The very ancient origin of our concept of God

Religions of most hunter gatherer societies do not have gods in the same sense as ancient agricultural societies. Animistic believes focus on spirits of the nature and of the dead and lack the moral aspect of a religion. Yet, we can find the first god already from the Paleolithic time. Several female statues (Venuses) are known from Paleolithic Europe starting from 45,000 ybp. They are believed to describe a mother goddess whose main role is in fertility. Another old religious concept is the world pillar, a pole around which the night sky circulates. The myth of the world pillar may have been born in northern India around 18,000 ybp and spread to many cultures. It is not clear if the world pillar marked the place of the site of a sky god in the Paleolithic time as it did later.

The pillars in Göbekli Tepe may describe Annunaki gods, but it is uncertain. The first certain concept of high gods we find from the Sumerian religion. The earliest gods in Sumer was the salt water god Nammu, later known as Tiamat, the dragon. Nammu gave birth to Anu, the god of the sky, and to Ki, the earth. Anu and Ki gave birth to Enlil, the storm god. Anu and Nammu had a son Enki, who created humans and protected humans and culture.

Sumerian gods lived in Dinmun (the Paradise, which sank in 9.500 BC) in the Southern Mesopotamia, but as Sumerians had highly developed astrology, the gods were identified with stars and constellations of the sky. Anu as the god of the sky and the father of many other gods had his site around the heavenly North Pole. The time 9,500 BC allows us to identify Anu with the Hercules constellation, which was closest to the North Pole at that time. The constellation of Draco can be identified with the heavenly Tiamat.

Sumerians were the first to study the Zodiac. The Zodiac is the route through which sun, moon and all planets move. Enlil was identified as Mercury and three of the seven high gods were celestial bodies of the Zodiac: Utu was the god of Sun, Nanna the god of Moon and Ianna, the goddess of sex, was Venus. In addition to these four, the seven high gods included Anu (the center of the sky), Enki (protector of culture) and Ninhursag, goddess of fertility and mountains. Ninhursag is originally Ki, the earth, and the original mother goddess in the Ubaid period. Because of identification with earth, she does not have a correspondence in the sky. There is a Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag in Dilmun, where Enki is the god of wisdom, magic and fresh water. We can identify Enki with Apzu, the ancient god of fresh water.

Summarizing from these, Ninhursag is the ancient mother goddess, Anu is the high god of the sky ruling in the heavenly North Pole and in 9,500 BC he was the constellation of Hercules. Tiamat is chaos and the constellation of Draco, the enemy of gods. The gods Utu, Nanna and Ianna are newer gods and they correspond to celestial bodies in the Zodiac. This leaves two brothers: Enki and Enlil.

Enki was the god of (agri)culture. He developed into Baal Hadad, the dying and recovering god (many believe he was a vegetation god, but maybe wrongly). Astarte (Ianna, Ishtar) become the consort of Hadad. Sacred marriage (sex) become an essential rite in Hadad worship.

Enlil was the god of storm. He became Seth in Egypt, the god of the desert storm. Hyksos worshiped Seth, who was identified as Baal, but it probably does not mean Baal Hadad (as is often claimed), Ba’al only means Lord. The god of Hyksos was Dagan, who is identified with Enlil. Phoenician Baal can also be identified as Dagan.

The three highest gods in Ugarit were El, Dagnu and Haddu, which are El, Dagon and Baal Hadad. This suggests that Canaanite El or Ilu is originally Anu, not Enlil. El was associated with circumpolar stars, especially Ursa Major, which explains the name Bull used for him: Ursa Major and Ursa Minor were seen as two bulls turning the world mill. This goes well with the interpretation of El as Anu, but at that time (circa 1000 BC) the constellation of Hercules was no longer close to the heavenly North Pole, so El is not Hercules.

Egyptian gods are much younger, from around 3000 BC. Agriculture was practiced in Egypt much earlier, in Pre Pottery Neolith, but that culture collapsed, probably to the 8.2 ky event. From Egyptian religion one cannot find very old elements (the original mother goddess, the world pole and the sky god). It is possible to see Osiris as a variant of Enki and Seth as Enlil, but the celestial mapping is much changed. Isis is identified with the star Sirius because Sirius rises at the time when the Nile flooded. Osiris is identifies with Orion, apparently for no other reason than that Orion has a bright belt. Seth was associated with Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Egypt does not help in tracking the origins of our God concept.

The correct place to look is naturally Israel. Hebrews originally worshiped the sky god (El, originally Anu). It was this sky god El, which Greeks called Cronus, the god of time, which ordered that firstborn sons be sacrificed. According to the Sumerian Ziusudra version of the flood myth Levantine people started sacrificing their children after the flood because the flood was caused by overpopulation. Thus, the practice was adopted in order to prevent the catastrophe of the end of the times, i.e., to prevent the world era from changing. In the Greek myth the Titan Cronus ate his children in order to prevent them from replacing him as the ruler of the sky. As Cronus is El and El originates from Anu and around 9,500 BC the heavenly North Pole was in the constellation of Hercules, Anu means Hercules and Hercules was the king of Titans. In the Greek myth Cronus was replaced by his son Zeus (planet Jupiter). In the Hebrew version El was replaced by his son Yahweh, the desert storm god. Yahweh has many properties of Enlil, (and maybe even of Ugarit Yam who like Yahweh claimed to be the only god, though Yam is the sea dragon). As Hykso Baal/Seth was Dagon, who is a variant of Enlil, it is very natural that Yahweh was Dagon/Enlil, the god of desert dwellers and shepherds.

If Yahweh is identified with Enlil, it becomes rather clear why Yahweh so much hated Baal. Baal Hadad was Enki, the brother of Enlil. Replacing Anu by Enlil as the god of the sky made sure that the times would change: Enlil hated the noise made by people and tried to destroy the humanity. This would lead to the Day of Judgment and the emergency of Enki, who would save humanity. Enki/Baal Hadad was a god who would die and be reborn. He was the god to be sacrificed for humans and he would start a new era. From the sacred marriage between Hadad and Astarte we also can understand why the Messianic cult (in Kabbalism) usually includes a sex rite.

As seen, there were really very few new innovations in the Middle East religion. Sumerians brought in the gods of the Zodiac: gods of sun, moon and planets, because science of that time (astrology) supported their existence. Greeks and Romans accepted these new gods, being scientifically oriented people. Hebrews discarded the Zodiac gods as nonsense, as they indeed were. Hebrews dropped the mother goddess, who finally had been the first god and even Sumerians had preserved the goddess as Ninhursag. This demonstrates the strictly patriarchal nature of their culture.

Hebrews tried to combine the three remaining gods; Anu, Enki and Enlil into one God. That was problematic since Enlil was the good of natural forces and hated human (agri)culture. Enki was the protector of human culture. Consequently, the single God had to at the same time love humans and want to destroy them, he had to die as a sacrifice for saving humans and be the cause of the catastrophe of the end of the times. Finally, he had to replace himself in the end of the era.

This theory of the three gods: Anu, Enki and Enlil, was quite scientific using star gazing with precise measurements and memories of ancient history preserved in old stories. It could be seen that the heavenly North Pole moved, thus world eras were a fact. The same god was not always ruling the sky. As for the existence of a pole supporting the sky, how else did the sky stay up and go round every night? Clearly, it was a mill of some kind and the axis was not stable but doing a large circle around the constellation of Draco. Draco, the dragon Tiamat, the force for chaos and primordial waters was always threatening the earth.

There had to be two brothers Enki and Enlil because one could see that occasionally there came a catastrophe almost wiping out humans, that was Enlil, but some god had created humans, that was Enki, and Enki helped humans to survive and to develop wisdom, cities and culture.

Today we discard all the tree gods. What should remain is the fertility goddess, but the Hebrews dropped her from the pantheon. That was a patriarchal deed. As a replacement we got Darwinism, Enlightenment, Communism, Atheism and social justice warriors. Ok. Certainly they are again based on the best scientific evidence.

At some point around 600 BC many religious reformers started to add a moral aspect to the religion. Up to that time gods were not doing good or bad, just doing. Then emerged moral religions demanding people to do good. It was not always good what was demanded, at least in the modern sense. More like ethnocentric or religious bigotry. But actually, Enki was good for people and Enlil for the nature without people. So, originally there was a moral aspect.

When the astrological era was changing to the Age of the Pisces, Jesus appeared. I would have thought that one should have waited until Polaris was the new Northern Star for the new world era to start. That time is now and the world seems to be in a new era compared to everything what was before. I do not say that the theory of times is all wrong. As a phenomenological theory it seems to work.

But of course, there is no contradiction as Jesus did not establish his kingdom but promised to come back later. Has not come yet, but Polaris is not yet quite at the closest place (it will be 2100 AD).

What was the religion of Jesus? Was it Judaism of the Old Testament? Exactly? No. Jesus said that Moses was wrong in the divorce law and Paul rejected the whole Mosaic law. Jesus was a priest on the order of Melchizedec, a Canaan priest of El Elyion. Therefore we should go back to the Canaan version of Anu, Enki, Enlil, which is El, Baal Hadad, Dagon. Now, Hadad (the one sacrificed and reborn, savior of people) was the son of Dagon (the storm god). Why does this remind me of Father, Son and the Holy Ghost in an inverse order? There is no such concept in the Old Testament, but going back to the original religion? That would make El the Holy Ghost, not to be born as a human. The highest one that you may not offend. El is the time.

If we go to Kabbalah, which actually retained much of Messianic Judaism, there is a triple God. Two pillars are mercy (mother/Enki), Severity (father/Enlil) and there is the middle pillar, the crown.

Why I mention all this is that I am still thinking of the article by Edward Dutton et al: The mutant says in his heart: “there is no God”. I did not approve the research method that was used: a metastudy on existing papers. I accept a metastudy on literature in some cases, like in IQ research of the type Richard Lynn has done. IQ tests are approximate and can have many errors. Averaging from many tests can give more reasonable figures and there is little sense to go into individual tests and explain why they all do not give the same result.

But it is another matter to take a question like if left handedness is caused by a high mutational load (like in Dutton et al). In that case, in my opinion, one should study each experiment and explain them all in a single way which gives convincing reasons why they all in fact support one explanation and the apparent differences are only apparent. This was not done in the article by Dutton et al.

But I do not discard their questions. It is an interesting theory and could be studied. So, can one based on the origin of the concept of God deduce in some way that modern humans, for instance in Christian countries, have been selected for a belief in God?

People have believed in what they were told is the best scientific theory. They did not use the word scientific. They said it is true. It is the same thing. Have we been selected in believing in what is true? Are atheists not believing in what they think is true? Clearly, both the believers and the atheists believe in what is true in their opinion, and both very often accept opinions from authorities, only they accept different people as authorities.

A conservative person accepts old authorities, a radical accepts new authorities. Few are original thinkers of any quality so that they could create their own theory, and why should it be any better? I still find many old arguments for the existence of something like gods quite good, and the theory of times is a beautiful theory and should be studied better. It was the peak of ancient wisdom, after all. Periods may exist for ice ages and all that.

What is causing this present increase in atheism is that people learn from the school, media and science that their religion is wrong, so they believe it is wrong. They are not offered any alternative religion, they are offered atheism, thus they accept atheism. In what way this is connected with genes?

It may be different with left handedness. Apparently Homo habilis was 100% right handed. Left handedness was introduced later by a large number of small mutations. In this sense it is a marker of mutational load, but not necessarily of deleterious genes. Left handed have an advantage in fighting with hand weapons against right handed as left handed have all the time had to fight right handed and have got practice, while right handed mostly fight with right handed and have less practice against left handed. This difference made genes causing left handedness advantageous. Unfortunately, left handedness mixes up brain organization and it might be harmful, but apparently is not. There are geographical differences in handedness and the number of left handed people seems to be growing. I still do not think there is evidence to claim that left handedness is deleterious. As is becomes more common, it is probably slightly advantageous.

Homosexuality is another issue from the evolutionary point of view. Homosexuals probably make fewer children, so the trait should have disappeared but it has not. Indeed, it seems to become more common. This may be because it is more accepted. Homosexuality probably has some genetic basis and in an evolutionary sense those genes are deleterious. Yet, new mutations arise when old ones are purged from the population and the genetic load remains. It is possible that there is more pollution, older parents, better childcare and so on and deleterious genes become more common. Autism may be similar case. Yet I cannot see much reason to predict a population collapse because of mutational load based on this evidence.

No, Dutton et al have not proven their claims and I could not fix it here. It should have been a blog post, not a published paper.

But there is a but. Most of these things that Dutton et al try to show as a proof of mutational load are in fact signs given in the Bible for the end of the times. At that time homosexuality is common, children rise against parents, for sure wives(!) dare to oppose husbands, maybe there are even left handed people(!), atheists there are, there is a list, cannot remember now where exactly, maybe in Paul or Revelation of who go to new Jerusalem who not. Signs of the end of the era. You can intentionally make all those signs if you have media power, you know. Just in case you are Messianic and crazy enough. I am afraid there are such people.