Is God an "Artifact of Evolution" if man had not evolved to the point of "self recognition", then no God?

Question

On the flip side, do animals have Gods? What do Elephants "think" when they find an Elephant "Grave yard". How about Apes or other high level Primates?

Answer 1

Well, there was no God before man evolved self recognition, so yes. Give the other primates a couple million years, and I'm sure they'll have their own Gods.

Answer 2

That's an interesting question. I don't think that it has anything to do with evolution in the biological sense. However, we need to recognize that other things evolve (change, over time) besides the genetic makeup of populations of organisms. The universe evolves. The solar system has evolved. The planet has evolved. Language has evolved. Ideas evolve.

Religion is an idea... or a collection of them... which purports to explain some fundamental aspects of existence and reality. For some period of time, religious ideas were the only game in town, since we did not possess the intellectual tools (logic, mathematics), the technology, an accumulated knowledge base and the disciplined procedural methods necessary to extract answers from nature. As these things developed, natural explanations began to supplant the dogmatic, canonical 'pseudo-knowledge' which was the bailiwick of religion. By the time this began to happen, religion was well entrenched as a criminal business enterprise... a mechanism for preserving the wealth and power of the inner circle. Religion's business was the 'sale' of 'salvation', on the basis of 'faith' and 'belief'. But faith is a substitute for evidence. Belief is a substitute for knowledge. Neither faith nor belief are sufficient to sustain reason... they are only sufficient to sustain willful ignorance and delusion. As ACTUAL evidence, and ACTUAL knowledge have accumulated, religion has become more and more desperate to preserve itself. In the dark ages, they had the political power to merely torture and kill anyone who dared to dissent... Giordano Bruno is a good example. Having lost the political power that enabled them to do that, they are now engaged in a battle to preserve myth and 'pseudo-knowledge' by a campaign of lies, misinformation and political subterfuge... longing for the days when they could permanently silence their opposition... and working to regain the political power where they can do so once again. (Dominionism, Reconstructionism, Theonomy.)

So, I don't think that we have an 'artifact of evolution'. I think what we have can be characterized as two 'idea structures', existing side-by-side... like ant hills. One... religion... is like an old, crusty termite mound, which has existed essentially unchanged, for centuries. The other... science... is like a new species of ant that is totally oblivious to the termite mound... they've just busily got to work building their own edifice. They are just going about their business, building their ant hill, and not paying any attention to the structural damage they are doing to their termite neighbors. They are undermining the foundations of the termite mound, and causing its walls to crumble, using their modern building tools... reason, logic, critical thought, scientific method, evidence, technology, etc. The termites dare not oppose them directly... all they can do is frantically keep patching their structure and their foundations... and occasionally attempting to sabotage their neighbors.

Silly analogy... but we have an old paradigm that refuses to evolve, and a new paradigm that is slowly and inexorably overtaking and destroying the old one.

The time when we should be tolerating the myths, superstitions, fairy tales and fantastical delusions of an ignorant bunch of Bronze Age fishermen and wandering goat herders has long passed.

Answer 3

I'd agree with that statement.

Not sure what the elephants are thinking.

Answer 4

no

man is created in God;s image not animals

interestingly even Neanderthal who were men living after the flood of noah during the ice age, worshipped God, had musicla instruments and were buried as family... it is inate to human culture