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    Polytheism originates from human fear and ignorance about... — Carmelics
    Home/Religious Experience
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    Polytheism originates from human fear and ignorance about unpredictable events, not from rational reflection on nature's beauty and order

    Natural TheologyReligious Experience
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
    ?
    • 1.The basis of genuine theism is the beauty and order discovered in the works of nature via the argument from design
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    • 2.Polytheism originates instead from various and contrary events of human life such as weather, illness, and wars
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    • 3.These events are unpredictable and directly influence human happiness and misery
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Early anthropological and phenomenological evidence (Müller, Otto) shows awe at natural grandeur—storms, mountains, celestial cycles—is itself a primary driver of polytheistic pantheons.
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    • 2.If wonder at ordered, powerful natural phenomena generates gods of sky, sea, and sun, then polytheism shares its cognitive origin with design-based theism, undermining the sharp genetic distinction Hume draws.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Aristotle and later Vico argued that myth and polytheism encode proto-rational attempts to systematize causal regularities in nature, not merely anxious responses to chaos.
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    • 2.If polytheistic traditions demonstrably contain systematic cosmogonies and natural philosophies (e.g., Hesiod's Theogony, Vedic cosmology), the claim that they originate from ignorance rather than reflective ordering is historically unsustainable.
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    Topics

    Religious ExperienceNatural Theology

    Connections

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    Related

    Aristotle and later Vico argued that myth and polytheism encode proto-rational a...Early anthropological and phenomenological evidence (Müller, Otto) shows awe at ...Humans in primitive states of society are ignorant of the causes behind such eve...If polytheistic traditions demonstrably contain systematic cosmogonies and natur...
    +5 moreShow less
    If wonder at ordered, powerful natural phenomena generates gods of sky, sea, and...In this ignorance, humans conceive of unknown causes as invisible, intelligent a...Polytheism originates instead from various and contrary events of human life suc...The basis of genuine theism is the beauty and order discovered in the works of n...These events are unpredictable and directly influence human happiness and misery

    Similar

    Polytheism originates instead from various and contrary events of huma...77%This process is shaped by human fears and ignorance77%Concluding that the laws of nature are violated from extraordinary eve...75%Any rational being contemplating such regularity and beauty would conc...74%

    Source

    AI-extracted1/3 agreementValid
    SEP: hume-religion
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    Hume maintains that “polytheism or idolatry was, and must have been, the first and most ancient religion of mankind” (NHR, 1.1). Not only does the evidence of history make this clear (Hume discounts the historical reliability of the Hebrew Bible, which, as is well-known, presents a different picture), we know as well that if theism, based on the (obvious and convincing) argument of design, were the original religion then it would be impossible to explain how polytheism could have ever arisen out
    Extraction notes

    Validity: Extracted via Max plan + API grounding/validity checks

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit