An argument for atheism/agnosticism/gnosticism that is impossible to dispute
Just think of it like this. Before the Bible or any other religious text was written, or more specifically before its respective religion came about, did that religion have a God as far as humans knew? You could argue that no one knows the answer to this, but more than likely the answer is no, since the God of any religion only necessarily came to fruition or came to be recognized in conjunction with the onset of that religion. In other words, before Christianity came about, there may as well have been no Christian God. I will not argue that there could have been a Christian God even before Christianity came about, but unless humans were aware of His presence before the onset of Christianity (which is impossible to determine, but again very unlikely), then no one among us can argue that He existed before then. The conclusion that we would have to draw, therefore, is that this God is only a result of the development of the Christian religion, or in other words only exists in conjunction with the Christian religion. The same argument could be made for the God(s) of any other religion, in that they only exist in conjunction with their respective religions. Like I said any of these Gods could exist and could have existed without respect to their given religion, but it is impossible to make that argument unless humans were aware of the presence of any of the Gods before their religion came about, which in itself cannot be proven.
Comments (52)
The particular God definition, as a Christian-type God, didn't exist before it was defined, but that type of God might well exist before anyone defines Him.
In that case, let's assume for instance that the object that we know of today as the Rosetta Stone was not defined as such until the 7th century, even if it existed and was known about prior to the 7th century. The stone could have existed and humans could have been aware of it prior to it being defined as the Rosetta Stone, but it cannot be assumed that the stone does not exist or it was simply made up as a story regardless of whether humans had witnessed or were aware of it prior to its defining, because the stone is tangible and can and has been witnessed by multiple humans since its defining, and therefore it does clearly exist in spite of anything. But the same argument cannot be made for any God. Unlike the Rosetta Stone, it can indeed be assumed that any God does not exist or was made up in conjunction with their respective religions, and the reason why is because Gods are not tangible and cannot be physically witnessed, and for this reason we also don't know if humans were aware of or considered the presence of any given God before the God was defined in conjunction with its religion. On the other hand we have to assume that this was not the case, because I don't know how anyone could be aware of something that cannot be seen or witnessed physically unless this thing (God) is defined. How else would any human have been aware of its presence?
As you say, God cannot be witnessed, so, no one is aware even now, in any way that can be proved; so, then, even religions say that in lieu of fact, there is but 'faith' that the unknown unshowable intangible is God.
Remember that the most often asked question is something like "Where did everything come from?".
Christians certainly believe that God existed before their religion did. He created the world. If you don't believe that, you're not really a Christian. If you don't believe in God, or at least a God, your question doesn't make any sense.
Although I don't think this affects the substance of your question, the Old Testament of the Christian Bible was written long before the birth of Christ. Judaism has been around for ~4,000 years.
Also, it would be very helpful if you would put more paragraph breaks in your posts. Without the breaks, they are much harder to read.
No point in being or creating a god if it’s the same as being a citizen.
Well, if God is transcendent or omnipresent according to the same religion which you submit was alone responsible for God’s origin, de novo, then exactly when did the whole transcendent quality unfold?
I’m pretty sure there’s no start or expiration date. Just saying.
It would be like if I said a creature exists and I called him Seymour but Seymour cannot be physically seen, you would not have any concept of Seymour or any way to know about him if I had not defined him since you can't see him.
One might likely suppose that the Earth got made by a larger version of us, since we make smaller things.
That is, everyone is born an atheist.
You are correct from the pov that 'existence' is relative, not absolute.
i.e.. Nothing 'exists' before it is conceptualised/languaged/ thinged by humans within their socially evolving language. Even the 'thing' we call 'time' only 'exists' relative to human planning purposes, such that 'things existing before human observers' is a useful process we operate NOW, in which we picture a primative world in our mind eye.
This relativistic principle can be applied to any 'thing' conceptualised, from 'rocks' to 'gods', but the problem with 'God' (capital G) is that its psychological and social function rests heavily on its eternal connotations, thereby making it a potential exception to the rule. Of course the sub-properties of such a 'God' tend to be defined with particular religions according to their needs.
NB.The axiomatic antithesis/denial of 'thinging' by humans is expressed by the biblical adage...
'In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God'.
I could never get my head around this. If there is only one god, how can the one god be different from himself? Truly, the Christian god is not the same as the Jewish god, and the Muslim god is just yet different from the two. In fact, all three are different from each other, yet only one god exists, these followers insists.
BRRRZZ. (Shakes his head as if to get a buzzing bug out of his brain via the ear canal.)
This is actually indeed part of the point that I was trying to make. As you say "everyone is/(was) born an atheist," and that includes those who were born prior to the founding of any religion and the defining of their subsequent God.
On the other hand, if, as you say and as I agree, everyone is born an atheist, then it automatically follows that no one has or will have any concept of a defined God without being introduced to the concept, and from this we can conclude that no human was aware of any Gods before they were defined or identified by their respective religions, and as such Gods as we know them may as well have not existed prior to that since existence is relative, not absolute, and there is nothing to define Gods other than their alleged existence (I.E. they cannot be physically seen).
Of course this does not eliminate the possibility that Gods could still have existed prior to being defined by their respective religions, but this argues against the relative existence theory, as this theory also necessarily applies to and does not forgo the people who defined or introduced the concept of Gods in the first place. These people, in other words, could not have truly had any concept of Gods to give them identities, since it has been established that no human could have been aware of a God's hypothetical presence in order to define them or give them a name/identity, and so it follows that the presence of Gods is itself undefined/undetermined for that reason.
You might also consider that existence is binary, I.E. something either exists or it doesn't, even though existence is not contingent upon whether or not the thing has been defined.
Why wouldn't your argument work for something like the sun, or Mount Olympus?
Because unlike Gods, the existence of the sun or mount Olympus can be established by their physical presence since they can be seen. There is no disputing their existence in spite of them being defined by someone at some point, because they can be said to have existed by pure nature of the fact that they can be seen, and therefore whoever identified them knew of their presence by seeing them. Meanwhile, because Gods cannot (and could never) be physically seen, this poses a challenge as to what their existence is contingent upon, or how their existence was conceptualized by those who initially defined them.
It is more like a deduction that is being used to come to a conclusion, but yes, you are correct.
What we understand as ‘The bible’ was not, for most of its history, a printed text, let alone a mass-produced printed book, of which we now have vast numbers. It was handed down as memorised and recited accounts of witnessings, prophecies, and miraculous events (as was all the religious lore in the ancient cultures) whereby it was believed God revealed himself to mankind - specifically, the Jewish people.
Now, don’t take that as an argument for why you should believe it - by all means, don’t. But the context of those early cultures, 'the word' was received with fear and awe, and with the sense that everything depended on it. At the time, it wasn’t ‘religion’ at all, at least not in the way we now understand it, but simply ‘the Law’.
So to begin with, the reality of ‘the Lord’ was not a conceptual matter and didn’t become so until centuries later, with the advent of reading and philosophy. I suspect that the sense of the reality of what we now casually and hypothetically call 'God' was literally awe-inspiring. Religious rituals were ways of re-enacting these cardinal events, as scholar Mircea Eliade showed, it was a way of connecting to the 'sacred order' of the eternal which stood in sharp distinction from the ordinary time of the world
In any case, ‘before the Bible was written down’, there was the recited lore of Moses going up to Mt Sinai and there witnessing a bush that seemed on fire, but was not consumed by the fire, and hearing the divine commandments, which he brought back. That was the context of the 'discovery' of what we now casually refer to, or dismiss, as 'God', the stuff of innumerable arguments.
So, as I'm saying, don't believe it, but also don't believe that your (pardon me again) facile and not-even-undergraduate understanding of the phenomenon of religion, actually provides any basis on which to make the judgement you are seeking to arrive at.
Your question actually makes no sense. You ask, before a religion came about, did that religion have a God. But obviously there was no such religion. So the reference fails.
But there might still have existed a God, and that might have even been known, and that there was a God at that time might even be known by someone now, but obviously anyone actually claiming these things is deluded or a joker.
If there was a god, then perhaps it, as an entity, worshipped himself or herself. Therefore God as such can be a self-creating entity, or more precisely, a self-supportive enitity once it has come into existence.
Carrying this over to the other side: if and when God has been around for ever in the past, then there is no creator needed for god's existenc, only a worshipper to sustain its existence; and the worship may come from an already existing entity, god himself or herself.
, therefore the proposition by the OP is moot, inasmuch as human beings are not necessary to sustain such a god that is only sustainable by worship / faith.
To me it makes sense. @Maureen is not asking if ANY god was in existence; the OP is asking if the particular god of the particular religion was in existence.
This is contentious, because some religions claim their god has been in existence for ever (muslims, jews, christians); yet prior to their religion's beginning, there was no spiritual or worshipped evidence of THOSE gods precisely. A god which has been in existence forever, must have had some traces of himself or herself before a religion adopted it as its own.
Yes, because you interpret it other than how it was worded. I can do that, too.
Then how about microorganisms. Did Lewenhook bring them into existence?
Some trace, like the world, for example.
First, the question is why we can't say this about the sun re prior to writing about it, the sun didn't exist, or at least there's no way to "prove" that it existed.
If experiencing the thing in question sensorily is all that's required, surely some religious folks--and often the ones who wrote religious texts, claim to have sensorily experienced god.
You could argue that most people do not, but then we can just change the question to "Why couldn't we make the same argument about subatomic particles?"
Not that I'm religious, by the way. I'm an atheist. But what I care about is whether the argument works. It doesn't, but I want you to figure out for yourself why it doesn't work, which is what I'm trying to guide you towards.
That’s what the Christians, Jews, and Muslims believe, but what does God think?
No, because there's a difference between science and science fiction.
But there's no reason to believe that God is like microorganisms.
I wouldn't be so quick to generalize there. I'd bet plenty believe that the god of different religions isn't any different. They'd think that the differences are relics of the "translations" basically.
I think this a valuable way of looking at things, but most people don’t. I wouldn’t call it “relativistic” though. I think it’s the least relativistic thing possible. As Lao Tzu wrote:
“I don't know who gave birth to [the Tao].
It is older than God.”
I think you’re probably right.
This could very easily be the case, but to argue that is to say that those who wrote the religious texts had themselves only had ideas or witnessed things that would cause them to believe they had experienced God sensorily. This still does not change anything about my initial argument, though, which was that Gods are not tangible things whose presence has ever been physically seen.
If those who wrote religious texts claimed to have experienced God sensorily, that is no different than them suddenly claiming that there is a being that exists which they decided to call God (or whatever name you want to apply), then writing texts over a period of time about this being and things that He supposedly did. But how does any of this make it any more likely that the being exists? In general, to experience something by sight is to prove that it exists, but God cannot be experienced in this manner, or any other manner for that matter. I.E. God cannot be heard, touched, smelled, etc. so by this logic no human could truly have experienced God sensorily in spite of their claims.
I'm an atheist, but how do you know that they didn't worship the paintings in the caves?
A sensation may be present, but who's to really say what is the basis of it.
Also, thinking of something a lot can make it come to mind a lot more.
For you not experiencing any of this, it doesn't really provide any basis.Quoting MaureenThat's really not the case. Much of what we consider real is via inference.Quoting MaureenWell, they claim different, and that via long term practices on can experience God, including sensorily.
One can choose to look at religions myopically as consequences of ignorant humanity or as a natural point on the human scale of progression. However, on the broader scale, everything in the past reflects, to certain degrees, both our limitations (ignorance) and ingenuity (creativity).
I think the only shortcoming of most religious cultures is the perfection with which they are endowed by those respective adherents/followers. Any critical mind will have doubts as to the whole premise of religion, and any investigative efforts will readily reveal a much less classical operation within such a supposedly balanced domain. And yet, even in our allegiance to what we refer to as scientific thinking, there is much which is analogous to religious sentiment, which is perhaps an indication of a more pronounced character within our human relations expressed through knowledge and understanding of our interactive realities with respect to the perceived vs the conceived constructs.
It may not be about what we believe in but how we came to believe in something. If we learn the methodology of belief then we can apply it however it suits us. For example, since we know how to bulk up our bodies with the use of exercise/gyms, anyone can be burly, not just those who work in fields with considerable manual labour as would have been expected in the past.
All I'm saying is, the idea that religions are special is quickly fading because its time is up. But, they will lose much those who insist/persist for and against it and forget what value they have/had in our societies. Not everything is good and not everything is bad about religion but some things will need to be learnt and remembered.
Despite faith being central to Theism most theists attempt to argue for God. These arguments generally work along the lines that God is/was a discovery - existing long before we got to know of him. So I don't think God can be considered an invention like you seem to suggesting.
Hence the situation prior to Adam and Eve was probably similar to that following them.
That much is from the Hebrew and Christian Old Testament (as interpreted sensibly, as is intended); other traditions generally contain details that aren’t fundamentally contradictory with that.
The point made by Reshuffle 12 days ago establishes that “soft atheism” which is people I knew in my young day that would nowadays be called “atheistic agnostics” and weren’t against anyone else having a theistic belief of varying strength, is compatible with the above findings.
Therefore the existence of written scriptures in relatively recent times tends to support the highly probable existence of various forms of agnosticism and theism, including atheistic agnosticism, well before that. At the same time there would certainly have been hard atheists, who would not allow their fellows to have theistic or agnostic beliefs.
Fresco clarified the issues on the same day as does Brian W 7 days ago.
You now focus on a different aspect of the question, how did people think they knew (or think they thought) there was a God or Lord or Ishvara or so on. To what extent was it through their senses? Personally I think that through their shallowness those who claim to present God to the public have been increasingly occulting Him (but that's just me).
The real point is, that all this predated the present religions by many tens of thousands of years.
Like Terrapin Station, I am trying to guide you to formulating relevant enquiries.
Keep at it, very interesting field!
I summarise the Old and New testaments as "don't stunt the growth of your fellow adopted widows and orphans in Father's firm" which explains the raison d'etre of Holy Spirit and also explains questions in other threads such as why is God shy.
Others may be able to offer insights about other religions?
Maureen, if I read you correctly, I would caution you from focusing on objectivity too much. Or to a lesser degree even subject-object methods of perception. As the story goes, Jesus came to earth with a consciousness/human brain. And so it begs real questions as to the nature of same.
Accordingly, you can infer existence from Christian Revelation (meditation, prayer, stream of consciousness, and so on) Cosmology, and happenstance.
Objective truth's won't really get you there. Living life is much more. Contemplation of phenomena associated with human consciousness will work better.
Maureen, when you consider that human beings have the highest faculties of any life form, plus the many stupendous new facts scientists are constantly finding about the world, the universe and everything, and how the dimensions intersect, and how everything comes in various different spectrums, and how we dwell in some of those dimensions sensorily, and perhaps don't know about most of the facts of our lives, why not regard knowledge not only as a mosaic, of which we hope to get more pieces, but even the gaps seem harmonious for the time being, like the silences in the music of Haydn.
As most religion is relational, information that is given to us that illustrates that, and examples set by members of religions that illustrate that, are going to be part of our sources of information. I think these are the sorts of things 3017 is referring to. In my definition of "objective" they would be objective in value but only partially known.
Above all, like 3017 says, living life and knowing ourselves, that means acknowledging our own faculties - we are not figments of the politico-commercial machine after all.
I don't think anything to do with God or religion can be proven, can it? :chin:
1. If humans were not aware of the presence of any gods or God before their respective religions came about, then these gods or God could not have existed before their respective religions came about.
2. Humans were not aware of the presence of any gods or God before their respective religions came about.
3.Therefore, any gods or God could not have existed before their respective religions came about.
For simplicity, I’ll speak in terms of God for now. Objecting to the conditional in (1), God could exist before any human defines Him. This is sensible because humans make things, so one might suppose that humans and the world were made by something--perhaps God. A creation must necessarily come to exist after its creator. So if God created humans, then humans came after God. It follows that humans’, and humans’ definitions of God, came after God.
God might be described as transcendent, omnipresent, and/or omnipotent. This would allow Him to transcend our concepts of time and space. However, it does not even seem that (1) is compatible with that description of God because it traces God’s existence to the instance that humans became aware of Him. Yet it does not seem like you are arguing that we need to revise our descriptions of God. It seems that you are arguing that because God is transcendent, omnipresent, and/or omnipotent, we cannot observe His existence. Further, because His existence cannot be observed, religions made up their concepts of God. So you, the author of the original post, may want to conclude that we should not ascribe to any religion that makes up concepts of gods or God out of thin air. But, it would be replied, religions do not make up concepts of gods or God out of thin air.
Regarding (2), this is not the most unsensible premise. My biggest issue with (2) is not the premise itself, but that you are so adamant to say that it is absolutely, without any doubt whatsoever true. It seems there is at least some reason to doubt it. Humans, before religions, might have speculated that something such as God existed, but did not have available to them the religious language used now. Even now, children can be aware of something ‘out there’ such as God without exactly knowing what/who God is or what to call Him, and can do so without having been introduced to any religion. To be charitable, I would grant this premise because objections to premise (1) do all of the work needed.
If I am correct, I think your argument takes this form:
1. If a god is not known to exist prior to the development of the religion it is recognized in conjunction with, then it does not exist.
2. The Christian God was not known to exist prior to the development of Christianity.
3. Therefore, the Christian God does not exist other than as a result of the development of Christianity.
I take issue with this argument, specifically Premise 2. As a part of your explanation of your argument, you claimed that a god only necessarily comes to fruition because of the development of a religion surrounding it and that, because there is no way to know if people believed in God before the development of the Christian religion, then no one can make the argument that God exists and has always existed.
One counter-example I would pose to Premise 2 is the argument for fine-tuning. If you are not familiar with this argument, it affirms the existence of God on the evidence that the basic structure of the universe is balanced in such a precarious way that the most plausible explanation for its existence is an intelligent creator. This argument uses the parameters of physics and the initial distribution of matter and energy that is so specifically fine-tuned to support life that it would be highly improbable that it happened that way by chance.
Even though people who lived before the development of Christianity did not yet have the tools to know the parameters of physics and the scientific background surrounding the origin of the universe, this information regarding the fine-tuning of the cosmos was the same. It cannot be claimed that no one knew of the existence of God prior to Christianity because the universe in its precarious state still existed and someone may have taken this to mean it had been created by some intelligent being. You conceded that since we cannot know if anyone knew of God before the development of Christianity, then we cannot claim God exists other than as a result of the development of the religion. However, we also cannot deny that someone knew of God before the development of Christianity and the various arguments for God’s existence, including the fine-tuning argument, could provide a rationale that those who did believe in God before Christianity could’ve followed. These arguments make it seem more likely to me that people did know of God before the development of Christianity.
1. If God exists before Christianity was founded, human were aware of God’s presence before Christianity was founded.
2. It’s impossible to determine that human were aware of God’s presence before Christianity was founded.
3. God does not exist before Christianity was founded. (1,2 MT)
4. If God does not exist before Christianity was founded, God only exists in conjunction with the Christian religion.
5. God only exists in conjunction with the Christian religion. (3,4 MP)
I don’t agree with P2. There two ways to argue that human were aware of God’s presence before Christianity was founded.
First, one can say existence of God is independent from any religious doctrine that defines him as a religious God. It exists without the definition given by a specific religion established by the human civilization over time. Christian God is a God defined with Christian doctrines, same with other religions. Human can be aware of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent being like God. Different people had different ideas of such being and they identified themselves as the believer of certain religion because its doctrines match or is close to their ideas of such being.
Second, human were aware of some supernatural events happened in the past which they cannot understand and attribute those events to the omni-being. The existence of such being helps explain supernatural events. They only lack a general definition and name of such being.
With regard to P1, one can contend that human does not need to be aware of God’ presence before Christianity was founded if God exists before Christianity was founded. God’s existence alone is not hinge on whether human are aware of it. Something not tangible can exist without you knowing it exists. A case in point will be the knowledge that one has not learned and not even aware there is this kind of knowledge but this kind of knowledge indeed exists and may has already been aware of by others.
1. If humans are not aware of a god, then that god doesn’t exist.
2. We are made aware of a god.
3. Therefore that god begins to exist.
I take issue with this because at one point someone had to have imagined a god and then subsequently written about it which means that they “invented” that god. And then if anyone imagines a god, then that god would exist. Which some may not take issue with, but if true, there would be no reason for organized religion because we could all have personal gods. Religion could definitely have been a coping mechanism for earlier humans who did not have all the knowledge and answers that we have now, but following the logic of your argument there never would have been the rise of organized religion.
As scientific discovery has exponentially increased in the last 200 years, atheism has become more commonplace. Some might argue that atheism has increased in popularity because we think we know everything about the universe or almost everything so we don’t think we need a god for explanations of the unknown anymore. While others would argue that it is a true mindset, it is false and we still should rely on God .
My final thought is if a god is omnipotent and omniscient, then they wouldn’t need humans to believe for them to exist. If they did, then they would not be omnipotent.
1. If humans are unaware of a god, then that god does not exist to us.
2. That god exists somewhere outside of our realm of knowledge.
3. So, we do not need to be aware of a god for it to exist.
From what I see, a majority of your argument lies in this quote: Quoting Maureen
I'll just start by saying that this kind of idea that a certain God couldn't have existed before a religion was able to recognize it poses a lot of issues for an everyday theist. First of all, if what you say is true, then we can immediately forego attributing the beginning of the universe to a being much higher than ourselves. It's possible, but there are many different arguments that could be stated as an objection. No need to get into that here, but after reading through your post I can see two different arguments stand out. The first one, which I see coming from: Quoting Maureen This seems to have a sort of background argument as follows:
1. If something is to exist then there must be physical evidence to prove that it does exist.
2. There is no physical evidence that god exists.
3. Therefore, God cannot exist
But then you continue to make another argument for after a religion comes to fruition:
1. If something is to exist, then there must be physical evidence to prove that it does exist.
2. The bible, or any other religious book, exists.
3. Therefore, said God exists.
I don't see how both of these arguments could be true at the same time. If one is to use the bible as evidence for the existence of a God, then the stories about God in the bible must be true. If the stories in the bible are true, then God certainly did create the universe and life as we know it. Now this doesn't fit well with the first argument as we know God existed before religions came into fruition, and that denies the first argument if both arguments were to be true. The second argument seems to relate the bible directly to God as though God himself wrote it and was therefore evidence of his existence. We know God didn't write the bible and we know that the bible only includes stories that have God as a subject within them. The bible itself cannot prove the existence of God. Like you said, we could never know God existed unless there is undeniable evidence, most likely physical evidence directly tied to God, that he indeed does exist. This doesn't stop any one person from believing or having faith, though.
Dear Maureen,
In your recent post, you made the following claim:
In other words, before Christianity came about, there may as well have been no Christian God. I will not argue that there could have been a Christian God even before Christianity came about, but unless humans were aware of His presence before the onset of Christianity (which is impossible to determine, but again very unlikely), then no one among us can argue that He existed before then. The conclusion that we would have to draw, therefore, is that this God is only a result of the development of the Christian religion, or in other words only exists in conjunction with the Christian religion. The same argument could be made for the God(s) of any other religion, in that they only exist in conjunction with their respective religions. Like I said any of these Gods could exist and could have existed without respect to their given religion, but it is impossible to make that argument unless humans were aware of the presence of any of the Gods before their religion came about, which in itself cannot be proven.
I think your argument has this form:
1) We cannot argue that there was a Christian God before Christianity started.
2) If we cannot argue that there was a Christian God before Christianity started, then the Christian God is only the result of the development of the Christian religion.
3) Therefore, the Christian God is only the result of the development of the Christian religion (from 1, 2 via modus ponens).
I have the following objections to this argument. Premise one is problematic. Just because we are not aware of something before some time does not mean that we cannot argue that it existed before that time. We were not aware of evolution before Darwin, but that does not mean evolution did not exist or was not occurring before Darwin posited it. Since this is the case, it is unreasonable to say that we cannot argue there was a Christian God before Christianity started. Thus, premise one is faulty, and the argument is unsound.
Sincerely, Joel
My psychiatric patients with visual hallucinations would then have "proved" a great deal of odd things exist, as they experience many things by sight that I have not been afforded to see. Similar claims would be applied to Auditory, Tactile and other hallucinations. I am not so arrogant to assume that my perceived reality is the only viable reality, indeed, if one can see, hear, smell, and touch a "hallucination" it is exceedingly difficult to dissuade them from believing it, it may also be morally incorrect to do so.
Some dude named "Jim" approaches me when no one is around, talks to me, tells me his version of what's what, I hear him, I see him, I shake his hand. Do I need external proof to support my experience as real? If my experience was not with "Jim" but "God" does that suddenly make my experience invalid, because I am claiming that I encountered divinity?
People seem very keen on devaluing the experiences of others, apparently because the "other's" experience is not supported by our own, and therefore must be lessened, otherwise, apparently, we are lessened. I suggest that both parties may have equally valid experiences, and that neither are lessened by the other.
I cannot prove that "God" exists to anyone else's liking, and have no interest in proving so to myself. I have my belief system, anthropomorphized divinity plays no role of value in it. I have no need of proof, I have, in my estimation, a sound rationalized theory, which is a good as reality gets.
I can see it, I can smell it, I can hear it, I can touch it... Why would I believe anyone that tells me it does not exist?
Actually, we can absolutely claim that there was no Christian God prior to Christianity. The god may have existed, certainly, however, prior to Christianity, that divine spirit had no particular name to speak of, or at least was not a "Christian God" because there was no "Christian" to be god of.
A rose is a flower. It was a flower before it was called a rose, it will remain the same flower even if I decide to call it a Flamingo. The flower does not care what I call it. It simply is.
Well in that case, I fail to see how your argument is one for atheism. If the Christian God took a second before he revealed himself to people (which isn't the case according to Jewish and Christian scripture but just for the sake of argument), this isn't an argument for atheism. It's just an argument for God having strange timing to reveal himself to people.
So, sure, obviously, it’s a given that the Christian idea of God, which is specifically represented by the Bible, couldn’t have been known before the Bible, because then such a revelation would’ve have had to have been reveled before it was, in fact, actually revealed; which is a contradiction, & so (granted as) false.
Yet, again, this is only relative to the time (going back to my first paragraph). Consequentially, although the Christian idea of God couldn’t have been known before Christianity, it can logically be argued that the God who’s revealed through Christianity is, in fact, one & the same God as the God of a prior religion (for example, Judaism), & so on & so on (thus having had existed before Christianity); it’s just that the relationship between such religions presupposes a temporality, i.e., humanity’s timeline, & therefore it represents, not of a change in the fact of God existing but in the relationship (over time) to God.
So, again, to be sure, the God who’s revealed through Christianity mustn’t logically be, per se, different than, or incompatible with, any kind of God who was reveled before, despite if the texts that are used in these respective religions don’t completely say the same thing about God. For, referring back to the parent-child/children analogy (in my first paragraph), a parent may relate to their child or children differently at different times in the child’s life or children’s lives, but they’re still nevertheless their same parent; &, in like manner, God may relate, & so be revealed, differently at different times in humanity’s timeline, while nevertheless being one & the same God.
In conclusion, neither is the peculiarity or date of origin of Christianity’s revelation any kind of a logical proof against any of its validity.
The senses are not the only means to knowledge. The mind is conscious. Religion is only an interpretation of God. Maybe many people were aware of God before religion, as we understand it, evolved.