Stop bullshitting and go solve the equation, insane crank.

My point about ancient human societies being theistic is a general truth -- there were certainly individuals and perhaps ancient movements who sort of bucked this trend like Epicurus, but Roman society -- as ancient societies were generally -- were polytheistic except strange cults like Judaism who practiced monotheism. Jainism, btw, is not atheistic. Of course a diversity of thought exists though. Maybe we could find a few ancient societies constructed on atheism/a rejection of theism but those would be the exception.

The Charvaka were an Indian philosophical school which was strictly materialistic, atheistic, and antidogmatic.

So they insist on a strict materialism and reject of the divinity yet remain non-dogmatic :brow:

Stop bullshitting and go solve the equation, insane crank. — Lionino

I thought that you wanted me to help you find a new job?

I am quite good at networking but not that good. So, give me some more time to pull off the impossible.

By the way, does anybody want to hire him?

He's been looking for a new job for ages now but he keeps failing at the first interview.

Jainism, btw, is not atheistic — BitconnectCarlos

I would say they are atheistic but spiritual. Labels aside, this is how the World History Encyclopaedia puts it:

It is a nontheistic religion in that it does not advocate a belief in a creator god but in higher beings (devas), which are mortal, and in the concept of karma directing one's present life and future incarnations; the devas have no power over a person, however, and are not sought for guidance or assistance in freeing one's self from karmic bondage. In Jainism, it is up to each individual to attain salvation – defined as release from the cycle of rebirth and death (samsara) - by adhering to a strict spiritual and ethical code of behavior.

For the connection between Jainism and Buddhism, you may be interested in this article https://human.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/History/World_History/Early_World_Civilizations_(Lumen)/06%3A_Early_Civilizations_in_the_Indian_Subcontinent/6.02%3A_Buddhism

Interesting. ChatGPT describes it as theistic yet agrees that Jainism does not believe in a creator god. Mesopotamian religion and other ancient polytheistic systems also didn't have creator gods -- there was the primordial realm out from all things came including the other minor gods (higher beings) who were still subject to karma/fate/cycle of rebirth/etc. Israelite religion was unique in that it broke from this conception but this conception is very ancient. It's the idea of a single creator god that is new, relatively speaking.

What makes you think gods comes from the outside? Are they not human creations, as fraught and manufactured as any ideology? — Tom Storm

If God isn’t other than us, then aren’t we already doomed, right? Why would we who create the world’s biggest problems along with false ideologies to build the factions that get to kill the unbelievers think we might make the world a better place, when today is always same as yesterday anyway? Some of us live a little longer today. More time maybe per life than 10,000 years ago. Otherwise just more time to find a faction to fight and kill and live and die for among the rubble.

The only hope, I see, is something else.

Doesn’t mean this world and each one of us isn’t worth saving. Just that we can’t do it alone. More like we won’t do it alone. We all think only some of us and some of the world is worth saving, and that shows none of us are capable of doing what it might take to save any of us, let alone all of us.

God is our last hope, and not if he or she is just one of us.

I guess I'm not as pessimistic as you seem to be. I don't think we are doomed, but who would know? I tend to think of 'last hopes' as wish fulfillment fantasies. In such situations, God becomes a kind of Marvel superhero who rescues us in the last 15 minutes of the story. These tropes - doom and saving - don't entirely resonate with me, but I understand their attractions, and of course, they've been a part of human storytelling for millennia.

I think you're right, I do presuppose a reason, and maybe that is just a bad habit. However if there is, in fact, an unknown reason, then we have a natural mystery that explains the phenomena we experience.

These tropes - doom and saving — Tom Storm

I’m not pessimistic. I just mean we will never end war, end murder, end lying, end hurting each other and ourselves. We will never build a utopia, never end poverty. There will always be self-absorbed people, there will always arise a tyrant, there will always be infidelity and betrayal.

But life on balance is good, and it’s worth trying to love and live, and teach and learn, and seek to be good, and be better.

Just being realistic. All of human history so far shows nothing changes.

What’s your trope, Tom?

, as mentioned, some (supposed) vague unknown isn't of particular concern here. By the way, are you sure you want to define your supposed deity/deities by these apologist arguments? There could be (unforeseen) implications.

As an aside, the modal logic comes up every now and then. ^{(e.g. 2021Jul7, 2021Jul5)} Possible worlds are, in short, self-consistent wholes. Necessities hold for all of them. Possibilities hold for (at least) one. Contingency and impossibility are derived from there, which rounds up the typical four subjunctive modalities. So, anyway, whatever necessity would be common to all possible worlds. Coffee doesn't figure in Euclidean space, R³, which is a self-consistent whole, hence coffee is not necessarily around. Well, it is a necessity to me, so this is offensive. ;) I'm not seeing "the Vedic Shiva, the Avestan Ahura Mazda, the Biblical Yahweh, and a few others", either.

It becomes difficult to see the point of a proof of God's existence when it is construed as a proof of an individual's existence. Does one use arguments to become acquainted with an individual? Either that individual exists or it doesn't, and experience alone can tell us which. The project of a proof of God's existence thus ironically comes to appear meaningless to contemporary philosophers of religion. — Theism and Atheism: Opposing Arguments In Philosophy (2019) by Joseph Koterski, Graham Oppy

I’m not pessimistic. I just mean we will never end war, end murder, end lying, end hurting each other and ourselves. We will never build a utopia, never end poverty. There will always be self-absorbed people, there will always arise a tyrant, there will always be infidelity and betrayal. — Fire Ologist

I wouldn't call this optimism. :wink: I don't think we can say 'never'. It's too definitive. But certainly it is unlikely. Who knows? The broader question is will we wipe ourselves out before we can get to some more beneficial way of being with each other? That's my trope.

I wouldn't call this optimism. :wink: — Tom Storm

Valid observation. I’m actually optimistic. Just not in our ability to truly care for one another on any kind of scale larger than the people we happen to like in our living rooms and backyards.

We care about those we naturally care about in a "visceral" way, but we can also learn to care for those we are not familiar with in an intellectual way.

we can — Janus

We certainly can. But too few of us do.

Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek. 2000 year old quotes.

But too few of us do. — Fire Ologist

Yes, that is the problem. What if the ideology of modern consumerism has a lot to do with that? A change of paradigm might help.

I imagine there may be unknown factors in play that we may later come to know about. Will there always be more unknown factors to discover? It seems plausible to think that there will be, and in any case how could we ever know if we have discovered all the factors in play or not? Is there any reason to believe that nature should be 100% intelligible to us?

Israelite religion was unique in that it broke from this conception but this conception is very ancient. — BitconnectCarlos

Well, Zoroastrianism is just as old if not older and has its own monotheistic creator God.