If there is no God then were did the concept of God come from

I suspect in early history man found himself so much at the whim of natural forces he pretty much had to believe there was something more powerful than he. Possibly, too, that "IT" was out to get him! Crop failures, disease, natural predators, and who knows what else, were all out to get early man. Not understanding anything about these things, it was natural for early man to assume there was some powerful God behind it all. Today, in their ignorance, some men assume since they now understand a few things, all things can be understood and explained. These arrogant people are often atheists.

I'm an avid history reader so I might as well as give my opinion. Since the first, if people has something they cannot explain, they will usually tell it was made by God. God is also the reason why religion was created. Some reasons why religion still stood in the past is that because the authority instilled fear to the people so that they may keep believing in God.

From our need of beliefs in a superior being. Quite simply, we just need something to complete our undestanding and aour powers. Usually humans bow to a superior force just like that. It's in our instincts...I say instincts just to emphasize that it's not really a controlled need or something we think at much. Imagine a savage who has no access to education or something like that, living on a desert island. During a storm he sees a thunder that comes down and shakes or burns down a tree... from the very next moment on he will most surely fear the God Thunder...and asks him to keep him safe. It's just our need of a superior being, something to fear of, or something to protect us.. ~ ...in my opinion... feel free to express yours ~

Humans feel like they must explain EVERYTHING!!! When something comes up they cannot explain, we invent explanations. We needed to explain our origins, and we did not have the science to explain it as well as we do today, so they invented "super humans" who had powers us mere mortals have to explain things. The origin of polytheism. Then some people decided centuries later that there was only ONE of these super humans, so monotheism was born.

Okay this is a hard one, so first lat me say this. Reality is only relitive to one persons prspective, and many things can alter that reality. There is ofcource mor than one God, and i know this will upset alot of Christians. Let me qulify myself as a Christian then and explain further. We are tought that there are no other gods except the God of Isriel, and that other gods were only make believe figments of the imagenations of unlearned peoples. I would ask any one who beleives that to first learn some Hebrew, Aramaic and some Dravidic languges and reread the bible. As God talks to God many times. and the word God usely is translated from the masculin plural Elohim. Psalms 82 and Job are great examples for this. Plus you have the words "Bini Elohim or Bini Eloh" mentioned many times in the bible, it is translated as "sons of God, or sons of the Most High and some places. We are tought this is some refrence to men, but it could not be as they are spoken of as be mere men. They also are called "shinning ones and morning stars", They produced ofspring with mortal women greating "nephlim" translated wrongly in the bible as 'giants', the word actulay means 'those who came from above'. There were many gods, and most inslaved mankind into worshipping them and their human/god offspring. You see this in the earliest writings of the near east, Egypt, Sumer and Babylon, as well as other writings of lesser know inhabatents of the middle and near east. The gods of rome and greece were actualy the same gods of the anciants, who were still being worshipped years after the departure of the gods and the destruction of their offspring. I believe these other gods were around as Job states when God created the univers, but they themselves were also created, and yet powerfull not as powerfull as the God who created them. It was some of these gods, 70 in total who after seeing God give earth to man decided to take back the earth and make man subservient to them, even though God gave man dominion of the earth. It was man by worshipping these other gods gave the earth back to them and thus put themselves in oppositin with the creator, and thus need to be purchaced back from the fallen ones. We think we are so smart today and say this is all fairy tales and fabal. I will laugh when soon it was predicted thousands of years ago they will again return in an efforty to take the earth back for themselves.

First, I don't think atheists do not chiefly fault our ancestor's inability to explain cosmological occurences and seek refuge in the concept of God as, what?, "primitive" traces of theism?, then I think we would be charging atheists a certain restrictiveness which they did not really commit. I think atheists have more in their tanks than them saying that theism is the fault of our 'less scientific' anscestors. If one is an atheist, at least those whom I have already encountered, then one is following a choice made firm by convicing arguments that there is no God. I'm speaking here of strict atheism - and not agnosticism or indifference to faith, or a collapse of faith due to lethargy. I think, it is different from saying that we cannot have a capacity to grasp the divine. Strict atheism believes that there is nothing to believe, period. And they will have numerous rational arguments to support this firm conviction. To say that they are atheists because they cannot accept the cheap way our ancestors arrived at theism, then that half-paints the picture of an atheist 'belief system'. Second, if the early man showed ready acceptance of the existence of God, that does not mean they did that as a kind of emergency measure to save their belief system from collapse. If the primitive humanity are theists in their own way, then the lack of more scientific knowledge of, what was that?, "how the world works," is I think not the reason for it. I think it's more probable that humanity is generally theists because they are naturally are born to be it. It belongs to man's innate nature to accede to a supreme being higher than he is. It's a working belief system already operative in man. I think your discussion has to be distinguished between a, the question of whether or not there is a divine, and b, the question of whether or not we can ever know this divine. It's ontology and epistemology. "If there has never been a God, and we just showed up by dumb luck, then why did early man start calling unexplainable events acts of God?" is pretty much how we combine (or confuse?) the study of the divine existence, and our awesome giftedness to actually grasp it. If we would really like to confront atheists, then I think we need to clarify from what front are we asking them to explain their atheism - from their belief that there is in fact no God, or from their - or human - incapacity to know him. Just trying to clarify. Oh, and by the way, I am a theist if I may mention.

you just gave the explanation for the concept of god so what are you asking, primitive man so the lightening a natural phenomenon, and it was god, etc, anything greater than humankind was god and god took on many names. Primitive man also feed virgins to volcanos too to appease the gods, they also scrificed babies to the gods, and the earliest form of religions were first objects as god, like a volcano, then many gods and the youngest form is one god. atheism is not new the first recorded athheist was Diagoras of Melos (5th century BC) is known as the "first atheist". .... A History of Atheism in Britain: from Hobbes to Russell. London: Routledge.

it started from the fact that man can't give an account of how they come into existence so they have to attribute it to something divine and invincible.

I'm a bit confused about what you're asking. Are you asking where the term 'God' derives from? If so, here's an interesting page which will answer your question: http://www.bibleanswerstand.org/God.htm

I think it will be a mistake to argue for God's existence or otherwise based on the origin of the idea. People like Feuerbach will say one thing, but psychologist like Paul Vitz will say another. I think it serves to explain only a strand of human nature/reality. There is more to it.

by that concept then, surely every God exists? or does this theory apply only to the Christian God, not those beleived in before that idea showed up.

At some point in time, many different concepts did not exist. Fairies, ghosts, monsters - everything had to be thought up by some person at some time. Humans have existed to see and record the "birth" of new Gods and folklore. It all began with some imaginative people. When people describe our early ancestors as "primitive", it is because of their lack of technology and understanding of the world. At one point in time, the sun rose because a God made it so. This was their understanding of the world - far different from our own, more enlightened views. Just because they are primitive, doesn't mean they can think up a God. "If there was never a God then should there be more Atheist in early history."

If there is no God, the concept of having a God came from God, He wants to show to all of us that He is the creator of all. That we should render worship to Him alone. Once, I had no God. but He introduced Himself to me, through the nature, through the things around me, through the things that happen in the world.

before there was ever a religion, people only had nature to live by, they watched the trees, and wind, and water. they thought all of them had a soul to them, which is true all of them have energy in them. Later on people didnt understand much of the concept of life, so they put a divine being to the unknown. Or the aliens is where God began, one of those two. LOL. Now most believe in God b/c its been inbred for 2000 years, and before that there was other beliefs of gods or whatnot so many many years we been taught to think that way. I think its time that we as humans need to look outside the box and maybe try new ways of thinking. Thinking for ourselves.