February 6,
2025
Animistic Explanations
Ancient people, like us, sought explanations for events, and when they could not find material causes, they believed these events were the work of the gods.
They did not know what an earthquake was, so they imagined a god (a superior being) shaking the earth. Today, we understand why earthquakes happen, and there is no need to attribute them to a deity. However, the fact remains that if every cause leads to another, there must be an un-caused first cause, which we call God.
Nonetheless, the religious explanation of an earthquake once seemed much more convincing and evident than the concept of an uncaused first cause.