How did religions start? Out of fear of the unknown? Out of awe of the natural forces? Did the way brain works compel men to posit anthropomorphic causes of events? Is it from religious experiences that religions arose?
Sâmkhya,
Usually there is a Saint involved. Someone enlightened who taught a specific truth and who had disciples like Jesus Christ and Buddha. Religion is the interpretation of the truth, not the truth itself.
A
I suspect that all our gods were created from some biological root cause in our brains. Humans do seem to anthropomorhize the world, and there seems to be a near-universal need to transfer the mysteries of our Universe and our beliefs about “truth” onto some supernatural entity.
I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if there’s a physiological basis for all our religious mythology.
I agree with my favourite chef - Someone made God up, and someone else took them seriously.
I think we have a hardwired psychological need to always have a being superior to our current level of development, on which to pattern ourselves/emulate/learn from… When we reach the point that simple humanity no longer provides a subjectively suitable role-model, our brains ‘force’ us to invent something greater than simple humanity to fill the vacuum - God. If the inventor (prophet) has enough charisma, and the God-character(s) he creates enough [insert desirable trait applicable to society in question] - a religious following arises, and becomes self-perpetuating as the worshippers invest so much of their personal esteem in their beliefs they cannot bear the barest thought of being mistaken/duped.
See - “And lo’ did man create God” for a fuller description of my thoughts.
Though I’ll admit - I having trouble convincing the faithful at the moment… 
Why do we need to learn at all? What is the reason?
A
That seems hardwired into our biology, too. It’s the reason we don’t still live in trees.
I’d be happy to live in trees dear…a monkey may still have a notion of God which would make your reason redundant.
A
Afterall - Who makes the bananas grow…?
LiquidAngel - I only need to listen to my little 2-year-old boy struggle to aquire language (poor blighter’s learning English and Turkish at the same time) and watch him try to accomplish the feats he sees me and his mum do everyday, and emulate the big boys playing in the park. He does it with his whole heart and at no prompting from me. He has an innate and instinctual drive to learn. Do you think that just shuts down after childhood…? Why do teenagers fixate on popstars…? - Popstars are a ‘super-teenager’… and help them to become.
Why in later life do people associate themselves with/adopt the ideas/ideals of political figures, great-thinkers, writers…? - they are looking for someone(thing) further down the path in life they have chosen to follow to show them the way, to reassure them they are not lost… Is it any wonder when they have passed the final trail-guide, they feel scared in this new country of the mind in which they find themselves, and so create a light greater still in the distance to illuminate their steps…
The concept of God inevitably arises out of existential-fear and a feeling of directionlessness, to reassure and comfort and give meaning. If one is already available off the peg at a Church near you, and comes in a neatly wrapped package, with a suitably dogmatic religious instruction manual… All the better.
[size=75][Okay - I chucked in inevitably just for effect.][/size]
Harry Belafonte of course…
6 foot
7 foot
8 foot
bunch!
daylight come and me wanna go home…
-Imp
I don’t know Tab, your concept of God and mine are different. There seems to be this unknown ‘light’ in the distance that we somehow cannot get near…your son struggles with languages, only while he learns to master his faculties, yet he may innately understand God which for him is in his heart…nothing to do with knowledge or learning…simply what is…I think kids get that and then spend their whole lives trying to fit into their parent’s/society’s idea of what God is, end up rebelling because none of it makes intrinsic sense. If he could speak YOUR language right now - what would he say about God. I wonder, if you could speak his language, YOUR concept might change dramatically.
A
Are you acquainted with “neurotheology”? “Why God won’t go away”, “the God part of the brain”, etc.
It still becomes a chicken and egg question. Which came first? Did a part of our brain create the possibility for creating an artifical God or did God put a special feature into our brain that allows us to become aware of God?
Only if you accept the strange metaphysical belief of no-metaphysics is the question resolved.
Religion came from an powerful experience of life and an attempt to communicate that experience.
What is this experience? Words are insufficent. Yet words are one of the primary tools we have to share an experience. The experience often gets lost in the explination. Over time the original experiencer dies. Only the representation of his experience survivies. Only the symbol. While this symbol is effective it can lead the seeker to his or her own experience. When the symbol has lost all potency then it blocks the seeker from having the experience.
Surely it all exists together…
A
All I have to say is WOW, well put, good observations
LiquidAngel - I only need to listen to my little 2-year-old boy struggle to aquire language (poor blighter’s learning English and Turkish at the same time) and watch him try to accomplish the feats he sees me and his mum do everyday, and emulate the big boys playing in the park. He does it with his whole heart and at no prompting from me. He has an innate and instinctual drive to learn. Do you think that just shuts down after childhood…? Why do teenagers fixate on popstars…? - Popstars are a ‘super-teenager’… and help them to become.
Why in later life do people associate themselves with/adopt the ideas/ideals of political figures, great-thinkers, writers…? - they are looking for someone(thing) further down the path in life they have chosen to follow to show them the way, to reassure them they are not lost… Is it any wonder when they have passed the final trail-guide, they feel scared in this new country of the mind in which they find themselves, and so create a light greater still in the distance to illuminate their steps…
The concept of God inevitably arises out of existential-fear and a feeling of directionlessness, to reassure and comfort and give meaning. If one is already available off the peg at a Church near you, and comes in a neatly wrapped package, with a suitably dogmatic religious instruction manual… All the better.
[size=75][Okay - I chucked in inevitably just for effect.][/size]
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Thanks for the vote of confidence Mr. D. 
Initially there was conscious understanding. People organized on the basis of helping each other to perpetuate this quality of human consciousness. Unfortunately this required consciousness to retain this understanding but it became much easier to just begin to forget. During the process of forgetting a lot didn’t seem “right” so to speak and didn’t make sense. At that point certain people decided to study the matter and interpret it in their own way to make it seem reasonable. They became “experts”. Naturally since their expertise distorted the balance of conscious understanding, other “experts” came into being to point out their errors.
These experts became more and more important and began to attract about them certain females with suprisingly good figures. As this began to be noticed, even more “experts” quickly came into being and further added to the confusion.
At this point the religions gradually assumed the level of normal human interaction inspiring quotes such as the following leaving the inner truths of the religions hidden away for those willing to ignore the experts and psychologically work their way back to the source: