It’s as relevent as it gets. What if the OP started out by saying, “Let’s suppose water is a compound of hydrogen and molydenum.” Sorry, but certain hypotheticals can’t be waved through the turnstile.
I believe that spirit is real–AND proven. I also believe that a monotheistic “God” as in the Christian tradition can be DISproved through philosophical arguments.
Atheism is in essence correct but still incomplete (if it is reductionist/materialist). I don’t know what you mean by “secularism.” I’m a pantheist, at any rate.
Years ago I read The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes. As I recall his theory was that until the development of communication between the two hemispheres of the brain (about 3000 years ago) man had no capacity to even think of anything outside his physical experience. He posits the idea that “better evolved” individuals could invoke structured religous/supernatural forces to control the activities of the less evolved. Until the advent of organised societies this wasn’t needed.
He believed that prior to the development of “conciousness”, our sense of self, that everyone heard internal “voices” that were really the other hemisphere’s thoughts. He thinks (well kind of…it was long ago) that religions are orderly social constructs of internal dialogues designed to make society possible.
It’s very old science now but worth a look.
There has never been more than the Oneness of God, the Creator, or whatever one wishes to call Him/Her/It.
People, however, are given to worship almost anything – doctrines, rules, laws, statues, gold, power, fame, bodies, money of all kinds and any means of survival.
When you find God (within you) nothing else will be more important. Only a few find God in each lifetime, but there are endless lifetimes…
Love
Jewish tradition states that the idea of worshiping forces other than G-d began with Enosh, the grandson of Adam and Eve. (Genesis 4:26 says that in his time “began men to call upon the name of the Lord,” but the original Hebrew verb in this sentence, huchal, has two possible meanings, “began” and “profaned,” and so the Jewish commentators translate the verse as follows: “then began men to profane the name of the Lord.”)
Maimonides, in his Laws of Idolatry (1:1-3), fleshes out the developments as follows:
Enosh and his contemporaries first came up with the idea that the heavenly bodies should be worshiped - not as independent deities, but as G-d’s ministers. Later on, people started claiming that G-d had told them to make images representing these powers, and to show obeisance to these. Still later, religious leaders started claiming that a certain planet or star itself had given them instructions as to how they should worship it, leaving G-d out of the equation entirely; this became the accepted view, leaving those who still believed in one G-d (such as Noah) outnumbered.
Abraham himself was born into a family of pagans, and without the benefit of a tradition, he rediscovered the idea of one G-d who alone should be worshiped. He passed this idea down to his descendants, who ultimately formed the Jewish people.
So the reason we refer to the “G-d of Abraham” rather than the “G-d of Adam” is because Adam didn’t succeed in establishing this idea for all time, whereas Abraham did so and founded a tradition of monotheism that has persisted to this day.
But it seems to me that Bear Nenno was asking the question in the context of the Judeo-Christian story. If you want to believe that the entire story is fiction, that’s your privilege. But that belief is still irrelevant to the OP. The question is as valid within the Biblical context as would be a similar question about events in Lord Of The Rings. Let’s say the question was, “How could Gandalf cast spells?” The question needs to be answered based upon the natural/supernatural laws of Middle Earth. Simply stating that LOTR is fiction and that anything can happen in fiction is inadequate. A question about the mechanics of Middle Earth needs to be answered with information that is considered valid within Middle Earth.
I read the OP like this:
Why did it take 2000+ years after the Biblical creation story for Judaism to become an institution? Shouldn’t the people have known who God was all along? Why were false gods worshipped, when the people knew from the beginning who the real god was?
Those are valid questions within the context of the Biblical story.
There are pleny of flood legends, from all over the world. Not surprising, since there have been plenty of local floods. The Greeks have one (where the survivor climb a mountain) also.
Where did you get 11,000 years ago for the flood? If you add up the numbers from Adam, Noah lived about 2,000 BCE. And in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NY there are Chinese artifacts long before that, which have an obvious Chinese style. (And are very beautiful.) If you are going to be a literalist, you have to be a literalist all the way!
BTW, some of you should calculate the death dates for the figures in Genesis. Adam lived, supposedly, almost half the time from creation to the flood. I have a hard time imaging that people forgot god, when the very first man was still around. That makes the OP’s question even better.
So it would take a loud voice from the sky? What about angles? Also, would we know if the angel was of light or darkness. Some people listen to the angels of darkness. These were spirits that would probably make you think, "holy cow, I better listen to he/she/it. Why? Because it is not of this world, so we think it must be powerful. People did listen to these dark angels, for the same reason. They were tricked.
A loud voice from the clouds wouldn’t make a difference. Jesus spoke to people and they chose to do things their own way. Why did they do that? Because they had a choice. Yes, Jesus didn’t walk around with a loud, roaring voice wearing majestic robes, but Jesus walked the earth and healed the blind. Jesus took a few fish and some loaves of bread and fed 5000 people. Jesus turned water into wine. Jesus brough Lazarus back form the dead, etc.
My point is that people didn’t believe then, why do you think they will believe now? Not everyone is going to believe.
I would think a voice coming down from Heaven would convince people too. but like I said, Cain still wanted to do things his own way. There are many examples in the Bible of people still wanting to do things their own way, regardless of what God told them or showed them.
Also, Jesus said to Thomas that he only believes because he sees. Jesus said to him, “Because you have seen Me, Thomas, do you now believe (trust, have faith)? Blessed and happy and to be envied are those who have never seen Me and yet have believed and adhered to and trusted and relied on Me.” --Amplified
And there will be a time when men will see miraculous signs, straight from the Bible, and still reject God.
A few thousand years after Adam and his family, God spoke to Noah. This was before Abraham. God spoke to Abraham because He had something to say to Abraham; a special purpose.
I don’t know why God stopped talking to people. He did send His messengers. I will look into it more for you.
Thanks, JD
God stopped talking to us because someone made fun of Her dress.
Now we are amidst the Holy Cold Shoulder.
Well, the problem at hand is more of internal consistency than capability, since God can do anything. It would be more like if Bilbo had put on the ring and had nothing happen, only to put it on at a point of crisis and then vanish. This is fun to do in literature, but there is always the escape hatch that this is fiction written by a fallible author. (The New Yorker used to run newsbreaks entitled “Our Forgetful Authors” with stuff like this. If you are a literalist, you don’t have this out in the Bible, which is why this is so much fun.
Hey, I thought the reason God no longer shows signs is that if he did, we’d have to believe, and have no free will about it. You people need to get your stories straight.
Just like the lovely faith of someone who buys the Brooklyn Bridge without seeing a deed.
<Dylan> And he said “You can do what you want Abe but, the next time you see me coming you better run.”</Dylan>
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Abraham is the least of your problems. When was the Tower of Bable built? Everyone had one language up to then, right? Did everyone in the world live there, and, if not, how come everyone else suddenly acquired different languages in different places? When did they move to China, India, Australia, the Americas, and when did they acquire the dramatically different cultures they got, without any evident similiarities. Not only did they have different languages, different cultures, different gods, but they also acquired different histories. And of course god could not be bothered visiting them and telling them to keep the Sabbath or keep Kosher or anything.
if there was a group called the Jesus Christ Irregulars who put out newsletters giving explanations for why this stuff is consistent, it would be fun, and a nice intellectual challenge. That people want to pass laws based on the truth of this stuff, however, is just frightening.
Yes… That is what I would have asked if I had any hint of writing ability. Thank you.
I do not mind the “It’s all fake anyway” comments. But the debate here is for people to defend their beliefs. To explain their beliefs on how things could have happened like that. And to explain what the bible says about it - if anything.
For the record, I don’t currently believe any of it is true. However, I am very open minded and I’ve never argued against the presence of a god or The God. It’s a hard argument to win. However, this is one discrepancy that I would like explained to me. If someone does believe in God, he/she should have justification for people starting all these other religions despite the fact that the Real God had been talking to them and providing for them since the very first day of Humans.
All the posts are very interesting by the way.
I don’t agree. The OP seemed very confused and ungrounded in this regard. Certainly, fundamentalists sometimes post here looking only for responses in their tradition, but this did not seem to be the case.
I have no problem with your comparing the Bible to LotR; however, certain religious types here might.
In answer to the OP on why it took so long to identify with one true God… and this assumes we have already done so.
Lots of reasons:
First, not everybody is on the same page (separate cultures).
Next you have all these different guys, telling all these different stories, creating all these different beliefs, so we get all these different gods.
Then someone says, “this god is the only real god” and it (slowly) catches on.
Following is a short history (which I have posted before) concerning archeological evidence for the development of monotheism from polytheism (not all scholars agree this development was from polytheism - but it seems to be the strongest theory).
Now how this actually occurred is still debated among historians but most agree that the Israelites (and their God) were well aware of other gods, and even worshiped a few, (they were even allowed to you see, just not before God).
Ancient Hebrews probably picked up their early religion* from the Caananites who had a whole bunch o’ gods to choose from (they’d put the Romans to shame).
In some hypotheses, Al (El), the Caananite creator of heaven and earth, is adopted by early Israelites as their “God”. El, by the way, was not their (Caananite’s) chief god, that honor was given to Baal, El’s son. Baal also took El’s wife Asherah when he got that job (to the dismay of all the other gods it seems, but this is another story).
*According to The Encyclopedia of World History, sixth edition, edited by Peter N. Stearns (original editor, William L. Langer) the course of the monotheistic worship of Yahweh is problematic. And although they (Stearns et. al.) are careful to point out that there is still much debate over the issue of exactly how early on monotheism developed in the Hebrew religion, there is a 9th century Hebrew inscription that suggests Yahweh had a consort named… (drum roll please) Asherah. (this would strongly suggest the Caananite tie)
Centuries later, some upstarts came to challange the Jewish beliefs, and apparently some of these really caught on (one is still around today). 
Then it took another several hundred years to get to a popular fella called Muhammad.
Skip ahead to today, and we still have hundreds of different religions, all with their own histories…
Why did it take so long? 
dinoboy, all that story telling seems to suggest religion is just that – stories. But see, IF God was talking to people from the begining, man would not have had to wait for someone to tell His story. Man would have had the story from the begining.
If I were to be convinced that popular Christian or Jewish beliefs are correct, I would have to be convinced that there is a rational explanation for the huge gaps in the timeline and the fact that so many religions came to exist. And how people did not start telling God’s story until hundreds (thousands) of years AFTER he created them. Why did Adam not write of God???
Every believer out there should have his/her own justification for these issues. One such justification given already was that the devil or other unholy spirits are in the habit of influencing people into believing what is not true.
If that’s the case, why are these demons not taking a more active role in recruiting man against God? If it was the goal of the devil to make all man be against God, what is stopping him from being more proactive and becoming more visible and talking to people more. Maybe run a campaign saying he was the true God. With all his power, and the fact that the ‘real’ God is not much for human contact right now, I think much of the world would jump on that bandwagon.
If I was the devil, I would pull off some miracles for all the world to see and have billions worshipping me in under a week. If this is his goal, and he is a powerful spirit, then what gives? Why do we not hear from him either. God might have a moral reason for not talking to us (because He wants us to believe on faith or something) but surely the devil would not have these restrictions.
So Jersey Diamond, what’s the reason for these angels of darkness to not appear on Earth today claiming to be Gods?
Who says they don’t? Some would say that some of these devils are appearing in tortillas and window condensation, resembling the Virgin Mary, in order to fool devout Catholics.
Seriously, though, the things you just described, asking “why doesn’t he…”, are exactly the things that the book of Revelation (the last book of the Bible) predict:
"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy. And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast. And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him? And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months. And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven. And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. If any man have an ear, let him hear. He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints. And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon. And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men, And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.”
(Revelation 13:1-14) (emphasis mine)
Because God has hell surrounded by a force field and the Devil can’t get out?
Ahhh, yes it does…
But I think that is exactly what would have caused any confusion.
That and the fact these cultures were so far removed from each other. Though I think people back then traveled farther than we give them credit for today, there wouldn’t probably be a significant influence on religions until someone conquered someone else, kind of a cultural revolution, so to speak.
I guess I did miss your OP a bit:
You see, I was just trying to elucidate on the some of the problems with a monotheistic religion’s total acceptance (competition being a biggie).
If you want me to go into the whole one God bit I really can’t, I think that the christian God is really just the Caananite god El - sorry
Why do so few people have a geniune religious experience these days? Take a monk like the late Thomas Merton. He became a monk after a wild adult life, and he did experience God in a very personal way. However, for every Thomas Merton, there must be thousands of religious people who never get a word from the Big Guy Upstairs! I recall seeing an interesting show (by Marshall Frady), who interviewed several monks in an abbey in Kentuckey. He spoke to one monk (a man in his 50’s). This monk had spent his life in prayer and conformance to the rules of the Trappist order, but had never had a revelation frojkm God-seems a bit unfair to me!
Have you vere had a geniune revelation from the Allmighty? 
If the laws of physics are so real how come it took so long for mankind to figure them out?