How did people first get the idea that God might exist?

The Idea of God

Watch the video.

Where did early man get his idea of God from?

1. To explain how early man got his idea of God

2. To distinguish between different ideas about God

3. To evaluate early man’s ideas about God

Early man got his idea of God based on asking himself these questions: • Someone must have made this great world, because it has

everything I need in it. Who?• This Creator must be an invisible, more powerful version

of me (male of course), as I am the one who does everything around here!

• And just like I only make things for a reason, so this Creator must have made the world for a reason. For me!

The narrator thinks this kind of reasoning is “fallacious” (false), because it looks as if it the idea of God is just self-centred, based on thinking that God is just like him, and made the world for him

Bu maybe early man’s religious thinking is correct? Maybe God is a bit like this? What do you think?

1. Explain how early man got his idea of God

2. Explain whether or not you agree with the narrator. Is early man’s idea of God true or false? Or is it good thinking?

**What is it about man that makes it possible for him to think in this way?

1. Match up how the brain developed in early man, with what ideas of God this gave him. 2. Do you think early man got the “right” idea of God? **If God designed man to think in this way, then is it more likely that early man has got the right idea of God?

4. Recognised right & wrong in the way they behaved..

3. His more developed brain enabled him to have ideas and see meaning and purpose in things

2. Developed ways of communicating to share ideas & feelings

1. Became fully self conscious and self-aware that they would die

50,000 – 100,000 years ago…Homo Sapiens, and their close cousins, the Neanderthals developed astounding mental abilities, unheard of in the animal kingdom until then…

A God who judges our actions and knows what we have done

A God who is not physical, who does not die, but always exists

A God who has a reason for making us, and for making the world

A God who you can communicate with.

A God who knows about loving others

5. Became aware of the importance of other people, of living together, of enjoying company

This new belief in God wasn’t obvious though… “God” could still be many different things…

God is everything,

and God is in

everything eg

rocks, trees

PANTHEISM

God just made things at the beginning, he isn’t around now DEISMGod is an all-loving, all-powerful, all-knowing SpiritTHEISM

There are 2 equal “gods” – a god of evil and a god of good, fighting it out in a massive cosmic battleDUALISM

There isn’t one god,

there are many, each

of them with a

different job to do on

this earth

POLYTHEISM

Order & write out the names (in red) of the different opinions, from the most believable to the least. 1. Which did you put at the top? Explain what it

means and why you put it at the top. 2. Which did you put at the bottom? What does

that word mean? Why did you put it at the bottom?

**Can we really “guess” what God is like just by looking at the world, as early man did? How can we decide between all the different possibilities?

Which idea do these pictures of God represent?

TheismDeismPantheismDualismPolytheism

How can we decide between all the different ideas about God?

Is thinking that this is a great world, made by God just for me,

enough?