Atheists: the native indians and african tribes natives never heard about Jesus and the Bible. However,?

Question

they believe in Nature's power. Native Indians may worship the moon, for example. They believe that storm means God (or a superior Force) is angry at them. They follow the Moon phases to plant, fish, marry and give birth. They respet and fear Nature as something superior.

African tribes native believe that nature has a spirit. They worship the spirit/entity of forest, of the river, of the moutains.

Those people are considered pagan by Catholicism, but they only believe in what they see.

Other ancient people used to believe in the possibility or re-uniting ancestors after death (parts of Asia and Egypt).

My question: why do you think those people chose to believe in something, if religion per say were never taught to them, actually they dont even have a notion of religion? Would you say that Faith is inherent in Human Beings?

Dont tell me they are dellisioned, cause I dont buy that. Those cultures deserve our respect for the wisdom they bring with them.

acid_zeb and elliot: if this was taught by their parents, so who taught their parents? And who taught their grand-parents? My question was exactly this: where did it come from?

kclightman: I am not categorizing anything. I said "Catholicism" say they are pagan. I dont think the same, though.

Answer 1

Well Im Not An Atheist (a= against, theos = god ) Because You Have To Believe In God To Be Against Him Or Her. However Your Question Brings Up An Interesting Point, Nature Is "God " In So Much That When She Strikes You Have No Choice But To Recognize Her Power. Just Look At What Nature Has Done ( Hurricanes, Tornados , And Tsunamis etc.) They Even Shut Down Disney World For Nature And It Make Millions If Not A Billion Dollars A Day. Theyll Shut Down The Vatican Before Disney !! lol She ( Mother Nature) Doesnt Require Man Or Woman To Have Faith In Her She Just Is... And For A Religious Person To Deny Her Power Is Crazy. For Instance She Has Destroyed Churches Synagoges And Mosques, Where They All Pray Different So My Question Would Be- How Can They Say That Their God Is Superior When He Cant Stop Nature From Destroying His Own "House" ?

Answer 2

I don't know about Africans, but Native Americans believed in the Great Spirit. Some of the Ancient Indian tales that were passed down from generation to generation about the white buffalo bear a striking resemblance to what Jesus preached. Early settlers thought that Indians were heathens and were doomed to hell because they would not accept western culture. Indians weren't materialistic, and could not fathom the idea of people owning the land. They gave away there stuff to others. In return the Government took advantage of them. I've lived in Oklahoma and have seen first hand how the Indians were treated back in the day. Most Indians I know are deeply spiritual, and very humble. Just don't give them alcohol as that is their downfall. They are very brave people also, and that is probably what makes their faith so strong. Even to this day, whenever a building or site is to be dedicated, Oklahoma will usually have a tribe come out to bless it by their spiritual leader.
Bottom line: I am a firm believer that faith is inherent in human beings. Even the Bible says, "It is written on your heart".

Answer 3

catholics do not consider these people pagan, nor are they lost. They have never heard the word of God, so they didn't reject it. however, they do believe in a Supreme Being and nature is the only thing they know. I believe other Christians take the same stand.. But times have changed. I worked around the Souix in South Dakota for two years and there are now many Christians of all denominations among the Souix Indians. I suspect the same thing is so for all native Americans, the Cherokee in oklahoma and Alabama, the Choctaws in Ms. The Creeks in Alabama, the Cherokee in Tennesee, just to name a few. Please do not state "facts" until you do some research. Yes, I believe Faith is inate in all human beings. God understands.

Answer 4

Religion was never taught to them? It's not like every person in those societies independently comes to the conclusion that nature has a spirit. It's taught to them just like most of our beliefs are taught to us.
Faith is not inherent in humans. Curiosity and imagination are, however, and when someone is curious about something which is beyond their abilities to fully understand they often imagine an answer.
Imagine, for example, you witness a storm for the first time in your life. No one in your society knows how the storm works or what causes it. Your society has no knowledge of the scientific method and lacks the equipment that would be necessary to investigate the causes of the storm. All you know is what the storm looks and sounds like, and the effects it can have. Well a storm looks like violent wind and rain, it sounds almost like shouting and it destroys things. Sounds a lot like anger, doesn't it? And obviously for anger to manifest itself in such a grand display, it must come from a force (or being) much more powerful than a human. And there you have it.
Someone (or possibly a group of people) makse a decision based on a thought process like this, and decides that storms are signs of anger from a higher power. That's were the idea comes from, and from there it's taught to children and passed on like that.

Answer 5

Nature IS superior because we can't control it. I think this is a perfect example to prove the atheist point. Lack of understanding produces fear and the desire to explain the unexplainable by whatever means are available to you. These tribes did not understand that there is a perfectly logical scientific explanation for lightening, thunder etc. They saw it as a vicious attack and since they could not recreate it then it must be caused by a higher power. However, that doesn't mean that I don't respect these people and what they choose to believe. In fact I respect them more than people involved in organised religion because at least their faith in nature is pure and they serve the earth.

Answer 6

I'm an atheist, but I'm also a Neo-pagan and a Taoist. So you see, atheists can and often do have faith in something.

I would not presume to speak for all mankind as to whether faith is inherent. I think the urge to explain what we do not understand is typical, and when there is not science there will likely be belief (and when there is science, there may still be belief in the question of 'why' once we know the 'how').

Pagan beliefs can be called a religion too, so I think you're miscategorizing the tribal religions. I do think it's natural to be in awe of our world, it's really something!

Answer 7

I’m Native American and I believe in a supreme force or power.

I do follow the moon but not because of my Native American beliefs, because I am also a wiccan. I can be classified as a pagan from my Native American beliefs but I am also classified as pagan form my wiccan beliefs. Neo-paganism is any earth centered religion.

I don’t think that my ancestors have ever heard of god and the bible but they believed in the creator. they believed that he created everything, we do not necessarily believe that storms mean that he is angry at us, we aren’t ignorant. We are just like you.

We do have belief systems and have had them far, far before the Christians came to America. Many of us still follow them today. God(s) are universal.

BB
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Answer 8

B/c like the Greeks they didn't have the scientific tools to find out the truth about things that happened so they came up with there beliefs to explain everything.
Yes they do deserve respect but sadly the orginal rulers of America treated the Native American's and Afriacan's like crap feeling snotty and superior.
We all need something to believe in even if it's just science.

Answer 9

The answer to your question is very simple. We engineer myth to explain the things in our life that we don't understand or cannot accept. The one certainty of this world is death; yet we go to no end to claim that there is life after death. Our myths are only sacred to us because they were sacred to our parents, and their parents, etc. Religion is the one aspect of the human experience which has made virtually zero progress. Let me give you an example:

If you were to bring Tomas Aquinas in a time machine from the 13th century to today, he would, I guarantee, know more about the bible than almost any other contemporary scholar. His knowledge of religion would be second to none; however, his knowledge of everything else would be worthless and bizarre. He would think that boring holes into your skull was an effective method for letting demonic forces escape your brain; he would think the earth was flat; he would knowledge in the areas of science, history, mathematics, literature, and every other aspect of the human experience would, not surprisingly, reflect the state of knowledge of the 13th century.

I'm not saying there is no God. I can't prove it, but I'm willing to negotiate the idea. I also know that a human is more than the sum of it's parts and that there are things in this world that I cannot currently explain. Nonetheless, the lack of evidence explaining a phenomenon is not proof to support a myth.

I realize that Indians and all religious people get comfort and wisdom from their "faith" and from their religious books. But people also get comfort from the writings of William Shakespeare, and for some reason, "God" made Shakespeare a much better writer than himself.

Answer 10

Spirituality and the drive to make sense of the world around us is an intrisic human quality, and a Jungian archtype. This question has nothing to do with Atheisim. Atheisits don't believe in The God, not in rain or the moon.