When did religeon and all this god stuff start?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Naturelles, Apr 17, 2009.

  1. Naturelles Future Scientist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    214
    Well, ancient religions date back very long, but why do you think people may have created it in the first place? Other animals don't have anything called "religion" they just survive in their environment or whatever they do. So it would be that humans are the ones that created this concept of a "god". But why? Due to fear?

    People say god created us the planet the universe and whatever blah blah etc... But I think its more like humans have created "god"

    Whatever it is. :bugeye:
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    Well, the reason you don't see religion in the animal kingdom is because they aren't able to think abstractly. We are.

    Why did we create religion? For the same reason we philosophize today: to find answers to our questions. It's part philosophy and part superstition. And I think you do touch on an important point when you mention fear, because one of the most common themes in religion is eternal life, be it here on earth or in a spiritual realm after physical death. Death must have been a total mindfuck, pardon the language, for early man, and I imagine religion helped, just like it does today.

    The oldest religion? I've heard that Hinduism is considered by many to be the oldest religion still being practiced today. But looking at some of these religions we practice today, there are elements of animal worship, and solar worship, so it's likely that both of those were practiced thousands of years ago. And I've also heard that the religious practices of the Australian aboriginal goes back something like 60,000 years.

    I'm not an expert on that stuff, but that's what I've read.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. Baron Max Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    23,053
    Probably the very first thing you should learn is not about religion, but about tolerance and understand of the culture of others. Making fun of religion is not exactly a tolerant and understanding thing to do.

    Learning a little humility might help you, too. Think about it ...please.

    Baron Max
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. quadraphonics Bloodthirsty Barbarian Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    9,391
    It's because we reached a level of population density where people regularly interact with others to whom they are not related by blood or marriage. In smaller populations, you are related to everyone that you interact with, and so disputes can be settled, and the peace kept, via family-based conflict resolution systems.

    This breaks down, when you regularly interact with people that you share no family bond with. If such a large, dense population is to endure - and be organized into a governable entity - the people must be supplied with a rationale as to why they should not kill and rob strangers who are unrelated to them (as well as follow the dictums of the leader, pay tribute to enable governance, fight wars, etc.), and religion provides this.

    In terms of social evolution, religion provides a competitive advantage, by making it possible to organize larger social groups, which can then dominate, subsume or displace any competing societies without similar means of organization. And so religion ends up proliferating.

    This is all classic Jared Diamond material.
     
  8. PieAreSquared Woo is resistant to reason Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    2,144
    Other animals don't have anything called "religion"

    they don't take opium either

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!

     
  9. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    He has every right to make fun of religion. But that's not what he was doing here.

    And YOU asking someone to be tolerant and understand of others is fucking hysterical.
     
  10. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396
    Damn! That's what I was going to say.
     
  11. Bishadi Banned Banned

    Messages:
    2,745
    And if you think about it, you are correct!

    Proof: mankind created all words.
     
  12. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    33,264
    It started when one human wanted to control others.
     
  13. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396
    It started when humans were afraid of the unknown.
     
  14. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    Stranger and Cosmic are both right.
     
  15. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396
    JDawg is also right.
     
  16. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
  17. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396
    And when humans were unable to accept they don't have the answers & when they felt compelled to blame someone yet couldn't hang it on a human.
    When something bad happens, usually people must blame some entity.
     
  18. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    Actually, there were rulers in early civilizations that were believed to be gods themselves.
     
  19. Naturelles Future Scientist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    214
    Oh yes, in India, many ancient people who were just good people were referred to as a "god". Jesus Christ was just another normal human being.
     
  20. Xylene Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    1,398
    Well, the modern human race has existed for about 170,000 years, and I'd guess that some sort of idea about the afterlife has existed for at least that long. That suggests therefore that some idea of a controlling power has also existed. As I've written in some other threads, Jane Goodall mentioned seeing chimpanzees gazing in fascination at the rainbows generated by a forest waterfall in Gombe--so wonder at the mysterious is nothing new. Movement implies life, which explains why the natural forces were seen as having souls or controlling elemental forces which needed to be worshipped, just to be on the safe side.

    The earliest neanderthals in Europe, ca 400,000 years ago, just dumped the bodies of their dead into a pit at the back of their cave (see the National Geographic article about the Cave of the Bones, published a few years ago). Yet at Shanadir in northern Iraq, the Soleckis excavated neanderthal skeletons that demonstrated proper burial ceremonies. This shows that even the neanderthals had developed an idea of an afterlife; so possibly they had some sort of idea about God as well. Whether Homo Erectus had any ideas about God or and afterlife, I'm not sure--but they existed as late as about 30,000 years ago, so it's possible the latest and last members of their species may have had some ideas about the subject, even if they only borrowed the concept from their more advanced neighbours.
     
  21. StrangerInAStrangeLand SubQuantum Mechanic Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    15,396
    Again, neanderthals burying the dead doesn't mean they had any notion of an afterlife.
     
  22. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    That's actually something I was wondering about. What does it imply, then? I should look that up.
     
  23. Balerion Banned Banned

    Messages:
    8,596
    Ah, OK, I just did a quick search, and I found that aside from belief in some societies that burial is the key to reaching the afterlife, there could also be the idea that in order for societies to maintain a certain lifestyle, they are required to bury their dead. That one strikes me as a maintenance thing.

    Another idea is that respect for others does not end when the person dies, so burial could serve as a way to make one final show of respect--largely by protecting the deceased from scavengers, but also by allowing their families to have closure (ie not seeing them anymore).

    Sounds reasonable. I wonder where the community stands on this, though.
     

Share This Page