According to religious ideas that arose in ancient times, in connection with the development of abstract thinking, God is a powerful, supernatural being, the highest non-material force that created the world, gave it a certain structure and governs the world, determining the fate of individuals and all mankind.
However, scientific atheism proves that religious ideas arose even among primitive people as a result of their impotence before the phenomena of nature. The external forces of nature that dominated primitive people were reflected in their minds in a fantastic form, as supernatural beings that control the phenomena of nature and bring people either good and benefit, or disasters and harm (constant dualism). With the emergence of class society and the exploitation of man by man, religion began to reflect the forces of social oppression; the gods "now also acquire social attributes and become representatives of historical forces" (Engels F., Anti-Dühring, 1950, p. 299). Thus, God is not an omnipotent non-material being, as the preachers of religion claim, but “a complex of ideas generated by the stupid oppression of man and external nature and class oppression – ideas that reinforce this oppression, lull the class struggle” (Lenin V.I., Works, 3rd edition, Moscow, volume 17, p. 85).
The original form of faith in God was animism – faith in spirits, primarily the spirits of deceased ancestors, as well as in general the spiritualization of the forces and phenomena of nature.
Animism (from the Latin word anima – soul, spirit) – belief in souls and spirits, in fantastic, supernatural beings, as if acting in nature, controlling all objects and phenomena of the world. A distinction is made between “soul” and “spirit”: the soul is presented to the animistic imagination as being associated with some separate body or phenomenon, while the spirit is attributed an independent existence, not connected with individual objects, although the spirit, according to these ideas, can temporarily inhabit some either a body or a thing. The phenomena of sleep, fainting, epilepsy and other physiological manifestations seemed to primitive people the result of the activity of an invisible double existing inside a person – the soul, which supposedly can temporarily leave the body. The images appearing in dreams were considered as souls, epileptics and the mentally ill – as possessed by spirits. Death was the final departure of the soul from the body. Common among all peoples, as a relic of the primitive communal system, the rites of honoring dead relatives were associated with the idea of the continuation of the existence of souls after death and their influence on the fate of the living. Animism also underlies the belief in reincarnation, that is, reincarnation, the rebirth of the souls of the dead in newly born people.
The mythology and folklore of primitive societies reflect primitive ideas about souls as doubles, ghosts, which, however, have flesh; they are born, eat, hunt, even die. According to primitive beliefs, preserved in some religions to this day, a person has not one soul, but several souls, each of which is endowed with special properties and functions.
Later, with the development of thinking in connection with the complication of social relations, the animistic imagination populated the surrounding world with countless spirits that had lost touch with the material principle.
The whole world seemed to be divided into the material, natural world, and the supernatural world, as if dominating it, inhabited by twin spirits of real beings, objects and phenomena. Primitive people endowed with twin souls not only people, but also animals and plants. All elements of the surrounding nature appear to be bifurcated into visible images and their invisible souls. For example, the Kamchadals once believed that a spirit with long hair lives in the clouds, shaking which it causes the wind; his wife – the dawn – blushes to please her husband. Spirits, according to animistic ideas, are divided into good and evil. Until the beginning of the 20th century, among the Chukchi, a woman gave birth alone, hiding in a secret place, in complete darkness, for fear that the spirits, having learned about childbirth, would kidnap the child. They changed the name of a seriously ill person so that the spirits, not recognizing him, would stop chasing him. Other peoples had similar ideas and customs. All these notions fantastically reflect "the impotence of the savage in the struggle against nature" (Lenin, Works, Moscow, 4th edition, vol. 10, p. 65).
Animism arose during the primitive communal system, at the middle stage of the period of savagery, as a reflection of the process of the formation of a tribal community.
If in matriarchal tribal societies the cult of the spirits of nature plays an important role, then in developed patriarchal tribal societies the cult of ancestors acquires great importance. During the period of decomposition of the primitive community, a special group of cult ministers, shamans, allegedly possessing the ability to communicate with spirits, stands out. Shamanism is widely spread as the highest form of development of the animistic cult. With the birth of classes, the idea of differentiation in the world of spirits arises, reflecting the stratification in society. With the emergence of the state, as a reflection of this process in beliefs, gods stand out from the host of spirits, polytheism takes shape, which later develops into monotheism. Born of the impotence of primitive society in the fight against the elements, reflecting in its development the emerging class stratification, animism, like religion in general, has always played a reactionary role in the history of mankind. Animism distorted the data of positive experience and social practice, hindered the free development of social consciousness. With the emergence of classes, the animist notion of the connection of military leaders and priests with spirits and later deities contributed to the intensification of the exploitation of the laboring masses.
