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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    Worship of multiple human-like invisible intelligent powe... — Carmelics
    Home/Religious Experience
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    Worship of multiple human-like invisible intelligent powers arises from attempts to control what humans fear and do not understand

    Natural TheologyReligious Experience
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.Humans hope to control unpredictable events they do not understand by propitiating invisible intelligent agents
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    • 2.This process is shaped by human fears and ignorance
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    • 3.The projection of human-like qualities onto these unknown causes populates the world with objects of worship
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Rudolf Otto's phenomenological analysis shows religious awe (the 'numinous') involves fascination and attraction, not merely fear of the unknown.
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    • 2.If polytheism were primarily fear-driven, we would expect uniformly malevolent deities, yet pantheons consistently include benevolent and aesthetic divine figures.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.E.E. Evans-Pritchard's ethnographic work on the Azande demonstrates that ritual propitiation coexists with sophisticated causal reasoning, not ignorance.
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    • 2.Hume's account conflates the genetic origin of a belief with its epistemic or functional content, committing a version of the genetic fallacy.
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    Topics

    Religious ExperienceNatural Theology

    Connections

    2 topics

    Philosophy of Language1 linkedSkepticism1 linked

    Related

    E.E. Evans-Pritchard's ethnographic work on the Azande demonstrates that ritual ...Humans hope to control unpredictable events they do not understand by propitiati...Hume's account conflates the genetic origin of a belief with its epistemic or fu...If polytheism were primarily fear-driven, we would expect uniformly malevolent d...
    +3 moreShow less
    Rudolf Otto's phenomenological analysis shows religious awe (the 'numinous') inv...The projection of human-like qualities onto these unknown causes populates the w...This process is shaped by human fears and ignorance

    Similar

    Humans hope to control unpredictable events they do not understand by ...78%In this ignorance, humans conceive of unknown causes as invisible, int...77%This process is shaped by human fears and ignorance72%The agent intellect can be identified with God as the universal princi...71%

    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