Does anyone have any ideas on why religions started and what the objective of the creator/creators were?
Control.
Well, at least dogma’s point was control.
Religion is ‘belief’.
‘Believers’ of a feather tend to hang together… pop!.. a ‘religion’.
Then come the ‘symptoms’…
I can give you a simple response. No worries though, I can guarantee you will get an analytical response following mine, and then perhaps you may get a lecture about saving the planet.
Most if not all religions formed during times of war and famine. Usually, an ‘enlightened person’ would speak with their people and offer them hope. After the ‘enlightened person’ would die, people became desperate to hold on to their teachings, So, the people would write it down and try to translate what the ‘enlightened one’ had spoke.
Religion offered Hope when life seemed Hopless.
The enligtened ones did not create the religion, it was created by the people.
To name a few enlightened ones ~ Abraham~ Confucious ~Siddhārtha Gautama aka Buddha ~Socrates ~Jesus, If you were to read about each of them, you will see what they have in common.
I am sure some would disagree
They were Teachers of a new thought, but they were not responsible for what the people chose to think.
A poorly worded question… What do you consider religion? Belief in the supper natural? Belief in life after death? Do you think all religions have an identifiable creator? You might try being more specific. Even in the earliest of human history you’ll find burial grounds full of artifacts left with the deceased. This suggest to me the belief in the afterlife. Does that count as a religious belief? If so, it seems religion started pretty much when we did. Draw whatever conclusion you like from that.
I’ll be happy to disagree, but where to begin. Your first sentence is huge stretch of the truth, though I think it is correct to say that new religions don’t seem to pop up when everything is peachy, but that doesn’t even fit the bill in all cases.
You also seem to neglect a rather large chunk of religions that don’t have a historic “enlightened one” like any polytheistic religion (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Aztec, Mayan, Norse mythologies and more I’m sure), Hinduism, Shinto, the religions on the Native American Tribes… those are the ones off the top of my head. Where did these religions come from? To say “Usually” I feel like you need at least a majority and you’re not even close to that.
Largely; justification and control by proxy of that which is not controllable or understandable by man.
Pryce… Like I said, it is a simple answer, obviously for a simple question. There is no need to conduct a History class, but to give someone an idea how to figure the answer out themselves. Stimulate new thought.
The teachers I named will be familar to most , it is a good start, then move outward. It would be very confusing to start with the beginning of every religion.
You do not agree that religions started when people were desperate? hopeless
Yes even the Mayans, the Natives, Hindu ect… Go to the beginning, when do we know about the beginning of religion? When organised agriculture started to make the people sick, the people started to fight and argue.
Then came the Ice Age… people began to migrate, all over, they were hungry, they needed hope. Some Human offered them hope, over the years, the people created a religion out of Hope. Those religions spread and changed to fit the purpose. It is like the telephone game, it changed every time it was retold.
A wild quess, but the Mayans sure had a lot in common with the Egyptians, perhaps that is where the Mayans migrated from during the Great Snow.
Why make the answer complicated when the question is simple.
The difference between “body” and “spirit” is pretty obvious in an everyday sense. When someone dies, what happens? One minute the body is “alive” the next it’s “dead”. Something seems to have left the body - what is the nature of that something?
One aspect of that something is that it is connected with the sense of agency. We are agents in this world. We seem to choose to make something and then make it. By extension everything that exists must have been made by an agent.
Though I am not a theist I am very distrustful of overly negative accounts of the birth of religion. The above notions may seem simplistic from certain perspectives, but they are very powerful because of the way we perceive, think, and generally relate to our surroundings. Rejecting them outright is really a rejection of our entire psychological makeup.
Philosophy does not lend itself to simple answers. Forgive me if I seem rude, its nothing personal. I do disagree that all religion is created out of desperate times. I would agree that desperate times leads to new thinking, which in turn challenges and creates new religions. However, religion seems to be inherent to the human condition, as suggested by its presence in the earliest of human communities (discussed earlier).
Religion needs belief.
Belief needs faith.
Faith needs proofs.
Proofs need facts.
Facts need sciences.
Sciences need thinkers.
Love is Now.
Hope is Future.
Truth is always.
The origin of religion is from both, men and God.
Like destiny and fate.
God is always with us.
Fate is in our hands.
Destiny is from God.
God is one, religions are pural.
The start is from men.
We are children.
Changes undergone.
Religions is a plate never been broken.
God is the line.
Love will never destory hope.
Love in danger, hope may save.
Love and hope are one, but different.
These three lines are the Pillars.
Don’t ask if you want the result.
Truth must be neutral.
Thank you.
Pryce, no worries, I do not think you are being rude, nor am I. I do understand what you are saying, but my take is to first explain the simple nature of why humans turned to religion, once that is established, we can understand why the human mind holds on to the idea of the un~seen. The beginning of religion is quite simple, it is once it was established that it becomes difficult to understand.
Philosophy is actally quite simple, it is when we think too much about it, that it will become difficult understand.
kk23wong, I like your thinking, but you may want to rethink your approach if you want people to listen.
Human actions can be explained by psychologists. Psychological therapies ended because no “Subject” is the same. Not Psychology terminated. In my opinions, our world consists of “Thinkings”, “Emotions”, “Desires”, “Live and Death”. Emotions come from birth.
“Unseen” because the God is everywhere. She can be seen on Space. You cannot see her because you are inside. You see her images on yourself and everyone. All religion from one God. Truth must be neutral.
Philosophy is the doorway to the truth. Philosophy is in your minds. If you are simple, it will be.
God Bless,
Teru
A certain amount of religious beliefs arise from mankind’s attempts to explain their surroundings.
This is most evident in gods such as Thor who created thunder. Posiden and Neptune who controlled the seas and waves. The afterlife, be in Valhalla, Heaven or Reincarnation is created to explain what happens when a person dies.
Control comes after beliefs are in place.
Very Good Teru, now I understand you, and I agree.
You see, when you spoke simply, it was easier to understand, and yet, it was still philosophy.
Regards,
I think the aim was explanation and then social cohesion. Who could keep the tribe safe from the spirit world and the puzzling but natural cycles of the world, explain the supernatural, provide medicines, ceremonial burial giving both solace and at least some mastery over the strangeness of the world, but someone versed in studying such things. It makes sense to have people who have mastery over the “natural” (that which was easily understood): a tribal leader and those who had mastery over the supernatural: a shaman type figure. Call it control or social necessity, clearly in a world where populations were scarce and subject to all sorts of dangers I would imagine such a behaviour system was beneficial to the growth and safety of peoples.
I think so. We guess that the commonality of mother type carved figures (pregnant), are deified versions of birth and the natural cycles. We further conclude that the rich symbolism around death likewise is similar to historical religious beliefs. It’s not exactly difficult to conclude there were primitive religions.
Before us most likely, Neanderthals painted bodies with red and yellow ochre and left carved artefacts in grave sites too. But then Neanderthals were on a similar level of sophistication with us it seems, their cave paintings also show an interest in mysticism. Recent studies have even shown their tool development to be on a par of sophistication with ours too.
Faith by definition is believing in something for which there are no empirical proofs. Christianity is founded on such notions.
John 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
faith (fth)
n.
1 a: allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1): fidelity to one’s promises (2): sincerity of intentions2 a (1): belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2): belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1): firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2): complete trust3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction ; especially : a system of religious beliefs
Science is full of thinkers, the religious, the philosopher and none of those, what it needs is a method to distinguish itself from other forms of thought, so they don’t become confused or diluted by things we cannot know or concepts that don’t reflect what we can test of verify by direct experience.
Here’s the best collective answer in my opinion:
Or, in short version:
It appeared as an oracle
in the brain of our first ancestors
the moment the first of them
became aware
of a separation in consciousness
The religion of
Observer
related by consciousness
to the Observed
then spread everywhere
passed from father
to son
mother
to daughter
out of Africa
into Eurasia
and all stations East
then West
across the seas
Animism is
[i]a naively balanced consciousness
seeing one’s self
involved in an organic relationship
with the consciousnesses of Mother Nature
and Her law
Do not trespass
Which basically means
do not waste
make that the base of honor
with rewards and punishments
meted out by the law
of cause and effect
This superstitious view of self
is not yet synthetically influenced
by the mechanics of domestication
or contaminated
by the written texts it eventually spawned[/i]
The intuitive symbiosis of our early state of consciousness
with the surrounding cosmos
was genetically diluted during
the span of the Bronze Age
when the analytical side of the brain
had to grapple with the domestication
of nature
The chores and assignments
handed down by custom
for 600 generations
and the evolutionary need to imprint
leaned skills into the DNA
meant that
fewer children were born with
their right brain connection uncontaminated
those that remained clear
some 4% or less IME
were shamans and artists
who passed on the lore
to neophytes
born with the gift intact
who dream-walked to their doors
as strangers
seeking relief from
the spirits that haunted them
and drove them
into hysteria and schizophrenia
It was the task of shaman
to convince the neophytes
that they were not mad
but gifted with spirit
and must take the medicine that
focused it
and make it useful
to the 96% majority
who needed to be reminded
of the lost gift
Now you’ve lost me…
Did you just quote yourself?
Anyways… the theory that religion was created to control the masses is a very popular answer. Unfortunately, its rarely supported and closely followed by “WAKE UP SHEEPLE!” I don’t take such comments seriously.
Yes I did, as I said part of what I think a good answer is to this question.
Further, if you think all of what was quoted only talked about control of people, then you are as wrong as you could get.
That wasn’t even the focus of those three quotes.