God is a human invention

The phrase, “human inventions”, calls to mind technology: the control of fire, the wheel, the computer and all the other techniques and devices that form our society. Language is also an invention. Our language shows ethnicity, nationality, class and other attributes that separate human groups. Modern society is unlike tribal society in that there is a great deal of change in a life time. Most of us are uncomfortable with change.

In the first sentence of this essay I have shown my discomfort with change by the use of the phrase, “techniques and devices”. A person younger than I am might have used the word, technologies, rather than the phrase, “techniques and devices”. In the usage I am familiar with “technology” is a collective noun referring to all the various techniques by which we control the physical and social world. It has no plural. I am also uncomfortable with the word, “methodology”. Etymologically, it means the study of method, and the word, methodology, as it is used can usually be replaced by the word, method.

Many people are not consciously aware that the entire structure of our society, in addition to technology and language, is all a consequence of human inventions. We invent God, religion, philosophy, mathematics, art and the supernatural in addition to technology. Some readers of this essay will shake their heads at the previous sentence. They will contend that God, religion, mathematics and the supernatural are not human inventions but have a real existence.

Other life forms have some appreciation of mathematics even though they do not have the linguistic capability to express that appreciation. Experiments have shown that crows can differentiate between the numbers four and five, and chimpanzees have the concept of adding a length to a length to make a greater length when they extend their reach by using a stick to knock off bananas from a bunch.

However, the abstract notion of “number”, as in the concept of a prime number, requires language.

Religion can be without God or morality. Buddhism does without God or the concept of a soul. We can have religion without morality. The Roman and Greek religions sought the favour of the gods by sacrifice and dedicating their lives to them. For their morality the better educated Greeks and Romans looked to the philosophers, and the less educated looked to community standards. We connect religion with God and morality because the predominant religions in our society do so, but it is not essential to religion to encompass God or morality.

How did the invention of God come about? We can make a guess. So we can be listened to we put words in the mouth of a respected figure. One example is the famous quote from Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That's a compelling quote, but the only problem is that Voltaire probably never said it. It was attributed to Voltaire in S. G. Tallentyre's The Friends of Voltaire in 1907.

In the Bible and the Koran there are injunctions and instructions on how to behave from a Supreme Being. That's much more impressive than a quote from Voltaire. Like Zeus and Thor the God of the Bible can speak with a voice of thunder. Those who write scripture tell us we better listen because they speak with the voice of God.

Exodus
19:16: And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.
19:17: And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God; and they stood at the nether part of the mount.
19:18: And mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke, because the LORD descended upon it in fire: and the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mount quaked greatly.

The Ten Commandments are given followed by more atmospheric disturbances to emphasise them.

Exodus
20:18: And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

In the 1930s I remember Jack Holt, an action hero whose exploits took place on lonely islands with a superstitious indigenous population. In many of the films of the time a swarthy “native” would announce in portentous, bass tones, as puffs of smoke came from the volcano which dominated the island, "The gods are angry".

That type of thinking is still with us. Muslim clerics blamed the tsunami which devastated Aceh and other areas on western women polluting the beaches by disporting themselves in immodest garments. American televangelist Pat Robertson blamed the Haitian earthquake on Haitians making a voodoo pact with the devil to rid the island of the French.

The first five commandments are ways to deal with God, but the last five make it easier for people to live together. That probably is the basis of morality. Humans developed ways of living together in community. To make sure humans don't run away with a neighbour's wife or cattle or do the dirty in other ways have God tell you to follow the rules.

Some of the dietary laws seem arbitrary, but if we consider the society in which they arose they make sense for that society in that environment.

Leviticus
11:7: And the swine, though he divide the hoof, and be clovenfooted, yet he cheweth not the cud; he is unclean to you.
11:8: Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcase shall ye not touch; they are unclean to you.
11:9: These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat.
11:10: And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you:
11:11: They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

Why not eat pig? Why not eat oysters and lobsters? Not eating pig is a consequence of the fact that Jews and the Arabs who also follow the injunction were nomadic, desert people. Unlike cattle, sheep and goats, pigs are not a herd animal. For nomads such an animal is more trouble than it's worth. Thousands of years ago the Middle East was a forested well watered area. Mainly due to human activity there was desertification. Pigs need shade and water so much of the area became less suitable for raising them. If oysters and lobsters were transported to the desert they would probably be spoiled so it would be wise not to eat them.

A characteristic of religion is that its commandments are observed when they are no longer relevant, creating an unreasonable sense of guilt when the injunctions are violated. A Jew or Muslim who is living a settled life in a well watered area may still keep the dietary injunctions which were meant for nomadic people in desert conditions.

A great problem with religion is that, although it is dependent on environment and culture, believers think it contains essential, eternal truths independent of environment and culture. It is a divisive force when believers confront another people who think their religion also contains essential, eternal truths independent of environment and culture. "We have the truth!" is a recipe for oppression and conflict.

Three wondrous human inventions are democracy, mathematics and science. Democracy is an attempt to have people who will be affected by a political decision make that decision, rather than a monarch, tyrant or oligarchy. It doesn't guarantee the decision is a good one, but it does guarantee that people have the right to decide for themselves. If they have made a bad decision they have the power to change it.

Mathematics starting with counting. Some ancient thinker got the idea that the number five was an abstraction. The number is the same whether it is five sheep or five stones. It is the same regardless of what symbol represents it. For a long time it was thought that truth not available in religion or philosophy could be found in mathematics. Euclid, around 300AD, proved that there were an infinite number of primes, and the proof will be valid through eternity as are many other mathematical proofs. In 1931 Kurt Gödel found that no matter how many axioms form the basis of mathematics there will be statements about integers which cannot be proved to be either true or false.

Possibly science was invented when some human started to wonder as his or her fellows cowered at fear from the vengeance of the lightning of the gods. This human could have wondered why the sight of the lightning was followed some time later by thunder. Could it be that the light traveled faster than sound? Humans speculated on the nature of light and designed experiments to find out more. They found that light could treated as a wave and also as particles. In 1887 Michelson and Morley found that the speed of light was not affected by the motion of its source. That discovery sparked Einstein's special theory of relativity. Unlike religious revelation science builds on previous discoveries. However, it does not deal in truth but the best explanation for phenomena. When a better explanation is found the old one is discarded.

Unlike religion and language democracy, mathematics and science transcend ethnic and tribal bonds. The law of mass action in chemistry and relativistic physics are independent of social milieus as are Euclid's axioms. There is no certainty of truth outside of mathematics, and it can be problematical there.

Matthew Arnold in Dover Beach expressed our situation:

... for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

To cope with a rapidly changing world we can examine our human inventions and decide whether it is best to keep, modify or discard them.