

I guess I'm kind of begging the question here.  Clearly, I'm an atheist.  I want to know how Christians or other monotheists look at the biological and social history of this planet and believe in the God from the Bible.

[bore]

I've always found the cultural contingency argument against religion a bit hypocritical, at least in the way its normally given, because its given by people who have strongly held political views that they believe are completely truthful (Thou shall not let poor people live in the New York City etc) but which are every bit, if not more so, as contingent as religious beliefs. If you'd have been born in the south in 1850 you'd support slavery for instance. Very few people have the ability to rise above their culture.

In fact, every belief we have is contingent on our circumstances. If I was born in the bible belt I might be a YEC.

It reminds of an alleged exchange between an archbishop and some sort of heckler who said:

"You're only a christian because you were raised that way"

And he replied: "You only think that's a good argument because you were raised that way"

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

We find evidence of religion as far back as we find human artifacts., so religion has been around far longer than 3000 years.  We humans do get hung up on naming things to the point where most people think that a name is equivalent to what is being named.  That's why people develop what seems like multiple religions.  It's because they get hung up on the idea that their name is the one true name of God.

[afleitch]

We have evidence of patterns of ritual, suggesting ‘spirituality’ long before Homo Sapiens (possibly as far back as Heidelbergensis some 1.3 mya) Which is tricky really, for religious beliefs founded on the idea of humans being ‘first’ or ‘important.’ It’s deceitful to retain this belief even though it is an  unintentional consequence of human ignorance. As has been mentioned in another topic recently, the latest line of thinking on Neanderthals is that they displayed their intelligence so aptly they were perceived as potential mates and effectively diluted their own line. Their brains were bigger than ours with larger parts devoted to vision and simple function in turn producing different thought processes and perceptions of the world. As a result they could have a different or deeper ‘spirituality’ than we are capable of conceiving.

I would agree to a point on being hung up on naming things, but would extend it much further. I think we are hung up on inferring agents when none are there. That is what has led to the idea of a ‘god’ being propagated in the first place never mind the countless iterations that followed.

[bedstuy]

We find evidence of religion as far back as we find human artifacts., so religion has been around far longer than 3000 years.  We humans do get hung up on naming things to the point where most people think that a name is equivalent to what is being named.  That's why people develop what seems like multiple religions.  It's because they get hung up on the idea that their name is the one true name of God.

People during pre-history had some sort of spiritual animistic belief, but it was not the big three monotheistic beliefs.  That's not responsive to what I said.  What was the monotheistic God, Yahweh, doing during pre-history, just chilling out?  Do Christians believe in the pre-historic Gods, or were they demons or monsters of some sort?

Or, think of it this way, any religious belief that exists today could have been completely destroyed before it became popular.  Mohammed gets killed by a volcano, no Islam.  Jesus crashes his dune buggy, no Christianity. The Red Sea unparts midway during the Jews' crossing, no Judaism.  If you're Christian for example, that would result in a world where there's a God, but nobody knows about Jesus, that this particular special God exists and nobody would be going to heaven.  How do you all account for that?

It reminds of an alleged exchange between an archbishop and some sort of heckler who said:

"You're only a christian because you were raised that way"

And he replied: "You only think that's a good argument because you were raised that way"

If that line of argument convinces you and you think all reason and empiricism is no better than cognitive bias, why ever discuss anything with anyone?   

[DemPGH]

There is evidence of ritual in protohuman cultures (although not really religion - that's controversial), but early humans appear to have worshipped all kinds of deities; at least, they revered things like fish or deer or whatever sustained them, for example. Ritual helped make sense of the world, feel better about what could not be controlled or understood, and I think provided closure to death.

I would agree to a point on being hung up on naming things, but would extend it much further. I think we are hung up on inferring agents when none are there. That is what has led to the idea of a ‘god’ being propagated in the first place never mind the countless iterations that followed.

Absolutely. It seems very distinctly human to need to fill gaps in knowledge, hence "the God of the Gaps." But this tendency to fill gaps, explain anything unusual with little available information, or to be uncomfortable saying "I don't know" manifests itself on a day-to-day basis as well. "Oh, it can't be a coincidence!" I hear someone say probably once every couple days. Well, why not? Or, why couldn't whatever happened simply at this point be unexplainable because you don't have enough information? Or whatever. It's a tendency in human beings that I find a little unnerving and probably rather limiting. The reason is that once a person says, "Oh, it was God," then they have a tendency to stop investigating.

[Cassius]

Oh I don't know, the lord works in mysterious ways I guess. I mean, I can think of plenty of reasons as to why God only revealed himself to humanity at a certain point in time. Maybe he was waiting for humanity to develop to a certain extent, or he could well have been, as you put it, chilling, then one fine Summer's morning he woke up and thought 'screw it, I'm going to interact with what is developing to be the pinnacle of my creation', or somesuch other thought took a gander through his mind.

Anyway, I personally put down cultural differences to mere misapprehensions of what God is like, whether intentional on the part of God or unintentional. Of course, this is a fundamentally biased point of view; but, I say, we're all biased as human beings, so we may as well double down upon and defend that bias instead of attempting to act without bias and turning ourselves into the biological equivalent of a calculator.

In short, I repeat, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Somewhat cliched of course, but its enough for me.

[bedstuy]

Oh I don't know, the lord works in mysterious ways I guess. I mean, I can think of plenty of reasons as to why God only revealed himself to humanity at a certain point in time. Maybe he was waiting for humanity to develop to a certain extent, or he could well have been, as you put it, chilling, then one fine Summer's morning he woke up and thought 'screw it, I'm going to interact with what is developing to be the pinnacle of my creation', or somesuch other thought took a gander through his mind.

Anyway, I personally put down cultural differences to mere misapprehensions of what God is like, whether intentional on the part of God or unintentional. Of course, this is a fundamentally biased point of view; but, I say, we're all biased as human beings, so we may as well double down upon and defend that bias instead of attempting to act without bias and turning ourselves into the biological equivalent of a calculator.

In short, I repeat, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Somewhat cliched of course, but its enough for me.

That's a fair point.  You can always point to how God's deeds are beyond human comprehension. 

But, does it bother you as a believer that every dead culture thought they had the answer too?  The people building Easter Island heads probably thought, those people before us were ignorant of how God likes to be worshipped and the true nature of our God.  These were people just like us, as kind and deserving of salvation as we are.  And, they believed in building stone monoliths to worship their ancestors.

Doesn't looking at these dead religions and the variety of myths and legends suggest that God is make-believe?  Wouldn't it make more sense that we're just one culture in a line of cultures that thought they knew how to contact God and were wrong? 

[bore]

It reminds of an alleged exchange between an archbishop and some sort of heckler who said:

"You're only a christian because you were raised that way"

And he replied: "You only think that's a good argument because you were raised that way"

If that line of argument convinces you and you think all reason and empiricism is no better than cognitive bias, why ever discuss anything with anyone?  

I'm not sure that line entirely convinces me, but I think the people who use the cultural contingency are generally being hypocrites about it.

[bedstuy]

It reminds of an alleged exchange between an archbishop and some sort of heckler who said:

"You're only a christian because you were raised that way"

And he replied: "You only think that's a good argument because you were raised that way"

If that line of argument convinces you and you think all reason and empiricism is no better than cognitive bias, why ever discuss anything with anyone?  

I'm not sure that line entirely convinces me, but I think the people who use the cultural contingency are generally being hypocrites about it.

Everyone is a hypocrite.