When did man first come up with notion of a god?

Answer 1

I suppose when Adam (and Eve) found themselves in the garden and walked and talked with Him. Answer: The notion of supernatural forces controlling life seems to have been present in humans for several hundred thousands of years. Genetic scientist feel there may be a predisposition in some humans to believe in supernatural beings. This means people my have come up with the notion of god(s) as soon as they were people.

In the beginning people ay have worshipped powerful forces - lightning, animals, fire.

The belief in supernatural forces may have arisen when early humans observed or thought they observed a connection between things they did (rituals) and impacts on the real world. This is a reaction to synchronicity and preferential observation.

Answer:

I thought this was interesting: Man (human species) is the only species aware of it's own mortality. That may beg a thinking species to ponder what comes after death and why am I here if the end is death. So, for those that dont want to admit there is a God, then one would surmise that the notion of a god may have occurred after man became aware of his eventual death. Then again, the thought that we are the only species that can think like this may make it seem like we are "full of ourselves"; just because we can't communicate with the other life forms on this planet. So, if a dog became aware of his mortality, would he (it) create the notion of a god or would a dog be more creative than that? What alternatives, besides entropy, would a dog come up with? Perhaps when God first came up with the notion of man.

Answer 2

Man created the concept of gods when man began to look around at the world and wonder how it all works.

Imagine you're a primitive man and all of a sudden, lightning bolts flash and thunder roars. What causes this? Well, since man is a maker of tools, he surmises that there must be a person living in the sky making all that lightning and thunder. The anthropomorphized god is the result. Of course, there were animal gods and other types of gods, too.

Gods were created to help explain why nature works the way it does. Later, it became clear that the use of gods could help control society -- to make man behave in a useful way for all. This is how religion came to be. Devotion to a god was necessary for the system to work and, thus, rules "from god" were handed down to be obeyed.

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Alternate

We did this when our brain capacity increased to the point that we had spare brainpower; it didn't all have to be dedicated every moment to a harsh struggle for survival. A little down time, a little brain power, and mankind began to speculate about themselves and the world. Unseen powers would have been a natural hypothesis to start from when dealing with spectacular natural events and huge unknowns. In contrast, many animals are so perfectly attuned to the habitats they occupy that every bit of their power to function is dedicated to handling some aspect of that habitat. Put them in another habitat with no time to adapt and they would not survive. Our brain power is malleable; we can learn to adapt quickly to situations we never faced before. This malleability is our adaptation. This is a personal reflection on when man developed the concept of gods and does not originate in any known sources.