Question about y'alls theologies!

Does the existence of gods predate or postdate humans as we currently exist as a species?

(atheists need not reply)

@starkatt Do concepts pre-exist the beings that concieve of them?

(Disclaimer: I'm not saying gods are entirely mental constructs, dangit Coyote /stop glaring at me/)

@starkatt @indi Well, as a parallel question, does math exist? Is math discovered or is it decided? Did negative numbers exist before we described them? Square roots? Imaginary numbers? Octonions?

At what point does a concept cease to be a creation or a conceit and become a property of the world awaiting discovery? Depends on your question and your perspective.

@orrery @starkatt Well, yeah, math is exactly what I was thinking of with the earlier question. We give it form with our systemizations, but that doesn't mean we made it up.

@indi @starkatt But... does it?

It really comes down to "what math is." If I've already shared the IdeaChannel "Math May Not Exist" video, I won't do it again, but there's currently an argument in the philosophy departments of some universities as to whether math is a property of the universe or an "unusually effective symbolic language for describing physics." There is an argument to be made we have, at least at some level, "made math up."

@orrery @starkatt That's part of what I was talking about though. You're overreading my point maybe? :)

"Doesn't mean we made it up" != "Proof we didn't make it up"