mikhailtheplumber ~

Your question

Again, no I am not trying to prove to you that a god exists. Again I offered my proof to show that if a god exists then it is bad theism to say that if science is correct in saying that the universe is 15 billion years old then that is just God trying to trick us.

I offered Mircae Eliade (expert on history of religion and comparative religion) as a supporter of my position that belief in god is innate. He is widely read and well critiqued (both in pro and con). I can offer others.

Your story is nice but if we limit ourselves to the historical record and what is in archeology (and not conjecture) we do not find a single society that we would call human that is atheistic. The problem that you have is that the historical record shows that people with no writing system left evidence in their belief in a god. If archeiology showed groups of atheistic humans the predated theists you would have a point. (pre-historical societies of atheistic humans would look precisely like any animal save they would have human qualities (such as art, culture, indication of rational thought, etc.). There would be a complete dirth of doing any theistic things just as animals have a complete dirth of doing any theistic things. You don’t find that at all. concise.britannica.com

If belief in a god is an evolutionary adaption that moved our ancestors from a primitive to a more advanced state then shifting back to the prior state (atheism) is de-evolving.

I am not arguing that innate concepts are evolutionary adaptions. I am arguing that innate belief in a god is not primitive but rather an advancement that indicates that a species has advanced beyond a primitive state (whether by evolution or otherwise).

Anyway thank you again for your time and thoughts. I shall reflect upon them and seek to remove the flaws and failures in my argumentation. Keep in mind though that I gave you an argument to use against theists who think that science saying that the universe is 15 billion years old is God trying to trick them. We are both on the same page of it being a bad and wrong thing to think that one’s holy books are the primary or only source of epistemology.