Joy (cithra) wrote,
Joy
cithra
  • Mood: pensive

completely random side thought

I think I finally put my finger on what I find so strange about early U.S. documents, or writings from the Enlightenment and so forth - in particular to the way they talk about God. [Note: capital orthography indicating the authorial reverence, not necessarily my own.] It comes across as though the author doesn't necessarily expect you to believe in the same god they believe in, but they do seem to expect that you believe in a god. That is, atheism appears to be a foreign concept.

Certainly the anthropological literature from early in the history of the field takes for granted that any new culture encountered will have some type of belief in divinity as core to its view of the world. I'm going to have to do some poking around in the history of atheist beliefs to satisfy my curiosity, I think. My gut feeling is that the World Wars probably had something to do with it; that seems (not surprisingly) to be a watershed time in terms of belief in what humanity is and isn't in terms of morals/religion/ethics.

Just some random uncorroborated thoughts on the nature of the universe, as per usual.
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