Science (archaeology, anthropology, palaeontology), history (search evolution of religion) and to some extent even neuroscience all show how early humans developed a ‘god space’. All these ‘gods’ (the Ancient Egyptians had over 1000) have been shown by common sense to be non existent. So how is your ‘God’ (the Hebrew Yhwh and Christian Yashua) any different?
The expression ‘god space’ (The Story of God by Robert Winston; The History of God by Karen Armstrong; The God Impulse by K. Nelson) cannot be found in a google search so I will define it -
Over the course of thousands of years humans have struggled to survive in a very hostile world where death and disease would strike indiscriminately from every angle and the average life expectancy of Palaeolithic Man was 30 to 40 years. During this struggle humans had to develop various strategies in order to survive. These strategies were both conscious (using objects as tools or weapons, keeping together in small groups) and unconscious (brain size increased) and were driven by what is now called natural selection. During this time (the Palaeolithic and before) there were many dangers, fears and unknowns. Just looking up at the stars at night was for these early humans totally different to what we feel or know today; being near to or caught up in an earthquake must have been terrifying; having your entire family wiped out by a pack of wolves . . . . unimaginable.
Unanswered questions were everywhere – why does the sky make water, why is the sun hot, why does the grass move when there is no wind, ‘why are all the animals out to kill and eat me’ and so on. All these and many more can be found on cave paintings (some 50,000 to 60,000 years ago). Proper burials and rituals surrounding the dead began at about the same time. When humans could not understand something, were afraid of something or could not find an answer to a particular problem, something above humans or out-of-reach of humans was produced to fill the gap – the god space had begun.
Examples abound – if you were a pre-Stone Age human and you were caught in an earthquake or flash flood your fear could only be explained by something unknown and out of your control; if you were a Stone Age man or woman and you lost your children due to an illness which you had no knowledge about whatsoever, it was ‘because of something unknown’ or ‘you had done something wrong and had to make it right’; if you were an Aztec city dweller of around the 15th century and none of your many wives were able to have children, or children were born and immediately died, it was the same reason – ‘somebody had done something to upset something unknown’ and you would have to do something about it such as prepare a sacrifice; if you were a farmer in Middle Age Britain and all your hard work in the corn field was wiped out by an unknown insect blight, it was ‘because you hadn’t prayed hard enough for a good harvest’.
So unanswered questions and daily lives lived in fear of the unknown produced in humans what is now called the ‘god space’. Biological evolution produced a space in the human mind (variously called conscience, morality, intelligence, reasoning, self-awareness, consciousness) for things that they could not explain (this has nothing to do with the expression ‘The God of the Gaps’ by the way). The evolution of thought or ideas is not new and can be found in any encyclopedia of philosophy. PC search meme or read the three books mentioned above. Even recent neurological research has shown fairly convincing evidence that there is an actual physical part of the brain dealing with the ‘god space’; i.e. it may not just be a mind/conscience/spiritual idea.
So every civilisation since the beginning of time has had their own god or gods. History has shown that none of these gods exist in reality (we no longer pray to Zeus the Greek god of the sky for rain nor Poseidon for our fishing). So how is your Hebrew Yhwh/Christian God any different?
